The war against terrorism begins to develope in the typical pattern, as the empire uses classic military strategy against an amorphous web of guerilla cells, and the guerilla groups, predictably, use hit and run tactics. CNN article expresses official anxiety about the hitting of 'soft targets' designed to cripple the world economy...

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/14/boettcher.bali.otsc/index.html

When the United States congress made it 'illegal' to attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, Washington turned to covert actions to fund the contra guerillas. The empire, borrowing a page from the traditional book of guerilla war fare, instructed the contra force to avoid 'hardened targets' (military confrontations) and instead to focus on hitting 'soft targets' designed to terrify the population and do maximum damage to the Nicaraguan economy (thus the contras hit such 'soft targets' as hospitals, clinics, and targetted civilians and infrastructure, and did great damage to the economy of Nicaragua and also wore down the civilian population). This is relevant to keep in mind now that the empire, rather than funding guerillas is now in the traditional role of using military force against a loosely organized guerilla force spread accross continents, and is facing the prospects of getting its own 'soft targets' hit. The same group is now in power who were responsible for leading Washington during the Vietnam war, the contra operation, since the pedigree of this Republican administration includes prominent figures who were in power during both the Nixon, Reagan and previous Bush administration (Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc). Once again the same group is using the same tactics that did not work in Vietnam, pitting traditional military force against an amorphous military force, this being another fine example of the conflict between empire and guerillas that fits the pattern that has existed for ages past.

Israel finds itself in the same position, and, as anyone who has monitored the never ending violence of that place would be able to see, it hasn't exactly worked out well for them, and, in fact, things continue to get worse. It is characteristic of empires, or the strong who possess the military might, to seem to exhibit blindness to the consequences of their actions and maintain a faith in military might that history has never justified. Quite the contrary. The way these scenarios usually end is with the virtual defeat of empire (although you can to this very day hear that same group of Republicans, and their supporters complaining that the only reason that they lost against the guerillas of Vietnam is because 'they were not allowed to win'. Apparently they were just not allowed to be hawkish enough, and really the emerging military philosophy in Israel comes the closest to encapsulating the ultra right wing ultra hawk philosophy which is to exterminate and rid oneself of the civilian population, the only real way to get rid of guerilla forces. This was exactly the methodology employed and endorsed by the greatest ultra hawk in all history, Moses, who, quite correctly gave the finest and simplest, most definitive description of the ultra right wing ultra hawk position, 'destroy the nations you are dispossessing, show them no pity' and 'destroy them and their cities or otherwise their guerillas will harrass you in the land where you live.' The quotes are paraphrases of that wonderful ultra hawk, Moses, from the Bible and you can read more of the ultra right wing position on the page 'Is Zionism a form of racism'.

This is quite correct and so the only way the empire can win is to destroy entire civilian populations. They were 'not allowed to win in Vietnam' in that only several million of the civilian population were slaughtered over the course of a decade (napalmed and machine gunned and bombed to death by the empire) and thus the empire wound up losing by being to merciful. Therefore, we can either look forward to a) the empire getting the whole nation bogged down in another fruitlessly destructive Vietnam like quagmire or b) the emergence of the most virulent right wing collection of ultra hawks in history who won't stop at a few million but will just go to town like Moses said, and just get it over with. (Hitler was fine example of the ultra hawk philosophy in action, and given that the whole population of places like the Ukraine and Russia become militant and the guerilla war and resistance constantly grew in strength, the Hitler philosophy of just destroying the whole works of them would, had Hitler won the war, been the only solution, but as you can tell by reading his writings and reviewing his 'table talk' he was already planning for such a solution, being a real right wing hawk of the purest kind after all.

This reference to Israel as our bright and shining example of the hawkish pursuit of military solutions is entirely appropriate, since she is supposedly 'the light of the nations' and the great 'giver of international law to the nations' and so on, according to her own mythologized religious mystification of her own role in the universe, and thus there is so much we can learn from her highly productive experience. The response to theft of land, oppression and disenfranchisement of an entire nation of Apaches and their squaws, the shrinking reservations and phony Injun treaties is one of harsh collective punishment of entire populations, hawkish calls for extermination and expulsion and massive full scale violation of simple decency and common law, and military might is proposed by this one diddly squat little empire as the solution to the current Vietnam like conflict over there, which hasn't turned out any better than the other Vietnam war, but then historically these things never do, unless, as I mentioned, the most extremist right wing ultra hawk solution is applied, as taught by that most sacred of ultra hawks Moses in that wonderful wonderful divine book we know of as the Bible. Could happen to, in which case as Orwell put it, the future of the nation is to have a boot stomping its face into the dirt as a permanent state of affairs. (You should understand that such ultra hawks are rarely good and well behaved at home while being violent and nasty elsewhere, but are just hawkish and believe that violence and oppressive use of power is the solution to all problems. Once the population gets nailed by those guerillas you find a lot of people looking for just such a strong man, just such a ruthless ultra hawk, and thus Hitler, who rose to power on the promise to 'fight terrorism' becomes, after a time, the most popular person in the empire, well, at least until destruction is the end result, at which time no one wants to admit that yes, they voted for Hitler and thought he was the greatest thing on earth, and no, they didn't know just what a horribly violent hawk he really was until after the war was over, etc., etc. This would be another repeating pattern from world history.

