I've been reading some of the Iraq/war on terror and US Election threads on this board and enjoying so much of the discussion that I felt I wanted to contribute, but... I'm not nearly knowledgable or smart enough to do so. But I thought perhaps I could a topic going about some things that I often find myself wondering whenever I watch the news or indeed read these discussions on ILE, and get some of the very clever and well informed people here to help me with some of my incoherent ideas. Infact I might not contribute very much, but maybe this might be of interest. I feel that it might be, that it might be an important peice of this whole jigsaw that is the confused power structure of the world in 2004.
And it's about politics on the smallest scale (my job), and the largest (war overseas). What are the connections? Are they obvious and deliberately planned, or obscure and accidental?
IF...
- Al Quada and Bin Laden were rounded up tomorrow
- Iraq was set up with a benign, enlightened SECULAR democratic government
- An uneasy but firm/dogged truce between Israel and Palestine was created, with the blessing of terrorist groups, and creation of an independent state was begun forthwith
What would happen? Would peace reign over the globe? Would the ethos of the United Nations be the prevailing one? Would consensus be 'reached' about economics, political systems and culture?
In other words: Is it possible to vanquish human jealousy, resentment or righteous anger? Hope, revolutionary ideas/fervour?
Or is it a certain attitude towards these uncomfortable realities that encourages conflict? Is Europe safer than America in this regard? Now that the US is the only Superpower, does it see its enemies everywhere, rather than in one place or issuing from one source (communism)? Are the percieved differences and thus threats political, economic or spiritual?
Displacement. Orwell's Oceania fights a neverending war with one of three other continents depending on whoever is the current 'agressor'; it keeps the economy going (on an eternal warfooting), it keeps the party in power and it keeps the populace in fear and obediant. For years now we've been told (by various writers who I haven't read anything of) that wars overseas help feed the 'military industrial complex'. Personally I know nothing of whether this is true, for all I know the US government may be being traduced by these conspiracy theories. But when I take a look at Europe, I see civillized first-world countries who do not behave in the same way, though they are hypocritical in all kinds of respects bien sur. So what is the logic behind this. Is it something that a nonchristian such as myself would not understand?
Well I told you my thoughts were incoherent. But I wonder if anyone here has any theories about this, and indeed how it ties in with the current situation. Can displacement help us, help me, to understand this quite baffling new front opening up in the neverending The West vs The Rest war?
― Masked Gazza, Monday, 3 May 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)
"The other assumption you need to make is whether the United States would stop (assuming that it *could* stop) habitually interfering with other countries"
Yes, I was thinking about the three areas where we observe the effects of American foreign policy every day. It seems like a cycle on the news: Iraq, AlQuaeda/islamist terrorism, Israel/Palestine, following eachother like morning afternoon and nightime. The Al Quada part is mostly to do with bomb attacks in Spain or Muslim clerics being harassed (in Britain).
The reasons/excuses for dabbling in these three areas are spun out quite regularly. Tomorrow the US gov. could decide the regime in Indonesia is a threat I suppose. It is a sort of disease, I feel.
― Masked Gazza, Tuesday, 4 May 2004 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)