A new category for Mr. Ripley

Ripley's Believe It or Not.

“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”—Georges Clemenceau

One of the two-edged swords of old age is having lived long enough to reflect upon the good old days, with a degenerating memory that brings those good-days into question. Mark Twain said it better than me: “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”

Thus the question of the day is this: Were those bygone days as good as old folks remember, or were such days a fantasy older people choose to fabricate? Being of the senior class, I prefer to remember a better day, regardless of accuracy. Choice is something greatly cherished in our culture but more times than not the deck from which we get to choose turns out to have shrunk without our noticing, and thus I suspect there is truth to Clemenceau’s observation: Our nation has slipped into ever-increasing moral degeneration, and the demons are flying as bats out of Hell.

As reported almost everywhere at the moment, the days of reckoning for Jeffrey Epstein, due to his surely certain sexual exploitation of teenaged girls, are now upon him. The wheels of justice grind slowly, if at all, particularly for those who enjoy the better aspect of that double-standard. While significant, the backdrop to his escapades is a culture that, in far too many cases, rewards the misdeeds of the rich and famous, as our now President has reminded us time after time. The elite pontificators and prognosticators said his election could not happen, nor could it stay the day. But it did happen and it continues to perpetuate regardless of standards that have faded into the smoke of yesteryear.

Say what you will about our current leader but recognize that he has a talent for finding a parade and leading from the rear. Walking in front would surely reveal that hidden bone spur. Sadly, he didn’t create the parade. He found it, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, remember the one above. Ripley would need to come up with a new category to fit this one into. Believe it or not, as our morals head south, the approval ratings of our President are rising.

Independence Day—2019

Hatred for the true patriots.

I’m not feeling so patriotic today. Instead I feel disconnected and ashamed of being part of what the country I fought for has become under the misadventures of a pompous, narcissistic, spoiled child-man, yet extremely dangerous president, who has stoked the embers of the worst of humanity into flames of divisiveness, viciousness, greed, anger and discontent. There will be parades (with tanks and flying planes of war—paid for by robbing Peter to pay Paul), all to honor the biggest “bone-spurred coward of them all”; songs of glory will be sung by cowards and eulogies of victory preached by those who desecrate the values they pretend to represent, for the real patriots who did fight and did die to preserve a liberty, that no longer exists, yet the spilled blood of their war-slaves enabled their scholeksterism.

They will preach but never empathize because while the true patriot spilled their blood, they sat on the side-lines and spit upon the ones who made it possible for them to wax on with phony promises that Jesus wants his flock to be wealthy. But it is they who do so by selling snake-oil to their followers who drink it eagerly. 

I’m sure there will be much celebration, cookouts, and laughter, but I will not join in. I will be alone in spirit, although together with friends. I will remember Patrick Gavid Mitchell today. He was my best friend, fellow Marine warrior and best man in my first failed marriage. He, like so many others, died from the scars of fighting an ignoble war. Yet I still live, only to witness the slow dying of a country I once loved. To me what remains is a mere shell housing too few genuine Patriots and too many pretenders.

The mouse that was forbidden from roaring.

“Only when a republic’s life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is wrong. There is no other time.”—MT

The question is thus, is our republic in danger? And if so, how did it become that way? Without knowing if it is, and how we got to a place of jeopardy, odds are we’ll continue repeating historical errors. It would be most beneficial to not make them again. However, MT wasn’t so sure we won’t. According to him, “It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man’s character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.” Nevertheless I’ll take a shot at opening the curtains of ignorance (a dangerous endeavor) by taking my readers on a short walk through history in order to suggest answers. 

It will, however, take more than a short post to fully answer these two, and if I’ve learned nothing else from years of writing, hardly anyone reads anything other than short ones. That being the case I’ll take this in stages and the first stage concerns a satirical story—The Mouse That Roared—written post WWII by Irish American writer Leonard Wibberley. The timing of the story was critically informed subsequent to the defeat of Germany and Japan, followed by rebuilding both, with massive infusions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and then going on to become major players in the global economy. The reason for my choice, while not immediately apparent, will become clear as I continue with subsequent stages in posts to follow.

In the story, the tiny European Duchy of Grand Fenwick has built a precarious economy based on growing and selling Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. Unfortunately the entire economy is placed in harms way when an American winery makes a knockoff version, “Pinot Grand Enwick,” putting the Duchy on the verge of bankruptcy.

The prime minister decides that their only course of action is to declare war on the United States and bank on a quick and total defeat (since their standing army was equipped with mere bows and arrows). The next sequence in his plan was to rebuild itself through the largesse of the United States and then become annexed, no longer singularly dependent on Pinot Grand Fenwick wine, but instead enjoying the prosperity of being a member of the U.S. The success of the intended plan depended on the “roar” of this tiny mouse, however the plan didn’t work out as expected. But this misguided part serves my purposes in setting the stage for answering the two question about the danger of our republic. And as we will see, the present day mouse has been prohibited from roaring effectively, and just like the story, the plan has gone South. 

In the posts to follow I’ll begin to wend the thread from a sad beginning to a sad end by considering how the emergence of ISIS actually began.

The new national bird?

Your choice.

“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”—Mark Twain

It’s my intention (although not always delivered) to take a daily walk through the woods that run adjacent to my house. Above the trees runs a power line, upon which sit thousands of birds, and far above flies an eagle. I’ve contemplated this image and wondered that perhaps we need to adopt a new national bird; one that more closely resembles those sitting on the power line. The freedom of the soaring eagle, while clearly more desirable, doesn’t seem to match the current tendency of so many who cluster together on a line through which runs enough power to roast them all, just a fraction of inches beneath their feet. They appear oblivious to this danger and sit there, probably content to engage in their squawking, and ignore their fellow eagle soaring so freely above their heads.

The eagle is growing increasingly more extinct but the others seem to proliferate daily. Is this a good thing? There are gains and losses to everything and I leave my readers to decide for themselves.

A formula for success (of some) and failure (for the rest of us).

“I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind hearted, fat, benevolent people do.”—Mark Twain

Don’t we all; harbor some hypocrisy? Mr. Twain’s tongue-in-cheek aspirations more than likely fit a number of us, particularly those who have enjoyed the privilege of possibility. Those who abide in “honest poverty” will undoubtedly take umbrage in this aloof attitude of benevolence, fat though we be. But for the moment let me perpetuate the pretense, just for the sake of satire. 

Suppose you had the opportunity of making obscene sums of money but needed to craft a plan to insure sustained results. What sort of plan would succeed? Let’s see if we can put on our thinking caps and develop a really good plan. What would the ingredients be?

The first matter of importance would be to set up a system that would insure continuing prosperity, regardless of unforeseen turns of events. And once established go further and recruit broad support to aid our cause among the very people who would be most vulnerable and necessary for our efficiency. Does that arrangement sound familiar? It should, because those ingredients constitute our American culture, at least in present form. An alternate label would be called “greed.”

OK, I can sense the hackles rising already. Nobody, me included, wants to tear down a system that results in their own betterment. UNLESS of course, it doesn’t (result in their own betterment). Like an iceberg, what appears above the surface necessarily depends on what lies beneath. We can see that part but it is what lies beneath that matters. If the bottom is about to melt, for sure the top will follow. So having now considered the metaphor, let’s get real.

Our culture is sitting on an about-to-explode powder keg, with a very long fuse that was lit 155 years ago in South Carolina and has been smoldering ever since. And the significance of that time frame? On April 12, 1861 the American Civil War began and ended four years later in the spring of 1865. When the War ended 620,000 American soldiers lay dead; more Americans than died in WWI, WWII, Vietnam and Korea combined. And why was the war fought? Allegedly to free the nation of the scourge of slavery. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson “The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.”

And guess what? If you haven’t noticed, the magnitude of our discontent is now off the chart, with more than several squabbling parts. Might you notice some correspondence between what is now happening and the unresolved roots driving the tension? If not then this post will more than likely go right over your head. On the other hand, for those who wish to avoid further meltdown, consider the following.

At the beginning of the Civil War there were roughly 4 million slaves “used” primarily by 400,000 southern land holders to maximize their economic advantage. When the war ended, and congress ratified the 13th Constitutional Amendment, slavery appeared to end (at least the part above the water line). So what’s the problem? Slavery didn’t end, it just followed a different path that became legitimized due to a six word clause in the amendment, “…except as a punishment for crime.” The entire amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Since that time no effort has been spared to criminalize and incarcerate black people who have then been used, just as the slave holders did before the War, as indentured servants: free labor to advance the wealth of the few by the many. While 4 million slaves at the beginning of the War sounds overwhelming, it pales by comparison to the number who have been unjustly incarcerated spanning the years since. According to The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), today there are nearly 1 million black people out of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population (43%); incarcerated at a rate of nearly six times the incarceration rate of whites. And as might be expected, the criminal “justice” system pays handsomely. Just as war benefits war profiteers, criminality, legally structured, benefits criminal profiteers. As a nation, we now spend more tax derived revenue incarcerating and using people for making obscene wealth than we do educating our youth. If there was ever a system programmed to self-destruct, it is hard to imagine one better than this.