This bringing Israel into the discussion is also appropriate since the Religious right just held their weekend 'love Israel' rally in Washington. One of the sponsors of the event was Joyce Meyer Ministries and if you visit the site you will find a page on Israel where it is stated that America needs to learn the lesson from Israel, that lesson being that when you are threatened you must strike back like Israel does and strike back hard. In response to this highly right wing hawkish position I can only point out, once again, just how well that worked in Vietnam, how well it worked all throughout history, and how well its working in Israel, and then remind people that the only way that it could ever work is if people finally become really religious and really sacred and start listening to that greatest of all hawks in history, Moses, and just slaughter the civilians, which is the only logical conclusion to the swing to the far right, and the only thing that will actually work. Stealing land, shrinking Indian reservations, refusing to compensate the landless, destroying their economy, leaving children malnourished and the whole country progressively more and more ruined is not a solution as it increases support for the resistance and guerillas, and thus the next thing you know people are getting bombed in night clubs in Bali. Killing every last Palestinian is not a solution, since it will further inflame the situation, so I can only recommend the complete slaughter and destruction of all Muslim countries, starting with Iraq, moving onto Iran, then Syria etc., and it will be requried to destroy the populations there to prevent the rise of further violent guerilla movements, who blow up civilians, much like the thousands blown up in Afghanistan (which is alright, since the military did it) or the millions in Vietnam (ditto).

To summarize the points above, and with the constant repeating pattern of history over the ages of human experience being our clear guide, it is then easy to predict that we are entering into another protracted and futile quagmire, led by the same folks who brought you Vietnam a few decades back, and who apparently learned nothing from the experience except to keep all that bombing and napalming off television and not let reporters go anywhere without permission. Its less messy, except of course when something happens that can't be kept off the television, like what happened in Bali this weekend.

Now it is one thing to bitch and complain about the way things are, while complainers point out that 'you never have a solution', and another thing altogether to propose solutions. So I thought I would conclude by pointing out a few obvious facts and details that are never acknowledged by the hawkish side, but are nevertheless true. We don't have solutions to the problems of the world since it is typical throughout human history for the hawk solution to be used over and over again even though it has more than proved its bankruptcy, and given the rise of the violent guerilla war fare and the violent traditional military response by the empire, is about to once again prove just how bankrupt it really is...

Around the world close to one billion human beings live on 'less than one dollar a day'. The world bank has established 'one dollar a day' as the official poverty level, and one can only assume that such a miserable and miserly 'poverty level' has been adopted so that when some people rise up to one dollar and ten cents it can then be said that 'such and such a number of people have risen out of poverty' over the last year, another triumph for the present system, the same system that brought us one billion in dire poverty, by the way, and now needs to demonstrate how it can fix that problem. Now at the same time in the world's poorest nations it is typical to find that 70 per cent of the land and the wealth of the nation is owned by a few feudal landlords, such as the notorious '12 familes of El Salvador' who own that country as their private ranch, and in the seventies were guilty of some of the most atrocious conduct on the planet (anyone remember those death sqauds and the large killing field where the corpses of peasants were dumped to rot in the sun shine, unburied, as a warning to all those other peasants?) The pattern is repeated in Columbia, where once again over seventy per cent of the country is owned by a few oligarchs, the other thirty percent being shared by a small middle class, which leaves just very little for the mass of the people who are among those one billion living on less than a dollar a day. What this means, in real terms, is that one billion people cannot afford even one meal a day, and according to reports from certain Church agencies, a lot of people eat once every three days, and that after working hard all day for next to nothing to get that one meal. (I am sure the religious right would be familiar with the judgment pronounced in that Book of Revelations, where a scale of judgment is held over the planet and a voice cries out, 'a days wages for a loaf of bread, but do not touch the olive and the wine.' The olive and the wine are references to these oligarchs, who have existed since time immemorial, and we all know who has to work all day for that loaf of bread, right?)

