IDEAS

Anyone who has a child knows that you can never make a 4 year old do anything they don't want to. The best you can hope for is that they stop just long enough, to notice the example you have to set for them.

So goes the war in Iraq now in it's 4th full year.

Rather than set a proper example for this 4 year old 3rd world child to follow, the US and the greater Western 1st world is guilty of nothing short of child abuse and endangerment.

Despotism:
In the 80's the west enabled, encouraged, and indulged Saddam Hussain in his murderous reign of horror over Iraq. Tacitly supporting and even endorsing the development and use of the very same weapons of mass destruction, later to be used as the excuse for full invasion- excuse me, liberation. In fact, Saddam did possess weapons of mass destruction as was claimed. Because the West sold them to him. This is also why he had that WTF! look on his face during his brief arrest.

Colonialism:
Initially and right after the invasion- I'm sorry, liberation of Iraq, the West reverted to the tried and true turrets syndrome and re-awakened reflex of Colonization of the lesser state. With the usual and typical strategy of natural resource "re-allocation". Or to put it bluntly, the Oil. "No Blood for Oil!" mantras of the anti-war, liberal, friction, fraction groups fell on the world's deaf SUV driving ears. The matter of factly-fact is that if we indeed pay for oil with blood, the issue to those in charge, becomes immediately cold and calculated. Exactly how much blood for how much oil? To be "crude" and slightly more obscene about it, the average daily dead US soldiers in Iraq (at this writing dead Iraqis still don't count) contain around 5 gallons of blood. With daily oil production of Iraq around 2 million barrels that amounts to roughly 17 million gallons of oil for each gallon of premium unleaded US blood. If you factor the 150 gallons of regular leaded Iraqi blood, you'd still get 500,000 gallons of oil. Each day. So you can see how compelling the policy makers' arguments are. Even if entirely archaically barbaric. On a scale that would scare the piss out of Cronenberg.

Federalism:
Congratulations everybody, now that Iraq is free, you can all be one big happy Iraq! It's called federalism, and if you will just be quiet and listen to the Shiites who are now going to be a majority and run the juicy stuff, and if you Kurds would stop your ethnic talk of independence and baby step towards just the edges of the 20th century for a minute, and you Sunnis who had it way too good under Saddam would step aside for a bit, we can let the healing begin!

And finally! Good old Tribalism!
Nothing like an out dated obsolete military general with no clue as to how the world, nevermind the Pentagon's IT services has changed since 1972, to conclude that after all of this military experimentalism, the one solution left to try now, is Tribalism. How quaint! How blissfully lovely it must feel to re-awaken long thought (and hoped) dead tribal traditions and see quirky costumes and observe bizarrely interesting customs of those grinning fuzzy brown people, you actually couldn't care less about. And how easily it seems to be to completely abandon the much touted Democratization of the Middle East strategy initially sold as the ultimate showcase goal of this exercise in resume building. Now that the actual implementation of it turns out to be a tad more complicated than the sterile (yet Kosher!) Wolfowitz powerpoint presentation suggested.

Tribalism or the regional rule of powerful families, akin to the perpetually virally feudal warlords in Afghanistan, or even pre-industrialization Samurai culture of Japan, is an archaic outdated, and inherently oppressive system. One best relegated to history.google.com or Wikipedia to be revised at the slightest whim. That one's family name entitles him (no, never her) to absolute and unquestionable power. Regionally to be sure, but absolute nonetheless.

Tribalism is inherently un-Democratic. People in, or rather under a tribal system have little say in matters of the tribe. Strangely Ironic, that the re-emergence of this system is the one highlighted as the only bright point of optimism in the General's report to congress this week. I guess it must just be militarily too darn difficult to actually occupy a defenseless country these days. I guess $400 Billion just doesn't seem to go as far as it used to. Much better to arm the same street toughs who just yesterday used your own black market bought guns to shoot at you. "Time Out! Time Out!, OK, You guys, are now on our side!"

So, as in Afghanistan, growing parts of Pakistan, and sadly now Iraq, we do not see the encouragement of a mind shift towards the free individual, rule by debate and majority, or even equality under the law. We are left to be continually led by globally inept morons, ignorant of any history, too lazy and too eager to drag us back to easily re-animated bad past habits through oppressively and uninterestingly boring tribal rituals. Not De, Un Evolution.

The lack of respect that the slightest shade of brown people get in this world, that the West not once considers them worthy of any of the God Du Jours' gift of freedom they so gluttonously squander into their own fat pasty faces, is shatteringly insulting to humanity's self directed struggle toward a more fair- no, completely fair, social order.

So dance for the white man in the uniform, Rasheed, shake those colorful beads Zahra, and flash those brightly decorated traditional costumes Lateef, they'll soon get bored and go away. Then you can get back to text messaging your BFF and meet them at BK later. OMG! Did you see Britney at the VMAs!