This post is a mere store-sample designed to whet the appetite of those who wish to see our nation continue beyond the current crisis. After the trial period of 155 years it is time to pay the piper and try a better way that will keep the iceberg floating a bit longer. To gain the most thorough grasp of this vast criminal web you need to watch 13th: The documentary. There you’ll see who, how, when and why the key players have been complicit, and it really is about the money. Once you get the full grasp, you’ll know what to do (or not). And by doing nothing the end is in sight.

Power of the Press.

“It seems to me that just in the ratio that our newspapers increase, our morals decay. The more newspapers the worse morals. Where we have one newspaper that does good, I think we have fifty that do harm. We ought to look upon the establishment of a newspaper of the average pattern in a virtuous village as a calamity.”—Mark Twain

“Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people. Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea.”—Adolf Hitler wrote these words in his book Mein Kampf, and they still apply today: Control the media and you control the hearts and minds of the people. 

Fortunately today there is an antidote to pre-determined Corporate Media messages: The Internet. We must always be mindful that Corporations are owned by wealthy individuals who have vested interests to enhance their wealth at the expense of the people of our nation, and have final say on what will be delivered through their medium. Not so via the Internet although congress and their benefactors have tried, and fortunately failed “thus far,” to regulate that also through their efforts to undermine net neutrality and thus completely control message content. Nothing in this world remains static and that applies to the war to undermine net neutrality and control propaganda.

Maintaining a free, open and non-regulated Internet provides a voice of the people that won’t come via corporate media for a simple reason: greed. Corporations (with their vast army of lobbyists) and, thanks to “Citizens United” billions available for buying time and space through traditional media as well as corrupting government officials to do their bidding.

Why is this presently a big deal? Because Corporate America has already decided whom they want elected as our next president and consequently empowers communications that promotes their person of choice, and restricts coverage of candidates they have decided threaten their greed driven agenda and don’t want to advance.

If you haven’t noticed, you rarely (if ever, and then only with a speedy glancing blow-by) hear or watch news regarding the huge successes of Senator Bernie Sanders, except through the Internet/Social Media. By nearly all measures Senator Sanders is leading the pack of also-runs by drawing massive crowds who respond with enthusiasm to his clear assessment of the challenges we face, along with real solutions to level playing fields, narrow the progressively widening gap between the ultra-wealthy (the people who control message content in Corporate media) and the rest of us, move the country toward restoring the vanishing middle class and address genuine threats to the wellbeing of all people.

However, according to messages delivered through traditional channels, Senator Sanders “doesn’t have a chance,” which will surely be the case if we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by Corporate America.

Knowing and Doing

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.”—Mark Twain

“Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.”—Lyndon B. Johnson

We live in a world where we can’t say anything with certainty. However, that doesn’t stop us from attempting to persuade both ourselves and those with whom we relate, that we do, with certainty, in fact know matters. 

Doing and knowing are not the same thing, as both Mark Twain and LBJ pointed out. Ideally there would be a single, universally accepted understanding of what is always right, what is always wrong and possess the fortitude of following through with right doing. But since there can’t be a fixed, universally approved criteria of knowing right from wrong, it’s a sure thing that disagreements will arise. And why is that so? Because the very nature of right requires a counter point to have any meaning. Right and wrong are two sides of the same matter of judgement. Then, of course, is the matter that we all have our own eyeballs, with our own different life experiences and filters through which we see the world. And most important of all is what Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku nailed as the root of disagreements: “The cause of our sorrow is ego delusion.” 

The person we think we are—who attempts to persuade themselves; the one who sees right apart from wrong is our ego. That vicious fabrication of our identity will always see life through vested interests, desiring to always have the last word, is linked to a lens of delusion. When viewed in this way it’s a miracle we haven’t already blown ourselves to smithereens.

“When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises

When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other.”—Tao Te Ching

War and Peace: What it the heck is wrong with us?

