CONVERSATIONS
OF MADMEN & FOOLSFriday the Fourteenth
November, 2003The Road Ahead
That's it. I'm seceding. I'm starting my own country. I declare my independence. My own sovereign territory. I am the revolution.She's reading the Wall Street Journal. "It looks like they've really outsmarted us," she says. "There's a contingent in Iraq that is coordinating all these attacks. And the people that were in Saddam Hussein's government are still there. I don't think they're very nice either. Now if we just got out of there, the people that supported us would really be screwed. I mean, I don't get the feeling the Iraqis are so nice either, I mean I know we're wrong to be there, but I don't think it's so black and white."
"A lot of what you say makes sense," I say, "but I get really confused and caught up with the 'we's and 'they's."
"Well 'we'," she says, "is our government, and it represents us because that's what it is in a democracy. Whether we like it or not, they are over there representing us. And it's not that I think he was legally elected, but he's still representing us. And 'they' are the Iraqis, and whoever is coordinating these attacks, unless you think it's a bunch of different people. From this article it sounds like there is one group, and it's getting stronger because more and more Iraqis are joining it. And what about Saddam Hussein? What's he doing? He's not dead. He could be directing some of this."
"It seems likely that there is some group at the center of it," I said. "It seems that that kind of thing would happen almost inevitably when you have a large number of people with a single common purpose, something that is so clear and so vital that it makes many smaller differences unimportant."
"But what they are doing isn't so good either, killing innocent people," she said. "I heard they are taking names of people who collaborate with the Americans and crossing them off one by one as they kill them."
"It is true that now that it has started, there is no easy way out," I said. "It's true that a lot of those people are pretty horrible, and it's more or less inevitable in such a degraded situation that thugs rise to power. But in moral terms or even political terms, in this situation there is one fact that supercedes all the others to me and makes it very clear. It is their country and we should get out of it. Bush and those guys arrogantly just went in and took over their country and are taking their oil and it is wrong. And they are doing this little act about democracy, but it obviously never meant anything, and everyone outside of the U.S. media system knows it. The hypocrisy makes it even more despicable.
"I'm an American and I don't like to see Americans killed," I continued. "And I hate to see people from other countries get killed because they are standing up for Americans, or think they are. But also as an American -- and as just a human being -- I believe that people have a right to take whatever steps are necessary to expell an invader. Maybe they are killing innocent people, but the invaders have killed 20,000 Iraqis and they haven't stopped. Look at the American Revolution. People were killed. Do you think they shouldn't have done that? Sometimes when you have a cause, things like that happen. And what more righteous cause is there than throwing off an invader? That's a value that goes much deeper than democracy, communism, capitalism, socialism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism... Those are relatively modern inventions. The right to defend your family, your community against an invader is a universal truth that dates back to the primordial world.
"Now what I believe 'we' should do -- in my definition of 'we' and 'they' -- is that we, the majority of Americans who really do believe in democracy and in the constitution and justice and human rights, should get them, the usurpers, the creepy Bush thugs, out of government, at the least. For the good of the world, that should be the next regime change. And if justice is to be served, a lot of them should go to jail. Getting them out of power is the first priority.
"Then we need to create a real Marshall-type Plan, administered by people who really do represent the majority, the constitutional power of America. Uncorruptible people. People with some values other than getting as much wealth and power for their little clique as possible. We have to get Halliburton and all those thieves out of it and set up a real rebuilding plan that will be equitable and fair. Fair to Iraqis, fair to American working people, and fair to the international community. And the administration of that plan should be under international authority, not the U.S."
"Now because the thugs that represent us have attacked that country, committed this crime, we the people have a responsibility to repair the damage to whatever extent is possible. We can't just up and leave the innocent Iraqis in chaos, at the mercy of whatever killers rise to the top of the heap. But this so-called 'rebuilding' of Iraq now is just a bonanza for Bush's supporters to reap free tax money. We need a real rebuilding, of Iraq, and of the U.S. too. Instead of creating an economy that pushes people into poverty and the channels the poor into military adventures that serve the rich corporations, we need a jobs program. It's going to take a long time to undue the destruction of the Bush-Cheney mob."