Straight Lines on the Map
Iraq didn't exist before World War II. Nor did Iran, nor Jordan ... quite a few of the countries we take for granted in the Middle East are newly created. They were invented by the British, the French, the Russians and, of course, the Americans. Spheres of Influence, the new, polite term for colonies, were divided up by the super Powers. Some were given as rewards to particular Arab nobles who had helped in our war efforts.
The divisions were arbitrary, done by placing a ruler on a map and drawing straight lines, ignoring the multitude of native peoples and their thousands of years of cultures. Thus the Kurds had their territory divided over the three countries of Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
None of the new countries, with their mixed populations, was peaceful. They had to be ruled with an iron hand, a brutal hidden secret police and constant pogroms similar to those practiced on a grander scale by Stalin in order to maintain the illusion of peace. Or, as we in the West preferred to call it, stability.
We wanted stability because it allowed us to obtain cheap oil products, such as gasoline costing less than we pay for bottled water. Stability required brutal repression, so we supported some of the most brutal regimes in the history of the planet. We still do.
But the populations of those countries, in addition to somehow maintaining their individual ethnic identities, have discovered what happened to them. They have learned that we are responsible for the mysterious disappearance of their loved ones in the night, often because of no more than a rumor of opposition to the ruling powers.
They don't like us very much.
Now we've discovered that Saddam Hussein isn't very nice. To stay in power he's had to kill people, his own people, lots of them. We've started chanting some ridiculous nursery rhyme about Weapons of Mass Destruction, as if Saddam would use such devices for anything but a source of quick income, and we're telling the world he's not a very nice person. It's open season on Saddam. We're even saying he promotes terrorism, as if that were something new, and we're acting as if we were threatened by anything he was capable of doing after bankrupting his country in a pointless war for about a decade and then being blockaded and embargoed.
Suppose we go to war with Iraq. What kind of message will that send to all of the other sadistic regimes we've been supporting in the Middle East? Your days are numbered? Stability isn't enough?
Think of the Middle East as a big ceramic bowl. You whack any part of it with your big old hammer and the whole thing will come apart, right before your eyes. It may take a couple of years but it will probably take less than a decade.
Then you can kiss your SUV goodbye. Get a bicycle and plan to do a lot of walking.
Comments (5)
This area of the world has been at war for one reason or another throughout recorded history. You are right though, war with Iraq will not be the end; it will be the beginning.
As always, we create the problems and then point the finger and blame someone else. I wouldn't mind riding a bicycle as long as their weren't so many SUVs trying to run me over.
Thank you for the history lesson - there was a few things that I learnt there. I am well aware of America's support for corrupt regimes - it is really, clearly transparent. I am beginning to learn that no army is really good, and others bad. (That is what America - and Britain - try to portray.) Corruption exists on all sides - and that is where propaganda rears its ugly head, to make people think that they are on the good side. (It is like an old Western re-run starring John Wayne.) The diference is, we are living in the real world, here.
Come to think of it, the Western example is very appropriate...another example of European expansionism.
Actually, I do ride a bike - I never really got used to the roads over here...everything is mirror image. Bikes are cool - and they keep you healthy.
want to play a game? join us at are you worthy for the newest xanga not so reality game....
I'm with you except for the oil thing. I don't think this is about oil, for our leading sources of oil are Canada and Mexico. This is just Noriega on a larger scale.
Comments are closed.