Document leaks and Neo-Colonialism. . . .

There are already numerous condemnations of yesterday's leaks of documents relating to the war in Afghanistan, including one bizarre Liberal blogger calling for the death penalty. Of course how one feels about the leaks will largely reflect how one feels about the war. Only those with the most blind acceptance of the Western spin on the war could possibly talk about the death-penalty regarding such leaks. The Western spin is really pretty  simple and is very similar to the kinds of spin that the West has been using since the beginning of the era of colonialism with a few particulars for time and place. If you buy this story you essentially believe that the Western nations were essentially 'innocent' victims of a set of more or less crazy Muslim fundamentalists (the so-called Taliban) who, so the West would have us believe, were operating out of Afghanistan. According to this view, the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan were part of a concerted effort to undermine these Muslim organizations who have little more against Western nations than "hating our freedoms."

This view has as little to do with recent events than the "white-man's burden" of 'spreading religion and civilization to ignorant heathens' had to do with the real motivations of Western colonialism. First of all to accept the idea of an innocent West being the target or victim of an irrational radical Muslim movement is to ignore centuries of history. Whether one agrees with their reasons or not, one cannot ignore that Arabs and Muslims have much to be chagrined about when it comes to Western actions in various Muslim regions. If one payed close attention to the events immediately following the events of 911 you could discern the real political issues that were at stake. When Bin Laden was seen on video taking credit for the tragic events in NYC he gave three primary reasons for these events. These reasons were 1. the sanctions that the West used against Iraq in the 1990s which by all independent reports were responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of children. 2. The continued presence of Western military forces in Saudi Arabia, and 3. The brutality and hypocrisy with which the Palestinians have been treated by Western Nations. Regardless of one's political viewpoint, these are legitimate political concerns which, regardless of their source, need to be treated seriously. This does not justify the events of 911, but it does cast considerable doubt on the Western image of Bin Laden as nothing but a mad religious fanatic hell-bent on the destruction of the West simply because he hates modern social democracy. Furthermore, there were in fact few, or even no, genuine 'terrorist' camps in Afghanistan. Rural Pakistan was, and continues to be, the real location of most of the so-called 'terrorist' organizations about which the West professed to be concerned.

The Western nations later replaced their 'terrorist' camps arguments with talk of altruistic concerns about the people of Afghanistan. But if one takes a realistic political (that is to say 'real politik') viewpoint, one can hardly be fooled by all the spin concerning the Western motivations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And if one had been paying attention in the nineties one would know that men like Dick Cheney had long made plans for consolidating US power and influence in the Middle East and other geo-politically sensitive areas. To buy into talk of altruism or a defense of justice and democracy on the part of the West seems to me to be hopelessly naive. Though the altruistic spin is still prevalent in the days of neo-colonialism as it once was with real colonialism, it is just as specious. As with most, if not all, wars Afghanistan and Iraq are about money and power. The war in Iraq is now the most expensive war ever waged and much of the money spent has been diverted to large Western corporations. Billions of dollars of average tax-payers' money has been gathered and diverted to arms makers and dealers as well as other kinds of corporations. Other monies have been spent (largely in untraceable cash) buying support from warlords (both in Afghanistan and Iraq)  for Western interests. This support is much wider than it once was but also as shallow as the stacks of cash which will eventually run out. And despite the talk of 7% more girls going to school in Afghanistan, all the Western efforts in that country have done is to prop up a dubious government which has little or no democratic legitimacy and which continues to sponsor laws such as the death-penalty for homosexuality. While propping up the Afghan dictatorship (run by Pro-Western politicians and self-interested war-lords) the West continues to support numerous other dictatorships in the region where women have few or no legal rights and where the governments don't even go through the motions of 'democracy.' The existence of a perpetual enemy (a la  1984) which justifies not only the extension of Western power and the diversion of government funds from average people to powerful corporations, are the real motivations of these wars. If the West had really been interested in peace and the living conditions of people in the region they would have used a small portion of the monies spent in those wars and constructed a viable and prosperous Palestinian State as well as bringing greater democracy to other close Western allies.

With these issues in mind, I see the recent document leaks as part of an effort to lay bare the actions of governments engaged in a neo-colonial effort to further dominate a region where oil plays a central role in nation building. Just as anti-colonialists like Gandhi and Franz Fanon were engaged in concerted efforts to expose the real motivations of Western Colonialism, people must now engage in an effort to expose the real motivations behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Strategy and morality. . . .

