To add further fuel to the lunacy, this man then goes on to get a promotion, as most of the fuck-ups in the first term received. It's enough to make your head spin. But whatever, this is old news. The epiphany is that all of this seemingly baffling behavior makes perfect sense. I'm about to come to a conclusion that at first blush will sound like all the other conspiracy theories out there. But let me explain my rationale, so that the the Google spiders (my only readers) reading this will understand that this explanation is the only way the actual facts can be made to actually make sense.
As I mentioned, Wolfowitz himself, before a Senate Committee, mentioned the wealth in oil revenues he expected Iraq to begin benefitting from after its "liberation." Several facts were widely understood by those in the Trinity Administration about the situation in Iraq. First, Sadaam Hussein was no longer the US ally he once was. Second, he was sitting on tremendous oil reserves. Third, he was more friendly with Iran and Russia than he was with us. Fourth, America (meaning me, the people who wrote the code for the spiders reading this, and everyone else in the country who drives an automobile) is going to experience a very real oil shortage that will dramatically impact our way of life unless something drastic is done. Now, "something drastic" could be mandating better gas mileage in automobiles, or encouraging people to cut down on their driving, or lifting gasoline subsidies (raising the price to bring about less driving), but the Trinity Administration's preferred methods were drilling in Alaska and gaining control of another nation's oil resources. We know that there were plans for an invasion of Iraq long before 9/11, but it was that event that gave our government the cover to embark on a wildly ambitious imperialistic campaign to take over another nation for the sole purpose of maintaining our fundamentally unsustainable lifestyle, what the Trinity Administration once called "blessed."
Looking at the situation from a geo-strategic point of view, this puts the whole situation into context. To those currently in power, this war really has no ill-effects. Their main interests, that is, their financial interests, are well-served by the continuing conflict. The Carlyle Group is making a killing with its investments in our military-industrial complex, Haliburton is reaping the benefits of lucrative contracts to provide services for our military, and long term, there is no way that Russia or China is going to get their greedy paws on more of Iraq's oil than we are (as long as we remain firmly entrenched as an occupier of that country). The downside is that Americans need to give up some of our freedoms, because when you subjugate an entire region of the world by a continuous campaign of torture, bombing, slaughter, and support of authoritarian regimes, you tend to make some enemies. So yes, America becomes a little less free and a little less safe, but we have to look at the bright side: if you're feeling a little nervous, you can go right out to a dealership and drive home a Hummer, just like the kids in Iraq are driving! Those kids, by the way, are going to be there for a LONG time, but as long as no Congressmen's kids are affected, expect the status-quo to remain. In fact, I anticipate that it IS going to be Hillary Clinton facing a similarly pro-war Republican candidate in the Presidential election. The Democratic leadership will find a way to once again assassinate whoever emerges as the populist. I am not yet willing to believe that the neo-cons who dreamed up this imperialist agenda are the only ones who support it (so yes, I'm saying that Howard Dean has been completely co-opted by the Democratic machine. He's more machine now, than human. Twisted and evil).
As Americans, none of us seem willing to accept the reality of our situation: our way of life is fundamentally unsustainable. I've been to both Monticello and Mount Vernon this month, and one thing that both Washington and Jefferson were both passionate about was self-sufficiency (as long as they had free forced labor to draw on). They went to great lengths to make their properties self-sustaining. They weren't 100% successful, but they came very close. We as a people have come so far from their ideals (which other than buying and selling human beings were quite admirable). It seems that in the same way Christ would find unrecognizable the religion that bears his name, so too would our Founding Fathers find this nation to be a complete bastardization of their ideals. But there is something even more profound that bears pondering. Would they be upset? Or would they feel that making war on an entire region of the world, destroying their hopes for self-autonomy, violating their human rights, refusing their pleas for self-determination, is the right of the most powerful nation in the world? After all, as Americans we can safely sit in a coffee shop and surf the internet on our laptop computers without fear of being blown up. True, our emails may be read by the government, and our phone calls monitored, but as long as the evils done in our name remain unknown to us directly, who gives a shit really?
My only response is to bring back the ideal of sustainability. It's the same thing the Palestinians plea for as Israelis steal the West Bank's water supplies for their swimming pools. If we continue to build our way of life around unsustainable practices, eventually the mechanisms we need to put in place to support this unsustainable lifestyle will fail, and the consequences will be severe. Now, we've heard Ken Mehlman, the head of the Republican Party, talk about how technology will always be there to rescue us, how we can overspend today because in the future we can cover our ass with technology. This is being done today in many areas. Take agriculture for example. Sustainable farming keeps plants and animals on the same farm, using animal waste to fertilize soil, and a myriad of other symbiotic methods to ensure that our food supply is obtained in an ecological, ethical fashion. Industrial farming puts thousands of animals together in pens one on top of the other, just big enough to back the animal in and out. They shit on each other, and as a consequence develop a plethora of diseases. Our answer? Copious amounts of antibiotics. Corporate corn and soybean farms, meanwhile, not having any animals to use, require large amounts of artificial fertilizer to maintain their yields. Both of these situations, thousands of pigs shitting and fertilizer-polluted runoff, are causing major pollution problems for surrounding communities. Our solution? Walk-a-thons to raise money for cancer research, and other band-aid type solutions. Obviously I'm simplifying very large and complex issues, but the main point I'm driving at is that when our entire nation is run to the tune of Wall Street, all we care about is this quarter. No one is stopping to say, wait a minute, maybe there's a way to continue to enjoy the best aspects of our lifestyle without killing thousands of women and children to do it.
In sum, the rhetoric about weapons of mass destruction was nothing but a pretense. Whether they were there or not was immaterial. This war was not about WMD, nor is it currently about "spreading democracy." Those are slogans meant to pacify the sheep. They provide just enough cover so that our real agenda, US supremacy over oil supplies worldwide, can continue apace. We needed a justification so that we could plausibly deny our imperialist ambitions, but make no mistake, we are the imperialists and the Iraqis fighting us are resisting a military occupation that our own troops are unknowingly partaking in. Sadaam Hussein was the perfect pawn. His posturing made him the perfect foil for our propaganda campaign. Never mind that we sanctioned his gassing of Kurds, he's a madman who can't be trusted! Never mind that he ran a completely secular government whose very existence was perhaps even more threatened by Muslim fundamentalists than our own, he supports terrorism! It's fucking disgusting.
Of course, if we as a people continue to buy into the rhetoric that says Muslims are evil and should be wiped off the face of the planet, then our Crusade to keep us wealthy and the Middle East in the throes of turmoil doesn't seem wrong. If we continue to place more emphasis on obscure passages in Revelation indicating that the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt in Haram Esh Sharif in order for Christ to return rather than Christ's own words, "Blessed are the meek" given in his Sermon on the Mount, then sure, let's continue funding the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and demolish the Dome of the Rock. I don't subscribe to these ideas. I am a Christian. I care about justice and equity. I seek to love others as I love myself. There is such a thing as right and wrong. To continue supporting the killing of innocents so that we can drive to Wal-Mart is evil, plain and simple. Just like our President. And our Vice President. And our Secretary of Defense. And our Secretary of State. And our Attorney General.
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