The Wages Of Death

The war in Iraq is about two weeks old and the imagery of the continuous coverage of the war by a toothless and an aimless media has numbed the senses. There is no point in this war that can be rationalized. Wars are political acts of concentrated violence and yet, there is violence in this war, but there is no rhyme to its logic. Operation Iraqi Freedom, the cynical name given to this war can easily be renamed Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL), which would be more apt and closer to reality. There are reflections of George Orwell and eloquence of hypocrisy in this war, but there is no truth. Truth maybe the first causality of war and in this war, truth was never a causality; it was simply ignored in the expediency for greed and a megalomaniac lust for power. There is no other reason, which can describe the wanton destruction unleashed by egocentric theories of “shock and awe”. Yes, there is a definite sense of awe at the level of bestiality humans have shown for one another and there is palpable shock at how easily we, humans, have rationalized this war as a necessary evil. Whether it is an appropriate metaphor or not, it is still a fact that the cradle of civilization is being destroyed in the name of civilization itself and a people are being oppressed in the name of freedom.

Watching this sordid drama unfold, in real time, on the emotionless window screens of a television, it hard to accept the morbid fascination, which like some sexual fantasy is aroused by the monstrous roar of the guns and anti-septic videos of smart bombs striking their targets. Curiosity wanes and rises like the Dow Jones index as the news comes, told by “embedded” reporters, who might as well be describing the weather. There is no news, only the scorecard of a game, as if war and murder is an empirical past time to be measured with the same boredom as watching grass grow. Deaths become a few random statistics and life loses its meaning and what is real is the picture on the screen. Life despite all its wonders is simply reduced to a one dimensional picture dancing on a screen and the cheerleaders of doom appear, cheerful in the company of the evil they have spawned. Sadly, the smart bombs are not smart because they cannot tell the difference between a combatant and a civilian. In the process, innocents die, but that hardly matters, because everything is progressing smoothly “according to the plan”.

Emotions have given up their conscience to the color coded graphic maps of the war zone, where virtual warriors prognosticating the doctrine of inanities celebrate death. Nationalism is replaced by patriotism and questions are no longer asked, because they conflict and obscure the final costs of this insanity masquerading as a reason for genocide. It is difficult not to think of this war as removed from the greed of profit. Each time a cruise missile streaks across the desert skies and obliterates hope, 1.4 million dollars worth of fireworks light up the oily steel gray skies over Iraq. For every one cruise missile that destroys a maternity ward, Raytheon the manufacturer of these modern Grim Reapers recalculates its profits and is richer since the time the last missile was fired. Each bomb and weapon that is used has to be replaced and who ever said that war is bad for the business, is a liar. So far in this one sided drama of death and destruction, about 800 of these cruise missiles have been fired and this war, supposed to have been started to benefit the Iraqis, has been nothing but a cruel joke for them. Still, the best is yet to come. After destroying Iraq, it has to be re-built and that means contracts and money and profits, and the benefits go to the modern vandals of democracy, who destroy democracy in order to recreate it.

The Romans of ancient time during the Punic Wars used to cry out, “Hannibal ad portas!” and nearly two thousand years later, the barbarians are at the gates once more and threatening to tear down civilization. Civilization betrayed its own defense, when it meekly accepted the wisdom of lies and abdicated its reason in favor of fear due to its own sense of insecurity, which has paralyzed its ability to prevent what is ending up as a suicide pact. Two thousand years of human evolution has been simplified and its end result is an arrogant and simply xenophobic declaration that proclaims, “either you are against us or with us”. What could have been a brave attempt at scripting a memorable line in a half decent western movie has come to define the destiny of the world, because the weak and characterless person who uttered this has a deep-seated complex Sigmund Freud would have understood perfectly. It is truly sad that we have captains courageous, who are not courageous and only courage that is visible in these unfortunate times is the courage to prostitute one’s self at the altar of power and fame. Power maybe an ultimate aphrodisiac, but it is not supposed to lead to a constipation of the conscience.

We have leaders, who are led and we are preaching the virtues of a democracy, which would make fascism proud. One of the operas by Richard Wagner was titled Gotterdammerrung – the twilight of the gods. We are indeed living in the twilight of the gods, who bestraddle this earth like an Atlas, but the only burden they are carrying on their backs is an oil barrel. Even Hercules would think twice of cleaning the stables, visited by these gods and it is only fitting that we ponder the absurd mantra of this mythology, which we are subjected to endure like some old Chinese water torture. The world around us is divided into two halves; the oppressors and the oppressed. The obscenity of this faux reality is that we pretend to be free and we pretend to be captains of our fate, but we cannot be masters of our souls, because we have no souls. Our souls have been sold and jailed in an amoral slavery, where we languish in a moral coma sanctified by a Faustian prenuptial. We have ended being as locusts of a biblical proportion and if we are not careful, we will end up destroying all before us; not because we are capable, but because we fervently believe that Frederick Nietzsche was correct. Nietzsche said that God is dead and we are all willing to kill to be His successor and become the Oedipus Rexes of our immoral times.