Unavoidable signs of a world-wide collapse in civilization are everywhere to be found. The signs are prolific throughout Europe, The Middle East, the continent of the America’s and into Asia. It would be insulting to the intelligence of my readers to plough through the laundry list of all of the related problems, but at the heart of them all exists one single toxic seed: The seed of “I’m right and you’re wrong.” In different terms, that characteristic is called self-righteousness or simpler yet, “Egotism.” I have written much about this driving force that’s pressing us all toward the abyss, including in particular three books, More Over, The Non-Identity Crisis and The Other Side of Midnight.  All of them are cut from the same bolt of cloth. Their consistent theme is one of misidentification: Not understanding the true nature, at the core, of what it means to be human.

A return to a doctrine of one of the most enlightened humans of all time may help in informing this message, and I refer to Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) who made a significant contribution towards grasping our essence, which was later developed as Buddhism, moved from India into China where it linked up with Taoism. The second of these tributaries evolved in China with the life of Bodhidharma who seems to have brought with him Nagarjuna’s teachings, as well as the Lankavatara Sūtra which followed many of the tenets outlined by the consciousness only school of Yogacara. Whereas Nagarjuna is known as the father of Mahayana Buddhism, Bodhidharma is considered as the father of Chan, which subsequently came to be known as Zen. Nagarjuna established the philosophical foundation and Bodhidharma rooted the tenets into psychic turf. The tenet was (and is) known as the “Two-Truth Doctrine” and works out as follows.

Nagarjuna said we all live within two truths: A conventional truth and a sublime truth. The first truth is, and has always been, clearly evident. The second truth is not, and has never been evident, yet the second is the source of the first and these two are irrevocably cemented together. His exact words were, “Without knowing how they (sic, truths) differ, you cannot know the deep; Without relying on conventions, you cannot disclose the sublime; Without intuiting the sublime, you cannot experience freedom.” 

The first truth (and surprisingly the second as well) is binary, meaning composed of two dimensions clearly distinct and opposite from each other. This is the basis for discrimination (or perhaps in less inflammatory terms), the ability to discern differences between one thing and another, such as right and wrong. And when the matter of self-centered judgement is added to this truth, the result is selfishness, opposition, inflexibility and in many cases violence. This is the realm of conditions, one set of conditions set against another set, and since conditions are, by nature always in flux it is impossible to remain steady without judgement.

Then according to Nagarjuna, we must become aware that this conditional realm is different from the realm of the sublimely unconditional. The curious observation about this awareness is that, since these two realms are polar, the realm of the unconditional is not binary, yet the relationship between the first and the second is. The unconditional is the realm of unity, tranquility and equity, whereas the realm of the conditional is one of disunity, hostility and selfishness. Unfortunately, we average humans are not even aware of the realm of the unconditional sublimity and assume all that exists is the realm of conditionality. That’s the first error of Nagarjuna’s doctrine: not knowing they are different, because knowing anything requires contrast, but even when recognizing there is a second truth (and how they are different), that kind of knowing remains a figment of the imagination, in other words, rational. 

The second, and most important aspect of his doctrine, is that so long as we don’t “intuit” the sublime, we will never gain freedom and thus remain in a bondage, governed by discriminatory conflict. Now the interesting thing about intuition is that it is a transrational (metaphysical) experience of emersion into pure, unapplied consciousness.  Applied consciousness is one of rational distinction, judging one thing in contrast to another, and nearly without exception ending up in conflict. However, while in a state of pure, non-applied consciousness, there is nothing to compare since it is a realm of united, unconditionality, where we experience oneness with all.

Sadly, the major source of conflict in the world today (and perhaps forever) is rooted in the three political/religious combinations of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, all of which share common ideas regarding God and our human beginnings, while none of them practices the peace to which they aspire. Religion, in the ordinary sense, by the assessment of many, is the major source of continuing violence throughout time. In the words of Mark Twain, “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.” 

And the songs we sign harmonize with mantras like, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “Allahu Akbar,” or ones that shout to strangers that they alone are God’s exclusive chosen flock. And not a single one realizes the unity that resides in the heart of all of human kind.

Conservatism is:

Do Bears Shit in the Woods?

That answer to the rhetorical question is just as obvious as the following: “Does authorizing passage of the Keystone XL pipeline work against the interests of mankind?” The answer to both questions is a resounding YES. Which brings me to our satirist Mark Twain who said, “There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress,” and “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

To fathom this seeming complexity (which is anything but complex) all we need to do is understand the most long-lasting human driver of all time: Money, or more specifically greed! Who gains and who loses when Keystone XL pipeline choices are made?

Our President is facing a conundrum: Approving continued construction of the Keystone XL pipeline (which allegedly will produce American jobs and reduce the price of oil), while at the same time honoring his commitment to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that exacerbates global climate change. If there is a mother of all conundrums this must be it.

