Kafkaesque

When I think of the current political climate in the U.S. with wars abroad and creeping protectionism, it almost seems surreal. I think that may be they way these neo-conservatives want it. Given their impetuous focus on preemption, regime change and benevolent hegemony, it is only logical that they continue to distort what is actually going on in the world around us in an effort to front as if what they do serves American best interest.

Such ideological predominance makes it seems that foreign policy is rooted on fake moral imperatives that only a few select folks seem to gain benefit from. By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a problem they said they were trying to abate: they managed to make Iraq the new bastion for terrorism. I still cannot see how these folks concluded that democracy in the Middle East would be the solution to ending terrorism? This is the dumbest shit I have ever heard since Santa Claus.

This concept of benevolent hegemony is another errant concoction. The assumption is that America is benevolent, which is absurd in itself, as if a country founded on slavery and sustained on racist principles can be virtuous, incorruptible, inculpable, and/or righteous in the first place.

We need to re-think our foreign policy approach and do so quickly before we see more of our homeboys going off to foreign lands to fight wars that we gain no betterment from, as if they were the foreign legion protecting the great imperial nation state of America. Having no articulated approach to our foreign policy, especially in the Arab/Islamic regions of the world is another reflection of how little we know or care for what other think and borders on being Kafkaesque.

I suggest this because the Bush Administration has presented a distorted view of actually how dangerous folks in the Middle East are towards us. It’s not like it is anything new, in fact I would note that these views have been consistent since the Knights of Templar and the establishment of Israel. The terms come from the famous writer Frantz Kafka, who wrote two of my favorites (the penal colony and metamorphosis). Franz Kafka was one of the most influential writers of this century. His works were not even published until after his death and often presented a picture of a belligerent and detached world. This is the kind of world I presume President Bush projects based on his approach (if any) to foreign policy alone.

not mine

History can be a judicious teacher. However, not all have the aptitude to learn from the past. With Respect to Iraq, this can be stated in inordinate respects. It is understandable the Bush Administration did not heed the lessons of the thirty some odd years the British were in Iraq. Nor have they learned that one cannot build an army in a country that is occupied by the US – at least not the last four or five times the US has invaded a sovereign nation and attempted to build an army (Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua to name a few).

Most prominently is not learning from Haiti in 1915. Like the Bush Administration, the Woodrow Wilson Administration fabricated a reason to enter a foreign country. The U.S. Occupation of Haiti was said to have been implemented to keep the Germans from establishing submarine bases in the country. The real reason for Wilson’s use of the military was to protect US business interest. History shows us that US presidents recurrently use the military (marines specifically) to protect financial interest abroad. Wilson like Bush desired to impose an American solution on a country that was unable to govern itself. We have failed miserably at building armies across the glob and usually, we end up with an autocratic despot or dictator in charge. Yes, this has happened each time we have removed leadership in power of sovereign nations and attempted to drop American political attributes on non American populations.

The concern is that Bush won’t tell us, the citizens of the United States of America the truth – what business interest are we protecting? Not Mine!