Humanity, like some non-biodegradable cholesterol, is increasingly clogging up the arteries of conscience and we are all in need of an immediate by-pass surgery before we all suffer and die from a massive moral cardiac arrest. One by one, humanity has adopted all of the deadly sins and in the process, humanity practices the worst sins in the name of Allah, God, Christ, Ram, Buddha or a Jehovah or whatever we like to call our Creator. We used to be afraid of our Creator, but since we have learned the art of cloning and have deciphered the human gnome code, we have become the creator. We create and we destroy and like that image from an ancient Hindu scripture, we have become death – the destroyers of worlds. We, humans, have become so fond of murder that we have legalized murder and made it acceptable. We no longer feel bad about killing; we simply fight wars to liberate our fellow miserable humans from one tyrant only to deposit them at the feet of another tyrant. We no longer think that George Orwell’s 1984 was frightening, because we are more interested in Franz Kafka’s The Trial and the Holy Trinity we all believe in is: I, me and myself.

What we are seeing in Iraq is the culmination of our egos and egocentric values, based on a self-centered greed, which is intolerant and removed from the concerns of humanity. Yes, there are more dissenting voices than we hear in support of the war, but they are drowned in a downpour of lies, which cascades over our heads like boiling oil searing our senses. The people of all the nations of the world are against this illegal and racist war, but the governments of the world are supporting this war. All of this makes for an interesting precedent that democracy stands for, “do as I say, but don’t do what I do”. Anyone, who is paying attention will immediately see that this war is no different than the opium wars of a century ago and like addicts, we are all perpetually in search of that all elusive hallucination, which dulls the senses, but makes us feel really good and patriotic.

Yes, anyone who is really paying attention can see for himself or herself that this war is not working out, as promised and the problem is that when this war was planned, somebody forgot to ask the Iraqis to cooperate with the plans of the vampire cabal, who planned it. Everyone said Bush was not prepared for the outcome of the war, but Bush was smarter than most people gave him credit. Bush was never interested in the outcome of this war, because Bush was more eager to start a war so that he could tell his father that at least, unlike the father, he was able to finish a war that he had started. Bush ordered an amazing amount of body bags and caskets, because it always looks good on CNN to hold the hand of the grieving widow and present her a flag, as the token of a lied and deceived nation.

"Shock and Awe" campaign was more to shock and awe the Americans than the world. For a nation that had grown up with fond memories of Donkey Kong and Pac Man, videos games are the next best substitute for reality. The Americans were shocked that a nation, Iraq, which has seen war for decades was not awed by the fury of their attack and were awed that a people, who were to welcome them as liberators ended up resisting them as oppressors. Americans were shocked thattheir government had lied to them and they were really shocked to learn that other people can also love their nations like the Americans love America and would much rather be ruled by a bad government of their own than the good rule of an invader. Americans were annoyed that the Iraqis were not fighting fair. After all, the Americans did not really think that enemy would fight, but simply march out in the desert and wait for the B-52s to bomb them. For a nation that fought the British with militias and in unorthodox style, it should be a pleasant surprise to the Americans that the Iraqis are fighting just like the Americans fought for their own independence. Saddam Hussein is called a terrorist, but then again, the British also referred to the founding fathers of America as terrorist too.

United States has proved that it is the only bull in the international arena that brings its own china shop with it, wherever it goes and is the only nation, whose creed is greed and destruction. A document hallowed in the American political lexicon says that all men are created equal and given life, liberty and freedom and the Americans amended it to say, “kill them all now and let God sort them out later”. All the terrorists of the world united could not cause the damage to the United States, which Bush and cabal and the Himmlerian department of homeland security (homeland imprisonment is more closer to reality) are doing to the civil freedoms of the United States. The president of the United States said in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 tragedy that the “world hates us, because of our freedoms” as a rationale for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. If that is true, then Bush, the nominated, but not the elected president of the United States, must really hate the freedoms in America.

Since that fateful and sad day, he has unleashed a war on America determined to destroy everything that American once proudly represented. There is an old saying in America that if someone wants to hang himself or herself, all you have to do is give them a good length of rope and they will the job themselves. Bush and coterie are doing an amazing job of national euthanasia and one shudders to think as to what will be left of America by the time the next elections roll on. If God is merciful, Bush will be voted out of office and if God has a wicked sense of humor, Bush will be re-elected and then the world will really wonder, who should be really impeached: a fornicator in the oval office or a war monger in the oval office?

Johann Goethe once said a memorable quote about the Germans and it is equally representative of the Americans. To paraphrase Goethe, “I feel a general sorrow for the Americans, which is so wretched in the general and so estimable in the individual”.