Several matters contribute to this enigma. First comes the jobs issue. By all intelligent measures permanent jobs created by this construction project (meaning ones that last beyond construction) will be short lived. Best estimate is approximately 35 full time jobs, some of which will occur in Canada. It is true that during the construction stage, the estimate is somewhere around 42,000 jobs. Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for a coalition of pro-Keystone groups known as Oil Sands Fact Check, is quoted as saying: “You build it, you move on. And that’s the nature of any big construction project, be it a highway or monument.” 

Next comes the matter of exacerbating the phenomena of global climate change. It’s a well established fact the Canadian tar sands oil are the dirtiest on earth. According to the Climate Action Network (Canada Reports on Tar Sands Expansion), not only is the oil produced in Alberta dirty, so are the Canadian politicians who promote the project. And according to Climate Action Network Canada, the tar sands oil are, “Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution.” 

Lowering the price of gas in the U.S.? According to a recent article in the Washington Post, not only will tar sands oil NOT reduce the price, there is a strong probability the price will end up increasing the price of gas sold in the U.S. 

This brings us full circle back to the initial motive: “Who gains and who loses when Keystone XL pipeline choices are made?” The core of the answer concerns vested interests in seeing the pipeline completed. And amazement upon amazement, it turns out to be our familiar Billionaire entrepreneurs the Koch Brothers. According to The International Forum On Globalization (IFG) and the Washington Post, the Kochs are “the biggest foreign lease holder in Canada’s oil sands” with the outlook of earning $100 billion due to completion of the pipeline, which more than explains why the Kochs have invested $45 million (a mere .045% pittance compared to potential gain) in buying control of Congress, and echoing MT’s commentary: “We have the best government that money can buy.”

Three days ago the Senate defeated the bill to authorize completion of the Keystone XL pipeline but promised passage once the newly elected Republican majority is installed in January 2015. But should this not be a moral concern to Republicans, who now, more than ever control to shape of the environment we all live in? Not at all. After all, the vast majority of hard core Republicans deny any human contribution to the matter of global climate change, in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And again our satirist rises to the occasion: “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” Among these deniers are, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, West Virginia governor Earl Ray Tomblin, Florida governor Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio, all of whom claim “they are not scientists” and thus have no opinion on the matter. This is a bit like a human saying that because they aren’t scientists, they’re unsure if they breathe air.

The odds of a bright future in the U.S., and in the world, are degrading quickly and if bribery is King, the King makers are the Koch Brothers. And who are the losers? You guessed it, all of us (including the Kochs). Unless an unknown means of having an environment for some and not others suddenly appears, ALL of us will be affected one way or another by the choices made by our newly elected Congress. Do bears shit in the woods? Answer that for yourself.

Nobody to blame.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” MT

Now that the majority has spoken, it is indeed time to pause and reflect. The Republicans are now in control of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Our president has offered his congratulations to the victors and extended his willingness to work “across the aisle.” This, however, is nothing new, and thus far has made no difference. When one side is agreeable and the other isn’t, the dominance goes to the down side, regardless of willingness.

There’s a vast chasm separating the ideology of the parties. The proposed Republican budget—Paul Ryan’s Pathway to Prosperity—is in essence based on the “Makers and Takers” philosophy established by his heroine Ayn Rand. While Ryan has flip-flopped and recanted his adoration of Rand, his stance has hardly budged in expression. Typical of Washington politicians, Ryan has blown with the winds of perceived public endorsement but has nevertheless clung to his heroine’s ideology in building his budgetary house of financial cards.

The bottom line: The top 1% wins and everyone else loses, thus reinforcing the idea that “Winners” can miraculously create prosperity with no support from those who enable them. While this idea should send shock waves throughout the land, in a back-handed, and most bizarre way, it’s a good thing Republicans are now in control, since they will now have no one to blame for the choices they make. It will be a grand experiment and reflective of the outcome illustrated by Kansas Governor Brownback. His plan, contrary to intension, has set the future of Kansas finances and fairness back to the dark ages. Never mind, however, he was reelected and promises more of the same.

The expressed mantra of Mitch McConnell to make Obama a one-term president didn’t work but you can’t begrudge a guy for trying. Now we’ll have the opportunity to see for ourselves whether Republicans will last one term, and more importantly if we the people will survive. No excuses now.

Political Smoke and Mirrors.