I find it strange that people boast about their leader being a brilliant or formidable tactician in the field of politics. In making this claim these people are often willingly reducing politics to nothing more than a game. Yet we all know, the qualities we claim to desire, and should desire, in our representatives are honesty, straightforwardness, respectfulness, courtesy, commitment, compassion, etc. But when we boast that our party leader is admirable because of his ability to out maneuver other duly elected representatives, we are simply confirming that our leader has dispensed with the admirable principles that we claim to stand for. The application of strategic consciousness to the issues of politics clearly undermines in most cases the moral qualities that we seek to implement in our system. Of course this is not necessarily true all the time. Gandhi, for one, applied strategy in order to achieve his political goals. But he was always straightforward about his strategic process. His approach would be to say we are doing x to achieve y. He didn't pretend, for example, that he was engaging in the great salt march in order to have better relations with the British colonial government. He didn't claim to fast in order to encourage people to eat fewer somosas. No, clearly strategy can, if made with honest disclosure, be a principled thing. But it certainly is not so in the recent examples of our politicians. 

People have bragged in the past about Stephen Harper's strategic prowess. But in every case of his supposed genius, it is being applied in a dishonest way and with the goal of shutting down real political discourse. He didn't say, I am breaking my own election law because this is a good opportunity for me to acquire a majority. He didn't say I am proroging parliament in order to avoid a legitimate vote of confidence. And recently he didn't say he was proroging parliament in order to buy himself time on the Afghan issue. Yet we all know that was what was going on. That is not strategy, that is just dishonesty. When people brag about their leader's strategic genius the litmus test should not be "does this effectively undermine my political opposition?" The question they should always ask themselves is; is my leader being honest and straightforward in the pursuit of his political goals? 

One thing to consider is the psychology of this process. Only if you are being honest about your goals can you be honest about the outcomes. Many people observed that George Bush seemed congenitally incapable of admitting he was wrong or had made a mistake.. This is generally because he was seldom honest about his political motivations so an admission of error would make no sense.  Stephen Harper cannot, for example, admit that he made a mistake proroging parliament because his stated goals (choose which every one you want among the several that he has used) were an effort at  're-calibrating his budget agenda to better serve Canadians.' Admitting that he was wrong would make no sense within this context. An admission of error could only come if he could admit that there was some incongruity between his goal and the outcome. Instead what you find men like Bush and Harper doing is continually shifting the grounds of their stated goals in order to try to avoid admission of error. Bush of course famously invoked 911 before he invaded Iraq, when this became problematic, he invoked 'Weapons of Mass-Destruction,' and when that failed he attempted to make it all an issue of human rights and democracy, and then toward the end when all else failed you would occasionally hear some vague reference to 'stability in the region' etc. And of course, Harper has recently done the same thing with prorogation. Because he will not admit publicly what his actual intentions were, he is forced to constantly shift his stated intention. 

Gandhi's great salt march was a way of highlighting an immoral law, and a method of inspiring a people. It was clear direct and honest. Indeed it was a strategy but its goal was not to undermine Gandhi's political opponents through trickery. Gandhi was not taking advantages of loopholes in the law and then misrepresenting his actions as something they weren't. It is about time we stopped admiring politicians simply because they sometime outmaneuver their opponents and start admiring politicians who state their goals clearly and portray their strategic moves honestly.

The Visitor

I turned my last blog post into a parody of the Conservative attack ads. Tell me what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWpJLIZR1Vg&feature=channel_page

Was Gandhi a carpet-bagger?

In response to the sickening attack ads recently published by the Conservatives, I offer this small tidbit of information. Mohandas K. Gandhi left Indian in 1888 to study law in London after which he lived in South Africa for twenty-one years. During his time in South Africa Gandhi moved the nation and contributed significantly to the cause of the oppressed. When Gandhi returned to India after approximately 26 years he was greeted as a hero for the work he had done in the cause of justice. Even the poor and uneducated of India in the early years of the 20^th century were able to look beyond their boarders and recognize that a contribution to the world by one of their own enriched all of them. Of course, as we all know, Gandhi went on to contribute incalculably to the nation of India both culturally and politically. Who would dare call this man a carpet-bagger?