Alright, so we have summarized the problem, and you will notice that when institutions such as the World Bank or IMF write prescriptions for poor countries, these involve ending any sort of social assistance, closing hospitals and schools, privatizing water, and so on, but never, never do you ever ever hear anything about say wringing that extra money out of the oligarchs, rather the prescription is that they should get their taxes cut even further. Actually addressing the truth about the world is taboo for both the Bank and the IMF, and so we get this twisted prescription instead, which is a kind of trickle down theory, which just doesn't work and, like the use of military power to crush the fomenting anger of the planet, is another one of those bankrupt ideologies that haunted the planet for ages past, and despite its obvious failings keeps getting recycled again and again.

Now having roughly sketched out the principle problem on this planet (its gross injustice and the violence which starts at the top, with these super rich landlords and then spills out to ruin the whole planet, some of the effects we are witnessing now) it then follows that we might want to start examining alternative solutions to that of just getting a giant club and sending a T-Rex out to invade and bomb the poorest and most militant countries on earth (for example Columbia is quietly getting lots of help fighting 'terrorists' and, no, that doesn't mean fighting those death squad hiring oligarchic land lords, who are directly responsible for the violence of the place, but rather bands of peasants who have run off with the guerillas - this sort of mentality being typical of the empire and so not really being a big surprise, just as the fact that they are leading everyone into a quagmire and an inevitable series of disasters should come as no surprise as well).

But lets get back to some obvious solutions. Keep in mind here that none of these solutions will be advocated or put into practice, and we will be doing violence instead, but allow me to preach in any case.

Now in regards to the oligarchy problem, and their creation of grinding poverty around the world by their enrichment of themselves at the expense of entire nations of impoverished, disenfranchised people, well I am a very religious person and therefore, unlike the religious right, I propose the Bible solution, which is land reform and disenfranchisement of these oligarchs for a change (this would put me on the opposite end of the scale to the World Bank and IMF who advocate cutting their taxes, not a solution at all, and given the increasing hardship, the growing wealth of these landlords and increasing poverty that has been accelerated by these policies it is more than enough proof that the rich just get richer and the poor get poorer and that trickle down thing just doesn't work, which is why there are death squads by the way - to make sure it doesn't). As Micah described the land lord situation and the families of oligarchs that existed in his day...

Micah 2

Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil upon their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform their evil because they are powerful enough to do it. They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says YAHWEH: Behold, against this family I am devising evil, from which you cannot remove your necks; and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time. In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you, and wail with bitter lamentation, and say, "We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! Among our captors he divides our fields." Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of YAHWEH. (Note that this means you will lose every last square acre.) The women of my people you drive out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my glory for ever. Now get up and get out, for this will no longer be a resting place for you; because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction. If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, "I will preach to you of wine and strong drink," he would be the preacher for this people! (The prophet is making a sarcastic reference to just how worthless religion and preachers were in his day, something that, sadly, remains true to this very day, and all you have to do is tune in your television to listen to it all to know that this is the case.)

In regards to the sweat shops that existed in his day another one of those Jewish prophets wrote...

Amos 8

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to an end, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell them the chaff of the wheat?"God has sworn by your arrogance, "Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and every one mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?" I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

This is particularly relevant, during the 'love Israel' weekend, given that Palestinians have provided a pool of cheap labor for Israel, typically being paid about five dollars a day, although given the violent oppression of the last couple of years, even that has now been taken away.

So to summarize then, land reform is the obvious solution to the oligarchy problem, and the only real solution to poverty, and tax cuts and increasing benefits to these feudal landlords is not a solution, something already well established over the long course of human history and such a worthless solution it shouldn't even be proposed as a solution, simply being a waste of time. This solution would have the added benefit of being real religious so that churches everywhere could nag people about 'not listening to God' and 'needing to get saved' and instead of just being hypocrits might actually have something to say for change that actually meant something, unlike that worthless pile of shit about 'washing in the blood of the lamb' and getting saved from the tortures of that vicious left over feudal god of theirs, Jesus Ted Bundy Christ, the son of Sam, a raving psychopath if the truth be told, and completely worthless as the preaching of that things proves, in particular when you compare the useless religious dogmatism of that Jesus Joe Stalin Christ with the actual preaching of a prophet which made sense and was honorable, unlike what churches all to often do now, which is not honorable but actually quite disgusting. I should also point out to you that ministries will not preach the things I mentioned above, and never ever concern themselves with the poor for the simple reason that the shining lights of the religious right are some of the richest people in the entire country, millionaires many times over, and thus their preaching and that so called 'gospel' are reflections of their concerns in promoting the feudal ideology just as it was for wealthy cardinals and popes throughout history. This should be obvious but I mention in it in passing lest someone should ponder the corruption of the church and wonder what the root cause of that was...

but I digress...