“All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.”  MT

The drums of war are beating. The ISIS threat is whipping public support into a frenzy. With short memories we tend to forget (1) that we created the mess in the first place (See: my six part series that ran from Sept. 27 thru October 7) and (2) waging war is THE most expensive matter in which any nation can get engaged. The glaring hypocrisy here is that the same people who have clamored for reducing the deficit are the very same people who now ignore the costs of waging war (to attempt to undo the mess they created) and want us (other people of course) to put “boots on the ground.”

A most enlightening web site is The National Priorities. The site shows, in real-time, what we are spending to fight wars and what we’re giving up. The Federal Debt is concerning and presently stands at $17.877 trillion, and rising. For that reason both political parties have established a priority of reducing the debt, but in very different ways. For the most part the Republican approach is to slash social programs, give greater tax breaks to the wealthy and increase discretionary defense funding.

Most recently House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has released his Pathway to Prosperity budget proposal which is filled with assumptions that will undoubtedly never materialize. Nevertheless his estimate of reducing the deficit and reaching a balanced budget in 10 years is most appealing to Republican voters, during an election year. A couple of seeming pros to his plan include eliminating the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) and increasing discretionary defense spending by $483 billon over the next tens years. We must bear in mind that Mr. Ryan’s proposal was built before the ISIS threat became front and center. So let’s take a close look at just these two proposals without considering the devastating impact on citizens resulting from his plan to slash social programs.

According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), at this stage, contrary to the gloom and doom projections of the Republicans, Obama Care is resulting in a net savings to the government of about $8 billion per year. To eliminate this program (as Mr. Ryan proposes) would not save money, but would instead end up adding to the federal debt by that $8 billion per year ($80 billion over the ten years). Nevertheless it’s human nature that once someone takes a stand they will continue to demand that reality conform to their views.

The other proposal (increase discretionary defense spending by $483 billon) may be woefully inadequate if we persist in waging another war. In his just released book—Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace—Leon Panetta says,“Americans should be braced for a long battle against the brutal terrorist group Islamic State that will test U.S. resolve—and the leadership of the commander in chief.” And what does Panetta mean by a “long battle?” His best guess is 30 years. Given that extraordinary period of time, it would be worth our while to count the cost. 

In most everyone’s considered opinion our current campaign of bombing only is costing U.S. taxpayers $3.12 billion/year. Add ten years of that cost ($31.2 billion) to Mr. Ryan’s $483 billon and we’re looking at some serious pocket change ($514.2 billion—over ½ trillion dollars). This, of course, assumes current bombing levels which nobody expects to continue. The costs and sacrifices will just increase, as they did in Vietnam. “Mission Creep” is always a reality to which no politician will ever admit . 

THE key fiscal issue here is, “where will this extra money come from if Mr. Ryan’s Pathway to Prosperity is adopted?” If it is, the middle class will be obliterated, everyone except the super wealthy will join the bottom financial tier (with no benefits) and the wealthy elite will continue (as they do currently) avoiding taxes altogether. 

Typical of political projections, it’s all smoke and mirrors. “Figures can’t lie, but liars will figure.” MT

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

The proverb most people are familiar with is, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” However, the proverb needs a time stamped expiration date, meaning that nearly always taking sides against one side, results in the other side turning against you. Witness the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson who partnered with the CIA to launch Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Bottom line: It worked, for a time, but eventually the mujahideen metastasized into numerous versions of what we know today as radical Islamists (one of which is the Taliban and another ISIS) using the military hardware we supplied turned against us: expiration date. 

According to globalresearch.org, “Washington supported the Free Syria rebels who aligned themselves with the terrorist group called Al-Nusra to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Then the Syrian rebels, and other groups in Iraq, form another terrorist organization who call themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The consequences of Washington’s policies of aiding the Syrian rebels, including ISIS, have served a purpose.” The question is, whose purpose? 

The Al-Nusra Front is otherwise known as, “The Support Front for the People of Al-Sham,”: al-Qaeda in Syria—a branch of al-Qaeda operating in Syria and Lebanon. Get it? Bashar al-Assad (General Secretary of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Ba’ath Party in Syria), an acknowledged enemy of the U.S. and ally of Shiite dominated Iran (an acknowledged U.S. enemy), is opposed by the Free Syria rebels. They align themselves with al-Qaeda in Syria (also our enemy), we support both and one part is spun off to become ISIS. In the meantime we arm and equip the “New Iraqi Army” (mostly Shiites) at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $25 billion. Then the Iraqi Army quickly cut and ran against the well equipped ISIS forces, who then acquired all of the costly military hardware we supplied to the Iraqi Army and used it against us. The question is thus, whose the enemy? Better yet, whose the ally? 

