The Perfect Machine

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq. The Bush Administration employed blatant falsehoods regarding Iraq’s WMD program and links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, the latter of which is still believed by a great many Americans (there is ample television footage of almost every senior member of the administration employing outright falsehoods during the run up to the war). In truth, the decision to invade Iraq was made shortly following 9/11, with only the when and why left to be engineered. In the end, and despite popular belief to the contrary, the US led invasion of the country was not sanctioned by the United Nations, and was, in truth, in direct contravention of international law. The administration’s proverbial sleeve ace was that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and that the American public had a far better and clearer recollection of US military action taken against his regime than US assistance to it. This would be why it was effortless for pro-war pundits to evoke the gassing of Halabja as justification for Hussein’s removal while completely ignoring the fact that President Reagan vetoed a Congressional resolution passed soon after the incident calling for all US aid to Iraq to be immediately suspended. Of course, time passed, the incident died down in the press, and US aid continued unabated.

The Bush Administration, having adopted the Wolfowitz Doctrine as its official foreign policy platform in the aftermath of 9/11, initiated with the invasion Iraq what no other US administration had ever attempted – the establishment of a permanent US military footprint in the region. Of course, Iraq doesn’t geographically border the United States, but being that the United States has been the world’s lone super power since the end of the Cold War the truth is that every nation on earth does border America’s sphere of influence. US national security interests span the globe, not merely the Western hemisphere, making the Middle East as relevant as Mexico. The Wolfowitz Doctrine was written as a guidance to unabashedly capitalize on a singular world power reality, and that is precisely what the Bush Administration has endeavored to do in the wake of 9/11.

For reasons of national security, the United States invaded a foreign country, affected regime change, and has militarily occupied it for five years. In that time there have been war crimes committed, over 2 million people have been displaced, and most likely well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed. That said, the US is still able to condemn the Russians for their recent actions without batting an eye. Even more, they’ve largely won the PR battle on Georgia’s behalf.

Russian history in the 20th Century is, in many ways, replete with absolutes. The horror of the purges, the seizure of Eastern Europe following the Second World War, and so forth. These things are absolutes because a dictatorially corrupted political ideology was in place that could be easily seen for what it was. The same cannot be said of Western plutocracies, who, while adorned with chevrons marking their unquestionable right, conducted business in private with the same cold, ruthless, and unforgiving resolve. That reality has produced publics that have ultimately only lived half of the modern story of their nations, and ones that have, for the most part, unquestionably adhered to the designs of their plutocratic infrastructures.

Abraham Lincoln wrote something rather telling in August of 1855 in a letter to Joshua Speed, something rather prophetic with regards to the slow diminishment of the democratic principle that would continue unabated after his death…

“As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy”

The perfect machine. Life lived during days of never ending summer with winter cloaked, knife in hand, doing business out of sight. This is who we are. Never mind our defense. We are never wrong. We are only sometimes mistaken.