To get back to talking about solutions, I will just point out that every single attempt to 'address poverty' which does not address the root cause of poverty, which is the ownership of entire nations by feudal landlords and oligarchs, is doomed to failure. For example, you will often hear the bit about 'teach a man to fish and he will feed himself for life,' which might be true, except that first he has to have some place to fish, and given that the death squads will nail him if he tries fishing at the oligarchs fishing hole, it seems pointless to be 'teaching people to fish' (as though 'ignorance' was the root cause of poverty). First things first, and once something is done about that fishing hole problem, then teach someone to fish and it actually might make sense...

Other possible solutions include the following...The debt of the most heavily indebted poor nations, the debts responsible for all those harsh policies of closing schools and leaving hospitals without supplies, and increasing hunger and poverty, this debt of these most poor most indebted countries comes to 250 billion dollars. The tax cut proposed in the United States alone came to 1.3 trillion and so paying that thing off would still leave a little over one trillion to spend on such things as solving the homeless problem (instead of doing something stupid like calling a cop), solving the filthy water problem, and assuming that land reform was done, their would still be money left over to 'teach someone to fish', for those who advocate such blame the victim ideologies as the 'solution to poverty' (granted people might forget how to fish after they lose their land and wind up in slums, but for thousands of years people had ancestral knowledge, and if they are 'ignorant' now that would not be their problem now would it...)

Nevertheless, we will be told that tax cutting is the way to go, and in the same breathe the marvelous accomplishments of the system will be celebrated, an oxymoron to say the least, given that this same system gives up one billion hungering people, some of the grossest inequality and injustice on the planet, and now another long dragged out Vietnam as the empire struggles with the inevitable results of its policies over the last century, not to mention its deafness to real solutions, which results in the kind of raging furies we see being let out of the bottle in recent times, and sure to get worse in direct response to both Israel and the United States and the newly emerging eruption of military violence by the empire.

Speaking of military violence, close to one trillion a year is spent on military violence. We all know how poor countries have to be armed to the teeth to protect themselves, say for example Ecuador has to be armed to the teeth to protect themselves from Peru, right. Actually, poor countries have to be armed to teeth to protect oligarchs from the impoverished masses, and if you actually study the problem you will note that most military violence is internal, take Columbia for example. You will also notice over the last century, that whenever the oligarchs or feudal landlords were threatened, the empire was in their like a dirty shirt, whether it was involved in slaughtering millions in Vietnam, half a million leftists in Indonesia, or arming despots in the world's poorest countries (not to mention being the source of those weapons of mass destruction used by Saddam which he now has to give back). And your going to world war now, and your surprised? Given the long history of Washington sending people to train death squads and torturers, to protect oligarchs, it always strikes me as hypocritical when I hear the talk coming out of the empire now, or when I hear its fears about how it won't be able to manage against that guerilla war fare against its soft economic targets, or when I hear about the great mourning over the killing of civilians in Bali, but didn't hear a word about Afghanistan, the lessons of Vietnam having been learned after all.

Obviously the empire, under Reagan was armed to teeth, and the Soviet Union was just ruined and falling apart, so there was a golden opportunity, which the empire of course missed, to spend about 20 trillion dollars on humanity, which would also have stimulated the economy real good, instead of spending it killing. Now the budget will be jacked up even higher, which will do about as much good as it ever did, which is nothing at all. I wait with anticipation for those preachers to 'pound our spears into ploughshares' instead of hawkishly calling for the bombing of the planet or holding 'love Israel' weekends and holding up that hawk nation as an example of 'striking hard'.

Mobuto stole about one hundred billion from the Congo, and the Marcos extended family pillaged the Phillipines for billions and the pattern repeats itself around the world. Trillions of dollars have been thieved from the poor, and so there is another solution. We could have justice for theives and torturers and murderers for a change, but the United States is undermining the International Criminal Court, and with good reason, if you recall that it was the CIA who installed that murderous theif Mobuto and the Marcos family and so in, in the first place, so having a trial and getting that plunder back is something the empire is going to want to have done, for obvious reasons. (Lets go back to Vietnam instead.)

By the way, in just one more slam against useless religion, I propose the following rhetorical question, this time from Isaiah...

Isaiah 49

Can the plunder be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? Even the captives of the mighty shall be set free, and the plunder of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.

The point of the above discussion is to illustrate first the futility of relying on the empire given the useless nature of the solutions proposed by the empire or its powerful institutions, while at the same time answering that charge that 'all you do is bitch and complain while having no solutions'. There are certainly solutions, but the problem here is that the will to solve problems does not exist, but rather powerful forces are at work to see that they don't get solved, and instead we will get this violence as a so called solution, which means, over time, that you might want to hole up in your own country, stay out of night clubs, don't travel anywhere, given the rising tide of guerilla war fare and the uselessness of the old Vietnam war response being brought to you once again as a solution by the same old gang that brought you the Vietnam war in the first place...

Have a nice day...

< BR>