Mr Twain never spoke truer words than these: “There has never been a just war, never an honorable one—on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful—as usual—will shout for the war. The pulpit will—warily and cautiously object—at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.’ Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers—as earlier—but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation—pulpit and all—will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”

There are many twists and turns that happened after the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bremer fiascos but history will show that none of them mattered. All that matters is ISIS is here, and now and we can take credit for that. The question now becomes, are there any allies, or is everyone an enemy who we didn’t create?

Sun Tzu’s prophesy—Not knowing ourselves.

Discord in the ranks.

The other half of Sun Tzu’s prophesy—not knowing ourselves, concerned Bremer and the distorted views of Rumsfeld—his immediate boss. Bremer held an exalted view of himself. His distorted view of the Iraqi people extended to him as well. He took pride in equating himself as another Douglas MacArthur, or General Lucius Clay, who’s roles seemed to him to parallel his own in occupying and rebuilding Japan and Germany following the Allies destruction of both. At the same time, Rumsfeld repeatedly underestimated force levels necessary to suppress the burgeoning, tumultuous insurgency that Bremer had stirred up. Bremer, and the rest of the world, soon discovered the significant differences between his job and that of his role models. 

While similarities existed between the Iraqi and Japanese occupations and reconstruction, the differences proved to be more critical. Bremer didn’t “let the sleeping dog of dormant, yet buried religious animosities lie.” What had been suppressed was fanned into a roaring inferno due his miscalculations concerning Sunnis and Shiites. 

He failed to heed Twain’s admonition concerning religion and politics: “I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.” In the case of the U.S., dividing church and state is foundational to running a democratic government. It didn’t work in Iraq, and may never, due to deeply imbedded religious roots. Given the declared goal of ISIS (to create a caliphate) it seems improbable that separating church and state is in the cards.

Bremer’s first order of business was to establish the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and under the direction of the Bush administration, he proceeded to carry the initial destruction onward to political/religious structure of the people. And this in turn eventually entailed banning all intellectual contributions stemming from the Ba’ath party (an arm of Sunnis in Bremer’s view) and dismantling the Iraqi Army, a force of roughly 400,000 soldiers, all of whom then had no means of earning a living. 

Three years later in 2007, there was a huge debate occurring in Washington concerning troop levels. At the time General Eric K. Shinseki concurred with General John Abizaid. Both believed more were needed. “First vilified, then marginalized by the Bush administration after those comments, General Shinseki retired and faded away, even as lawmakers, pundits and politicians increasingly cited his prescience.” The criticism was particularly vociferous coming from Rumsfeld, his deputy—Paul Wolfowitz, as well as politically inclined Pentagon leadership. The hard line resistance by Rumsfeld that more troops were needed proved both wrong yet accepted by the political administration.

In September of that year, a press release was submitted by Bremer as a New York Times op-ed. titled How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army. Bremer said he didn’t make the decision on his own, and that the decision was reviewed by “top civilian and military members of the American government,” including Abizaid, who briefed officials in Washington, saying there were no more “organized Iraqi military units.” Bremer’s article went further into how the Coalition Provisional Authority considered two alternatives: 

(1) To recall the old army, or 
(2) Build a new army, 
“both to be vetted members of the old army—code for no Sunnis—and new recruits.”

According to Bremer, Abizaid preferred the second alternative, thus escaping personal condemnation by passing the buck to Abizaid. What Bremer excluded from his op-ed was what Abizaid also said: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.” History has proven both Abizaid and Shinseki right and the Bush political forces wrong. The intense wangling between the politicians and the generals typified Sun Tzu’s prophesy of not knowing ourselves.

Some have crucified Bremer for his individual errors, such as disbanding the army, refusing to employ skilled, mostly apolitical Iraqis (who were banned from holding positions in the newly formed government), and for alienating the Iraqi people into opposing religious factions. But these blunders, while significant, are not the reasons why most Iraqis hated the American occupation and supported violent resistance to it. The main grievance most Iraqis had with America was, and is, simply the occupation itself—an occupation that lingered on years after Bremer waved goodbye. To watch a Frontline video covering this debacle click here.

In the next and final post in this series, we’ll look at how we iced the cake of ISIS emergence and pounded the final nail into the casket of moderation by implicitly aligning ourselves with another Sunni enemy—the Shiites in Iran and those of the Syrian butcher Bashar Hafez al-Assad, President and General Secretary of Syria, and Regional Secretary of the Ba’ath Party in Syria—Saddam’s party, the very one we fought to destroy. MT was right about “...in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.” 

