Oil and ideology lead to a ‘war’ in name only

    Are we at war?
    After all, the toppling of Saddam’s regime was over very quickly. Afterwards, the re-invasion of Iraq was no longer a conflict between nations or even well-defined factions.
    This “war” is ideological, a war against an abstract noun. So abstract, in fact, this “war” serves as justification for whatever this administration chooses to do.
    One idiosyncrasy of the War on Terror is that it is only the administration that is allowed to know, at any given time,with whom we are at war. This situation in Iraq is clearly no longer a war in the normal sense, but a failed attempt by the  military to engineer a democratic revolution. Considering this, with whom are we at war?
    We have been misled by talk of the “insurgency.” We tend to forget that most of the violence in Iraq is not even directed towards the U.S. Army! Indeed,  most of the deaths in Iraq are results of Iraqis murdering one another. So I’ll ask again: Are we at war?
    The conflict in Iraq, as in most of the Middle East, is an ethnic and religious conflict: Jews vs. Muslims, Sunni vs. Shiite, and so on. But with Bush’s re-invasion, the conflict is also an economic one. First world vs. third world. Rich vs. poor. The oil-hungry Western nations versus the impoverished citizens of Saddam’s Iraq. These same people are just desperate enough to take up arms against the evil in the world, those whom they perceive to be the source of the difficulty and impoverishment of their existence. The reason for the futility of their loftier dreams.
    The paradigm shift in the structure of the global economic situation often inevitably leads such individuals to see the United States as the source of the hell their lives have become, the reason things are so bad where they are.         Almost needless to say, this war has only intensified the hatred directed against us. This hatred, this finger-pointing, this obsession with absolutes, is a betrayal of fear and desperation. So, we must be careful if we are not to fall into this appealing trap as well. Like our president’s use of the word “evil,” radical Muslim clerics often rhetorically identify the U.S. as “the Great Satan”—and Israel, “the Little Satan”- which is really a symptom of their and our own powerlessness and resentment.
    Extremist ideologies must provide an enemy, and it’s so much better when the enemy is an idea and can never die. This way, the struggle will be eternal.
    The fundamentalist’s jihad is a spiritual emblem of individual resistance against the absolute power of the Western transnational corporations in the late capitalist global market. On the other hand, for Lockheed-Martin and Halliburton, the war is not nearly as life-threatening,  but equally as serious. For the wealthy, war is a business, the secular religion of our modern society. Whereas their fundamentalism justifies their individual jihads against “Satan,” our fundamentalism justifies our corporate crusade for profit.
    It’s naïve to think the war in Iraq has made us safer, or has done anything but provide a front line for an ideological war. Thus, it  senselessly fuels the already blazing fires of class and religious war on every side of the whole conflict with the Middle East.
    Ultimately, much of the current conflict in the Middle East is structured by the encroachment of globalization into these ancient ethnic feuds. In fact, the Iraq war can be seen as the prime example of this new style of what is essentially the ancient practice of profiteering; also known as imperial imposition of Western economic power into the Middle East.
    The conflict with Iraq is a clear example of the futility of squandering our young people’s lives  by getting mixed up in conflicts that didn’t involve us, but which we claimed as ours.
    But why?
    What could be the real motivation behind launching a re-invasion of Iraq?
    The answer is two-fold: oil and ideology. Greed and hatred are what started the conflict in the Middle East in the first place. Money and hegemony are why we’re mixed up in this “war” which is not a war.  
    Rationally, we know the solution to these conflicts is not going to be military invasion, but the subtle art of negotiation. The fighting can’t stop until there are peace talks, which can’t begin until we quit speaking and fighting over absolutes.
    But abstract pacifism is just as idiotic as fundamentalism, and just as unethical. Of course, we have to stand up to threats, but we must resist the urge to use our power irrationally, vengefully or wastefully. We have to find this perfect line and never waver: We must actively promote peace, as well as assess threats logically.
    We must have the courage to admit we made a mistake with Iraq. We should have the balls to admit we screwed up, squandering the lives of our brothers and sisters for such paltry, hateful ends. Let’s listen to what the rest of the world has been telling us. Let’s find the courage to listen to our own consciences. Let’s bring our troops home.
Send responses to
colonnadeletters@gcsu.edu

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 29 2006. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry