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The Public Toilet
Unethical Views of Unethical Politics
Redford Demands an Apology
Never a day goes by without an American trying to become more Iraqi than the Iraqis themselves. They seem to think that they have been terrorized and molested more than the Iraqis. I wonder what the source of such a belief is. FOX news perhaps.
The latest in the line of the American Iraqis is the famous Hollywood actor Robert Redford. He was speaking at the start of the Sundance Film Festival, where the opening movie recalled protests over the Vietnam War in 1968. He referred to the September 11 incidence and said
“We put all our concerns on hold to let the leaders lead, I think we’re owed a big, massive apology.”
The problem is that the American public always put their concerns on hold when a problem arises and only show them when the selected solution has failed beyond repair. This happened in Vietnam. The protests, the furor and the concerns only started when the number of body bags arriving at America’s doorstep became significant and some hippy college kids died protesting against the war in Ohio. Sure there were Abu Gharaib’s here and there at My Lai and other places but it was the 58,000 body bag count that mattered; it was this count that stopped the war and not the 230,000 of the Vietnamese, after all an agricultural country needs some fertilizer doesn’t it?
The same scenario is being repeated in Iraq. The same storm is gathering to stop the massacre in Iraq. For many in America the term ‘massacre’ is reserved only for the dead American soldiers. The American public sure has reached this conclusion quickly this time: at the cost of 3000th solider and not the 58,000th, but the fertilizer this time will be surplus.
“Daddy, daddy, is it my turn yet?”
After watching Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and various other northern African countries’ fates, any layman would consider it foolhardy to try and lure Western attention to their own Islamic state! Iran, on the other hand, does not seem to comprehend such a predicament and chooses to make the same mistake time and again. Even after witnessing the disastrous end its neighbouring ex-president and former dictator, Saddam Hussain went through, it ‘innocently’ continues to ignore the harsh relaities of world politics and instead it plays a major role in contributing towards its own downfall.
‘Daddy’ Bush has already stamped Iran as a part of the “Axis of Evil”, and openly accused it of seeking nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism; being not only a significant supplier of oil, but also one of the founding members of the OPEC, it would be suicide to make any public statements regarding their military strength. However, taking none of this into consideration, Iran is drawing more attention to its oil reserves everyday. By buying forbidden military equipment from the United States itself, Iran has now pushed its very last bit of luck and has also successfully managed to disturb troubled waters, ensuring its position at the top of the ”next Islamic state to-be-’democratized’ ” list!
The situation raises the alarming question : Why would the United States sell equipment which should be de-milled and that too, to a country which it fears is a terrorist state? Here is the extremly unsatisfactory yet much wanted answer provided by CNN :
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million worth — including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas — by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.
For a country that claims to be the biggest super power and have the strongest intelligence agency, America’s surveillance sure is weak! So, I guess this would have to be one of the third biggest glitches its intelligence agency can be blamed for. First, they were never able to pinpoint the location of notorious Saudi national Osama Bin Laden but did manage to conveniently kill a few thousand civilians and finally bring in a pet government in Afghanistan. Then they discovered WMDs in Iraq ‘by mistake’ and ended up staining their hands with the blood of another few thousands innocent Iraqis whose lives are obviously not as important as the few hundred American soldiers who died and realized only too late that they are victims of their own presidents’ greed for becoming ‘Alexander the Great’ of the 21st Century. And now, their security systems are so weak, that they can be breached by Iranians ‘posing to be defence contractors’.
It is a shock that Iran seems to be falling for the bait that the American Government has so carefully laid out for them. Is it actually possible that the Iranian government officials are unable to decipher the conspiracies that the US has designed when it is crystal clear to you and I? Or is this the smaller picture of yet another political mishap, or masterplan so to say, to be disclosed?
Paradox of Thrift?
Is it not ironic that approximately 20% of an average Pakistani’s income is spent on cigarettes, tea or paan where the GDP/capita is $591.77 ranking 139th in a list of 184 countries? All three are goods that should have been deemed negative externalities by now. If within 60 years of the country’s existence, they have not been realized as goods that promote squandering of time and money, not to mention human lives, I doubt they ever will be!Â
It is true that all of these goods are revenue-generating goods that the government would like to keep going, but it is very selfish on the government’s part to allow its economic interests to supercede the social interests of its public. The government needs to take a step to curb these evils that don’t seem as devilish as they really are.