Other wrong ingredients in baking the cake.

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” MT

Mr. Twain’s unabashed bitter pill of honesty distinguishes between what comes naturally, and what can only be earned. To examine this distinction takes us to another perspective regarding ourselves and our enemies.

According to Sun Tzu (The Art of War),“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Concerning the war in Iraq, as it eventually turned out, the U.S. fell prey to knowing neither the enemy nor themselves. Following the “Mission Accomplished” speech by President George W. Bush in May 2003, it became increasingly clear that the only thing of significance that had been accomplished was defeating the Iraqi army and the destruction of their infrastructure. And then came the oops: “Oh,you mean we now need to deal with the population of Iraq?” This small matter seemed to be a surprise and it suddenly dawned on those asleep at the switch that we were experts at waging war and miserable at managing the ensuing chaos of the people we had defeated. The U.S. appeared to never consider the “what comes next.” 

Then “Along Came a Spider” to weave the web of reconstruction—or more aptly Bush’s man: Presidential Envoy to Iraq—Mr. Paul Bremer. From May 2003 until June 2004, Mr. Bremer served as head of state of the internationally recognized government of Iraq and by nearly all counts was the tip of the spear, launched by the Bush bunch that led increasingly to civil war in Iraq. Bremer’s preconceived biases concerning the Iraqi people vastly distorted knowledge of the enemy.

Despite these biases, prior to the invasion, the Iraqi population was more unified than Bremer and the Bush people imagined them to be. Time and again, Bremer revealed his bias, referring to “the formerly ruling Sunnis,” “rank-and-file Sunnis,” “the old Sunni regime,”and “responsible Sunnis.” This obsession with sects informed the U.S. approach to Iraq from day one of the occupation, but it was not how Iraqis saw themselves—at least not until Bremer stuck his finger in the hornet’s nest and created chaos to match his wrong headed perspectives. 

Iraqis were not primarily Sunnis or Shiites; they were Iraqis first, and their sectarian identities did not become polarized until Americans occupied their country, treating Sunnis as the bad guys and Shiites as the good guys. There were no blocs of Sunni Iraqis or Shiite Iraqis before the war, just like there was no Sunni Triangle or Shiite South until American politicians imposed (reflected by Bremer) ethnic and sectarian identities onto Iraq’s regions. Bremer was not alone in his blindness. John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, displayed the same dismal approach to Iraq as Bremer. Bolton claimed that most of the refugees were Sunnis, fleeing because “they feared that Shiites were going to exact retribution for the four or five decades of Ba’ath rule.”

In spite of how Iraqis saw themselves, Bremer pitted the Sunnis and Shiites against one another, and fueled the fires of the ISIS emergence. This should come as no surprise since Bremer knew nothing about Iraq and its culture, spoke no Arabic, had no prior experience in the Middle East, and took no action to educate himself on the critical matters that could have led the Iraqi people toward unification, away from civil war, and the rising tide of ISIS.

He, or more than likely his Washington handlers, held hardened perspectives that drove U.S. policies. In Bremer’s mind, the way to occupy Iraq was not to view it as a nation but as a group of minorities. So he pitted the minority that wasn’t benefiting from the system against the minority that was, and then expected them both to be grateful. Bremer ruled Iraq as if it were already undergoing a civil war, helping the Shiites by punishing the Sunnis. He didn’t see his job as managing the country; he saw it as managing a civil war. Due to his impacted resolve, Bremer, more than anyone, ending up causing one.

Many Iraqis saw the Americans as new colonists, intent on dividing and conquering Iraq. That was precisely Bremer’s approach. When he succumbed slightly to Iraqi demands for democracy and created the Interim Governing Council, its members were selected by sectarian and ethnic quotas. Even the Communist Party member of the council was chosen not because he was secular but because he was a Shiite.

However, according to Bremer, Iraqis hated their army at the time of the U.S. invasion. In fact, the army was the most nationalist institution in the country, one that predated the Ba’ath Party. In electing not to fight U.S. forces, the army was expecting to be recognized by the occupation—and indeed, until Bremer was installed, it appeared that many soldiers and officers were hoping to cooperate with the Americans.

His miscalculations of the enemy accounted for one half of Sun Tzu’s prophesy. In the following post, we’ll explore how the U.S. came to fulfill the second half of Sun Tzu’s prophesy—not knowing ourselves.