Atheist Meditations

They say that Machiavelli's 'The Prince' is a book that is much more often quoted from than read. That's because pulling a few one liners out of it make nice dressings for some lame ass fiction novel or a book on chess tactics, but to actually read it; that's not the kind of information that you need to have. Some folks just can't get their head around the fact that the ruling class has a different view of the world, a different understanding of history and a different moral education. 'The Prince' is a written attempt by the author to explain to a young relative how the game works (egg heads still argue about who the young relative really was, but more importantly, the work was meant to show to Niccolo's betters that he could be tapped as a strategist) - he knew the deal.

For whatever interesting reason, perhaps for its novelty, perhaps due to the sharpness of Machiavelli's spare prose, it has found a place in the literary canon - i.e. poor working trash like you and me can buy it at Amazon.com. I suppose they figure that something written like five centuries ago can't be all that telling.

They could not be more fucking wrong. The fact that elite behavior has not changed noticeably in multiple centuries is alone a marvelous kernel to grasp. Would that more did. . .

Would that more of my fellow fucking citizens could get it into their head that a millionaire in Mexico does not have all that much in common with a Mexican street musician. He's got a lot more in common with a millionaire in America or China, more than enough to easily over-ride 'Mexican Pride.' Patriotism is a cynical tool to fuckers like George W, you don't hold hands with Saudi princes cuz it's good for the troops . . .

The example that inspired this posting is today's interview with Barry Lando, formerly of 60 Minutes, on Democracy Now!, (if you are not listening to DN! everyday, you're probably a fucking worthless traitor to America who does not know a fucking thing about what is happening in the 'land of the free.' With the Internet, someone could stay on top of all the bullshit with some diligent reading, but when true journalists are providing such a quality service. . .) His latest book, Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, From Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush, generates some damn interesting thought processes.

I've hated and opposed the Second Bush Crusade since I first saw the twinkle of it in that moral midget's eyes years ago. If only for the reason that placing a large number of western, predominately christian soldiers into the Holy Land was just a totally fucking stupid Idea. I've never gotten past that, and I've never yet been proven wrong. I may not be religious, but I understand religion enough to guesstimate a fucking obvious result of invading a Muslim country with christian troops. The average American might not be able to summarize the Crusades (or even the Middle Ages), but the average Muslim sure as fuck can. I thought I was pretty well versed in the region/conflict for a guy who has never set foot on that hemisphere, and doesn't speak a word of Arabic. Mr. Lando's statements surprised the shit out of me.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, speak briefly about that uprising, because it's very significant for Iraqis’ view of the United States, too, and it involved President Bush, Sr.

BARRY LANDO: Yeah. To me, the uprising and what happened is really key, in a way, to what's going on there today. As Saddam had invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, and the United States moved in to push him out of Kuwait, when they did, George Bush called on the people of Iraq publicly, called on them to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. This call was relayed by the CIA’s secret radio stations all over Iraq, and US airplanes also dropped millions of pamphlets over Iraq, telling the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam. And they did. And the uprising spread like wildfire across southern Iraq. These were among the Shiites. The Kurds also rose up.

Then, the US, Bush Sr. and James Baker, became worried, because they realized they weren’t going to be able to control this uprising. They had wanted a military coup, a nice, neat military coup that in the end they could really control. But what, in fact, happened was a popular revolt. They were worried that perhaps Iran would come in, would try to make use of it; that the Kurds would try to set up an independent country that would disturb Turkey, their allies; that the Saudis wouldn’t like what was going on there. And so, they turned their back on the uprising.

They allowed Saddam to continue using his helicopters to attack the villages, and the Shiites had no way of fighting back against these helicopters. And when the Shiites came to American lines -- I spoke to a Special Forces officer who was just a few kilometers away from where the uprising was going on -- you had the Shiites coming to the American lines and saying, “Look, we're not asking you to fight for us. Just give us weapons. We will fight ourselves.” The Americans had hundreds of millions of dollars of arms that they had seized from the defeated Iraqi military. They destroyed those weapons, rather than turn them over to the rebels.

In another case, we were told that they blocked one rebel column from trying to march on Baghdad. They refused to meet with any of the insurgent leaders, who were desperately trying to talk to the Americans. The Americans refused to even talk to them, on the Kurdish side and on the Shiite side. So, finally, the revolt was over, and Saddam came in and killed, slaughtered, anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 Shiites.

He also mentions how U.S. elites did not want either Iran or Iraq to grow in power, so after Carter goaded Saddam into attacking Iran via Saudi proxies, they sold weapons to both sides and our U.S. military even gave satellite intelligence to both sides . . . they gave mass troop movement intel to Iraq knowing that they would use chemical weapons on the revealed targets.

Play one side against another just so you can dominate the decimated survivors. Instigate an uprising and then leave them to die - fuck, you'd think these Bush's were Roman Emperors, not leaders of a supposedly liberal democracy.

That's my point: the Roman empire ruled its empire with some ingeniously fucking brutal tactics. So did the British, and so has America for that last few hundred years. The ruling classes are well versed in the sort of dark wisdom that Machiavelli outlines in his famous work; childish christians condemn it as evil, rational fuckers just accept that the ruling class adopt the most successful of tactics for maintaining their status. It would be odd if they did not. You can believe that a magical father figure sits on a throne in the sky and loves you, you can believe that America's leaders are uniquely moral and concerned with the welfare of all Americans -either way, you are a fucking waste of human potential.