30 April 2004

When In Danger Or In Doubt, Run In Circles Scream And Shout

There are days when I don’t know whether to feel pity or amazement at the sheer capacity of human stupidity.

Of course, all of us know that the vast majority of humanity is inherently stupid, subject to the kinds of sensationalism and pack behavior that’s best demonstrated by Lemmings. We see this demonstrated to us every single day. A perfect example of this theory is the concept of Road Rage. That son of a bitch over there just cut me off, and that pissed me off, and now I have a God given right to drive his nuts up into his throat for him, and it’s perfectly socially acceptable to do it because I’m pissed off. Naturally, someone in that state of mind doesn’t have the capacity, at that moment, to consider the fact that not only is driving someone's nuts up into their throats not socially acceptable, it’s the kind of action that gets you talked about and not in a good way. It’s also the kind of thing that attracts the police, which may or may not be a good thing depending on where you live. It’s not unheard of for some cops to fire off a few rounds and then tell you, "Stop, or I’ll shoot!"

The really important part about this whole phenomena, though, is the fact that humanity is at its most brainless in large groups. One or two people on their own can be fairly intelligent, but the whole Lemming thing comes into play when you get involved with groups larger than about five people. As an example of the inherent intelligence of one person I offer Jerry Pournelle and recommend his website, www.jerrypournelle.com, as required reading. As an example of the inherent stupidity of large groups I offer the Government of the United States of America.

Now before that hate mail starts flowing and people start accusing me of being anti-American, which I most certainly am not, allow me to point out that the government of any country, be it lawful or not, easily fits the model for human stupidity in large groups. One need only look at the Canadian government and the whole sponsorship scandal for an example of that. However, for the purposes of this one discussion it is necessary to forget that and concentrate on both the actions and inactions of the American government with regards to the War in Iraq.

First of all, the whole reason behind the invasion of the country was based upon Intelligence that was later found to be somewhat colored and biased, but which seemed perfectly believable at the time when you considered some of the actions, both past and present, taken by Saddam Hussein. He was on a mission to make the world believe that he either had Weapons of Mass Destruction (remember, we’re not talking about the kind of thing that disrupts Church services here) or had the means, motive, and opportunity to develop them. He was also known to have supported terrorist organizations in the past, and the simple fact of the matter is that in most of America these days the word terrorism is just as hated as the word communism. The difference between the two is that terrorism is actually Evil, while communism is only perceived to be Evil because of the actions of the people who purported to be advancing the cause of communism but were, in fact, going against every single tenet of the communist ideal.

Now, as much as we would like to believe that this is not the case, the fact is that Saddam is not a stupid man. He knew that his actions would, sooner or later, bring the massed military might of the democratic nations of the world down on him like a hammer striking an anvil. His escape from Baghdad was well planned, and it resulted in the expenditure of several months of effort before he was found and imprisoned. These are not the actions of a stupid man.

Now, let’s look at the American government for a moment, establish a standard of comparison.

The current American government is drawn from the ranks of the Republican Party, a group of political conservatives who generally try to minimize the influence of the government on the day to day lives of Americans, believing that the individual states are largely capable of taking care of their own affairs. However, these days there is a new arm of the Republican government, the members of which are called neo conservatives. These are people who generally seem to think that the stance taken by traditional political conservatives isn’t strong enough, that there should be a great deal of government influence on the day to day lives of Americans. These are also people who believe in the inherent supremacy of the American nation on the grounds that it’s the worlds largest, most successful, and wealthiest democracy on the planet. They believe that the rest of the world should be measuring themselves against America and finding themselves wanting. Their mission in life seems to be to spread the Good News of Democracy to all the nations of the world, whether they want to hear it or not.

Now, before you tell me all the reasons why I am wrong, go and have a look at the Project For A New American Century website, and then tell me that I’m wrong. I’ll bet you can’t, not after you read that.

The largely neo conservative complement in the current cabinet saw Saddam as a threat, and so they decided that he must be dealt with before he could realize his potential. They hit upon the idea of preemptive warfare as a means of dealing with that threat, but America cannot go to war without the will of the people. So they started releasing bits and pieces of their intelligence to the news media, who obligingly fed them to the general public. Remember the weeks before the war, how the news media was harping about all the Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam had stocked? They did this because they were given information and the job of a journalist is to report what they know. They didn’t have the resources to either confirm or deny what they had been told, so they just ran the stories and let the chips fall where they may. This gave the government all the excuse they needed, and thus the invasion began.

Now, here’s the interesting part. Throughout the entire course of the war, no one bothered to pose the question of what was to be done after the invasion was over and Saddam was either killed or in custody. Those who did bother to ask, primarily old guard conservatives, were read out of the conservative ranks by the neo conservative new guard and then promptly ignored. We don’t need to listen to this, the neocons said, we know exactly what we’re doing.

Well, no you don’t, and that’s where the stupidity comes in. The neo conservative arm of the Republican party has time and again praised the actions of their President, just like a pack of wild dogs obediently following their alpha male. The one and only goal of the Bush government was to get Saddam. Despite repeated warnings by such notables as Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Bush government seems to have avoided dealing with the idea that You Break It, You Bought It.

The Bush government took down the Saddam government, and their efforts to rebuild Iraq have been largely misguided and inept, ham handed at best. For Gods sake, the first thing they did when Saddam went down was to fire every single police officer and soldier after the Marines went out of their way to promise them that if they laid down their arms and walked away from the battle field then they would be given a place of honor in the new government of Iraq. Breaking a promise like that is a lot more severe then breaking a trivial election promise, and the recent uprisings have served to remind us all of that.

Here’s another thing, the government knew for a long time that it was going to go after Saddam, and while they certainly went out of their way to get their military assets where they needed them to be, they did absolutely nothing to teach these fine fighting soldiers about the country they were being deployed to. Lessons in language, and in the political history of Iraq, could have given these people a fighting chance of establishing a strong, stable, American-friendly government in Iraq. Instead, the meat grinder continues.

The uprisings aren’t going to stop until each and every one of the insurgents is dead, and that isn’t going to happen because fighting them one on one, in conventional combat just makes them martyrs when you kill them. The rebels regard the Americans as Infidels and believe they have no right to be in their country, and as long as there are martyrs there will always be young men and women willing to lay down their lives to drive the infidels away.

That’s right, Ladies and Gentlemen, today's headlines are brought to you by a truly stupid and criminally short sighted group of men and women called neo conservatives who broke their promises to a group of people who they needed to court in order to build a stable government in a country that they invaded, and who ignored those people intelligent enough to point out that there would be consequences. And you might as well get used to seeing them, because apparently it’s Gods will that the neocons free the oppressed people of the world.

Are you feeling particularly oppressed today? I’m not, and I thank God every day for that.