An average morning at any government office starts with sounds of “ek chai, do chammach cheeni key saath” (one cup of tea with 2 teaspoons sugar please) while kettles boil in all kitchens. The first 2 hours, following the late arrival of most employees due to heavy traffic, other familial responsibilities such as dropping children to school and not having had electricity at home the previous night, are wasted chit-chatting about these problems with fellow workers over tea! By the time they get any work started, it is already lunch time and the morning procedure repeats itself with another cup of chai and the addition of home-packed lunch of paratha rolls. Before they even know it, it is 4 O’clock and everyone smiles at the thought of getting back home to yet another cup of evening tea and rusks with the family!
Cigarettes, on the other hand are a bit different. Most smokers, even in the lesser-developed parts of the world, know that they will eventually die of lung cancer, throat cancer or emphysema (to mention a few) yet fail to rid themselves of the habit. They may not have enough money on their wallets (or even their bank accounts for that matter) to pay their bills, children’s tuition fees, or even to fulfill basic nutrition-related needs of their families, but there is always enough money to buy a cigarette and to release the tension of living below the poverty line and of being a total failure in life; they need to smoke it off! It is also ironic to note that it is the men of the South-Asian countries who boast most about strength of character and refrain from disclosing their true emotions even in the most crucial of situations (obviously with the continuous aid of our ‘dearest friend’, Mr. Tobacco!), yet doesn’t this constant reliance on cigarettes to momentarily free their minds of problems portray EXTREME weakness of character?
And of course chewed paan spitted across streets, buildings and offices as well as a big red smile from the most literate and respectable of people is a norm in these countries! As a leisure good, it isn’t harmful but an excess of even the best of commodities will harm anyone. Reliance on paan, as well as cigarettes to some extent, allows several greater evils to seep into society unknowingly. They deceive the dependent into thinking it is alright to rely on other means to free their minds, which has lead to the proliferation of drug abuse and alcoholism among our youth (which is really another story for another time!)
Hence, although they seem to be harmless leaves of tea, tobacco or paan, and it may only be my own personal vendetta against the three that makes me so vocal about them; their long-run social costs are many and need to be realized! And it may be true that the country is progressing in some ways and that there are bigger and more important issues on the government’s ‘mind’ like ‘roti, kapra aur makaan’, these issues nonetheless are just as important and are inevitably holding us back from progressing into the ‘enlightened moderate’ nation that our President continuously refers to!
The Rape of Iraq
It took a long time, but finally someone just used the right words to describe the so-called war in Iraq. It’s a Rape, not a war. Diane Christian’s article at Counterpunch.org is an insightful article for all the supporters and detractors of this rape.
“Let’s stop using the word war to describe our action in Iraq. While it is terribly true that we are killing and maiming and destroying and being killed and maimed and morally destroyed we should shelve the word war. It constructs a righteous cause and compels a rhetoric of winning. Winning sets figures of contest and domination and triumph and prevailing victory and honoring those who died in the cause, “We are committed to winning. It is our only course,” says Cheney.â€?
“Rape stories don’t usually end well. The rapist is a brute and often a deceiver, not a successful romancer. Rape cannot force love or alliance. How then can we forge honor from the Iraq story? Staying the course seems honorable to many, like taking responsibility, fixing what you broke. But rape cannot be fixed by force. It is stubbornness, willful pride, pure error to compound the violation.â€?
“Americans seem blind to the brutality of violent action but super-sensitive to sexual acts. So perhaps the rape analogy might penetrate the obdurate callous war story we perpetrated and persist in. Rape is harder to spin, closer to skin, ugly. Accurate.
No face-saving fiction is credible now. We need to face our face as rapist and despoiler and change it. However well-meaning and heroic we might wish to appear, intentions cannot transform the actions of barbarism and terror.
Rape is a love story only for sociopaths.�
By DIANE CHRISTIAN
The complete article can be found at http://www.counterpunch.org/christian12232006.html
This excerpt taken from the article briefly but clearly describes the phenomenon that is “Iraq�. Iraq now is not just a country in a state of turmoil; it’s a wake up call for the West to its cavalier attitudes and its doctrines.
The inherent problem with the perpetrators of the Iraq rape, the Americans, is that even after the mass genocide of the innocent Iraqis at their hand for no reason whatsoever, they still try to and want to find justifications that consoles themselves. There is a general apathy for the Iraqis that are being killed, even the media, to a certain extent, is a partner in this crime. When the Three Thousandth US soldier died since the start of this rape, it was specifically mentioned by all the media channels including the internet. What is even worse is that it was mentioned along with this statement that the “three thousand death toll surpasses that of 9/11 attacks�. Its a Vietnam in Iraq. If this war was fought by robots, the West in general and the Americans in particular would’ve had no problem with it even if it went on for a decade.
Rape is the ultimate fantasy of the modern man and after fulfilling his fantasy, he proudly shrugs off the filth of guilt and walks away. America is the modern man.