The Politics of Demofascism and Self-Immolation

Demofascism, people oppressing people, as well as self-immolation in various forms--ecological, economic or suicidal--have become major features in global politics. Muslim extremists call the U.S. the "Great Satan" and promise "death to Americans" while American pundits call for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and advocate killing the leaders in Muslim nations and converting the population to Christianity. Both sides are intensely provocative which reciprocally entails demofascist and self-immolative policies.

In 1950, Truman, enlisting multilateralism and collective security, termed the Korean War a "U. N. police action." After 9/11, Bush, deserting multilateralism and collective security and strongly embarking upon unilateralism and pre-emption, relentlessly called his policy against terrorism a "war." He said it would last 5, 10, l5 years. Lately, he indicated it may last "generations." His desertion of collective security increased the unilateral insecurity of the U.S.. As it turned out, unprecedented deception and blunders of historic proportion were committed that ultimately benefited Al Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden pretends to express democratic sentiments that cross international boundaries and that aim to bring democracy to royalist Arabic countries. Bush, too, promises to bring democracy to the Middle East. Both want the same and pretend to serve the masses. Yet, the supporters of both practice demofascism. Both missed alternatives which would have been far less costly and much more acceptable. Osama, instead of murdering 3000 innocent people, could have maintained the tradition of non-violence of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. He chose not to. Bush, instead of using military brutality to impose democracy in a most undemocratic fashion, could have used a fraction of its monetary cost to secure the favor of Afghans and Iraqis. So far, the war costs each year have been roughly equal to the annual GDP of Afghanistan and Iraq!! A mere fraction of this could have been used to sway the population into any direction Bush had wanted. As it evolved, the costs constitute a form of economic self-immolation for the U.S.

With false promises and lots of self-delusions and with plenty of propaganda, each side gained sufficient popular support to become demofascist. Mixed in with religious extremism on both sides, the resulting witch's brew has all the hallmarks of a long-term modified equivalent of another Cold-Hot War lasting decades and costing trillions, on top of the heavy loss of lives and serious ecological degradation.

In any case, after 9-11 the following considerations were either neglected or not sufficiently enlisted:

--- The massive 9-11 tragedy has a history which must be analyzed for guidance in curing terrorism. Demonization on both sides precludes understanding and the emergence of a sound policy preventing future terrorism.

---After 9/11, two hundred nations extended sympathy and offered help. French newspapers headlined "we're all Americans now." This historically unprecedented global diplomatic support should have been used for an international police action to track down Osama and prevent terrorism. Instead, it was squandered by Bush's ulterior motives of converting the struggle against terrorism into a war against Saddam. Serious conservative and liberal experts have exhaustively exposed Bush's war mongering. Long before 9-11, he subordinated the State Department to the Department of Defense and abused and manipulated the CIA . A compliant media either supported him or failed catastrophically in exposing the massive deception.

---Osama bin Laden and Saddam despised each other. One is a religious extremist and the other a secularist who restrained the clergy. By removing Saddam, Bush did a favor to Osama who was able to recruit, among others, Zarquawi. By disbanding the Iraqi army, Al Qaeda got another ally to form a larger insurgency.

---An exit strategy never existed due to oil interests and the building of permanent bases and the absurd notion sold by Paul Wolfowitz that oil revenues would pay for the war. Unlike the Gulf War of '91, which was fully paid by foreign governments, this war will be paid by the U.S. taxpayers.

----To bring democracy to Iraq assumes that if such were to materialize it would be pro-American. It's almost certain that popular sentiments will be anti-American for a long time to come given all that has happened to Iraq since 1991. Bush seems to be totally unaware of this absurdity.

----The military is very effective in defeating its counterparts of other nations It cannot easily, if at all, defeat a guerrilla war that is rooted in large popular support and that has acquired the features of chaotic sectarian strife and demofascist suicidal criminality whose strategic defense appears to be self-immolation! The prospects of winning this "war" are as good as having won past "wars" against crime and drugs. Superpower militarism of "Shock and Awe" that does not know whom it is fighting, how many, where, when, how long and with what, transmogrifies into military dinosaurism. In turn, this encourages the opponent to expand hit and run “swarming,” suicide tactics, criminality and chaos. The current mess proves that an international police action would have been a better policy.

---- To prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and WMD to Iran or other nations is a commendable policy. But, it becomes hypocritical if Bush is not enacting a global policy of removing ALL of them, including ours. Otherwise Al Qaeda could attack us to enact Bush's policy! To facilitate de-nuclearization, Bush should expose ALL of the horrible burdens associated with nuclear arms by disclosing, among other facts, that environmental scientists estimated that one million Americans had already died of cancer before ’79 resulting from America's nuclear stockpiles. Moreover, the cost of safely disposing of all nuclear contamination--clams in the Columbia river have plutonium in them and radioactive dust has been reported in the attics of homes close to the Hanford nuclear facility-- will be in the trillions. Does Iran want to emulate this form of America's self-immolation?

---Bush’s attempt to secure the borders of Iraq is bizarre and farcical if he intentionally neglects securing U.S. borders.

---With the U.S. stuck in another endless war, it is allowing a massive shift of wealth from itself to foreign economies while suffering all sorts of negative diplomatic consequences that cause, no doubt, vodka and rice wine to be uncorked in Moscow and Beijing.

--- An economy that is the world's largest debtor economy will not be able to sustain a global empire. Refocusing on domestic priority to facilitate a 20-year-long needed American economic miracle to remove slumerica would have terrific favorable consequences not just domestically but also in foreign policy. If not, demofascism and self-immolation will be stopped due to their massive monetary costs, ecological degradation and increasing diseases.