HOUSE OF PAINE blog

The study of economics, properly understood, develops an understanding of the role of incentives in human action. Americans who have heretofore focused their attentions on who the next “American Idol” will be, have suddenly been introduced to the cost/benefit considerations of what has come to be known as “health care.” Those who approached the nationalization of this major industry with only the superficial awareness provided by politicians and their lapdog media, are now beginning to grasp its broader implications for the control of human life.

The politicians who supported this measure are likewise discovering that the benefits they received – from whatever sources – from this legislation, carry with them costs unwanted by those whose lives will be burdened by it. A number of people – not all of them operating as agents provocateurs – have reportedly threatened these politicos with bodily harm for having supported the measure. With such overwhelming public opposition from their constituents to this bill, it should not be surprising that those who naively assumed that elected officials represented them – rather than the institutional interests that stood to benefit from it – would become angry. What the congressional sock-puppets are experiencing is the social application of Newton’s “third law of motion”: that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

With the government schools performing as they do, it may be understandable that such a basic principle of physics would not have been introduced to them. Nonetheless, life experiences do provide empirical evidence of the universality of such an idea. Intelligent minds have slowly awakened to the role of Newton’s third law in the World Trade Center attacks: if you engage in violence against others, your victims will have an incentive to retaliate. If you contravene the wills of those who elected you to represent their interests, you should not be surprised to discover that they are angry with you!

The response of the politicians to these isolated threats reveals the utterly dishonest nature of all political systems. CNN informs us that “Democrats discuss concerns with police, FBI.” If these legislators truly believed that they were acting in the interests of those who voted for them – instead of the corporations and governmental bureaucracies who promoted the measure – why don’t the “Democrats discuss concerns” with their alleged constituencies? Why do they not attend a genuine “town hall” meeting – instead of the staged and well-scripted charades – and explain to an angry electorate how government-controlled medicine will work to their benefit? Perhaps veterans of military hospitals – such as Walter Reed – might show up to relate their experiences.

That congressmen would instinctively call upon the police and FBI for protection is a clear admission of who such agencies are designed “to serve and protect.” Media voices – intent on keeping their jobs – warble in unison the refrain “violence, and threats of violence are unacceptable” in society. What this means, of course, is that “violence” and “threats” that have not been sanctioned by the state are “unacceptable.” Government is defined as an agency that enjoys a monopoly on the use of violence within a given geographical territory. The state does not operate as a peaceful, voluntary system, a fact that is quickly discovered by the reading of statutes: “violation of any provision of this Act shall be punishable by a fine of $X and/or imprisonment.” Every act of government rests on the threat that violators will meet with violence – even death – should they disobey. Try explaining to the men, women, and children of Iraq and Afghanistan that “violence, and threats of violence are unacceptable” to the American government!

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On the occasion of this seventh anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq on March 20, I am reading a book: Cultural Cleansing in Iraq. Why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered. The basic thesis is that the purpose of the war was, from the onset, the destruction of the Iraqi state. But there is more: cultural cleansing, tolerating the looting of museums, the burning of libraries and the murder of academics was part of the war strategy, the authors argue. State ending will certainly become established as a concept, alongside genocide and its derivatives, such as urbicide (destruction of cities), sociocide (destruction of social fabric) mnemocide (destruction of collective memory). We can only hope because, unfortunately these concepts and their intertwinement do not only apply to Iraq.

There was a lot of press coverage about the looting of the museums, albeit press reports didn’t put responsibility with the occupying powers, as the international laws of war stipulate; and without identifying it as a strategy of “mnenocide”. In contrast, after all these years a deafening silence has reigned on the hundreds of academics who have been victims of targeted assassinations in Iraq. Strange. In the first three months of the occupation 250 academics were killed. The Brussels Tribunal has now a list of 437 casualties, a list that serves as a worldwide reference. Because the professors who documented these killings and disappearances have been killed or forced to flee the country, it is increasingly harder to keep this list up to date. According to the Christian Science Monitor, by June 2006, already 2500 academics were killed, kidnapped or driven out of the country. Nobody knows how many have been murdered until today. We do know that thousands have been threatened — often by envelopes containing bullets — and fled. Alongside academics also media professionals, doctors, engineers and spiritual leaders have been targets of intimidation, kidnapping and murder. It is important to know that, in the case of academics, it’s not about sectarian killing, because statistics show that there is no pattern in the murders. Professors in leading positions have especially been targeted, and not just Baathists.

These murders have never being investigated, the culprits never found let alone prosecuted. How come? Perhaps because both the occupiers and the new rulers in Iraq thought it was not important. Or maybe because death squads are part of their strategy, like formerly in El Salvador. That is what the book claims: the murder of academics was and is part of the “Salvador Option”.

Conclusion of the authors? The goal was to liquidate the intellectual class, which would naturally be the basis for a new democratic state. It is that sinister. So sinister that it is difficult to believe. And yet it is true: the elimination of academics and other professionals from the middle class served the first and highest war aim: the destruction of the Iraqi state. “State-ending” instead of “nation building”. According to the editors of the book, this war objective was a decision taken when three parties aligned: the neoconservatives who wanted permanent bases in a geopolitical strategy of military domination; Israel that did not want a powerful state in its backyard; and the oil industry that wanted to lay its hands on one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

Worldwide protests from the academic community would be nice. But one minute of silence for their murdered colleagues will not suffice. Because, and that makes it so overwhelming, all this is just the tip of the iceberg: the children who are born severely deformed by the use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium, the lack of potable water, electricity and health care, the destruction of the educational system which results in a lost generation, the 1.2 million deaths and five million refugees — all these things combined make the Iraq war the biggest war crime and the largest man-made humanitarian catastrophe in decades. And it continues. There is little or no hope of improvement, especially not after the recent elections. Add to this the countless bombings and the sectarian disintegration of the country and you have a picture of hell. And we, we all look more and more the other way.

Even Bush has been proven right with his famous quote shown on the deck of the USS Lincoln that first May of 2003: “Mission accomplished”.

Indeed, Iraq is destroyed.

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