Death of the turtle.

Shell and no head.

Last week Paul Krugman wrote an editorial in the NY Times called “The Inflation Cult,” in which he compared the soothsayers of inflation to members of a cult whose dogma overrides emerging facts. Their mantras persist in contradiction of reality. Being an acknowledged economist, it’s fitting for Krugman to apply this view to economics. I enjoy Krugman and agree with his perspectives most of the time. 

When I read the editorial I thought that his yardstick was vastly more applicable than restricted to economics. This characteristic of dogma covers virtually all human conduct  and could be described as a turtle that sticks it’s head out once, announces any perspective whatsoever, and then withdraws its head, never to be seen again.

In light of the ISIS debacle growing throughout the Middle East, the pattern seems particularly appropriate. We all seem to have short memories and tend to ignore self-incriminating evidence. When the current situation is carefully examined, only the most forgetful and dogmatically inclined can possibly ignore our culpability in creating this mess. There is a direct line flowing backwards from the present to the past destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure during our invasion—leaving hundreds to thousands of previously employed Iraqis without any means of support—and our subsequent betrayal of the Sunnis during and after the emergence of the “Sons of Iraq” program. While initially sponsored by the US military under the auspices of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Sons of Iraq helped turn the tide against Al Qaeda in Iraq but then became our worst nightmare.

In 2005 during the battles to destroy Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni tribe of Albu Mahals was being forced out of their territory by the Al Salmani tribe allied with Al Qaeda. The Albu Mahals proposed an alliance with a local USMC Battalion, and in time, this became known as the Anbar Awakening (Sunni Awakening) to counter the influence of foreign Al-Qaeda fighters. Between that point of initiation in 2005 until October 2008, these Sunni forces, 54,000 in number, were our allies and “boots on the ground.” We trained, armed, paid and then abandoned them into the hands of their Shia enemies under the control of Maliki when we left. That transfer of responsibility from the U.S. to the Iraqi Shia government was considered by many (if not most) Sunnis as a betrayal by the U.S. Army. Not unexpectedly, the remnants of that force migrated into the emerging creation of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Once our allies, now our enemies, were lead step by step to a sectarian civil war which we provoked. During the American Civil War, the French found themselves struggling with a similar dilemma but wisely chose to not take sides.

So now we continue, as the turtle with it’s withdrawn head, by holding onto the flawed thinking that (a) we bear no responsibility for what is occurring and (b) we will once again form another “Sunni Awakening” amongst the same people we betrayed before. The road from Mission Accomplished to ISIS is clear and indisputable and unless we take our heads out of our shell there is a good chance we will die there.

“Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities: War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’—with his mouth.”—MT