On What is Folly in Times of Love and War

Entangled in a new abstract war, that was announced at its beginning to be an experiment in a new type of warfare, we in the West are left wandering and lost in the forest of our own rhetoric. This historical period's scare is Terrorism, or the Insurgent. But, who are the Insurgents, and why are they terrorizing? The US military defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict. The Iraqi insurgency is being linked by the Bush Administration to Al Qaeda in order to tie it in to the worldwide "War on Terror". Accepting this proposed paradigm, we must assume that we are not dealing with an Iraqi Insurgency, but a Global Insurgency.
After the capitulation of Communism in the late 1980's we, perhaps naively, hoped that a new framework of international relations could replace Cold War polarities. Maybe our mistake was to buy into the concept of Pax Americana. As American citizens we often make two, optimistic but fundamentally mistaken, assumptions about our national historical patrimony. The first is the nostalgia for the lost American Isolationism- a preposterous idea, infirmed by everything from the extension of the thirteen colonies through Manifest Destiny to the Monroe Doctrine. The second is that if not we then at least our ancestors lived in the Land of Liberty, in Freedom. The reality is that like every other nation, ours too bathes in the blood and oppression of millions of human souls. We have massacred the indigenous population of the American continent, enslaved the people of Africa, burned witches, blacklisted artists and murdered progressive leaders, etc... The noble ideals enshrined in the common mythology of our foundation, as a People and Nation, are not declarations of fact but Goals that we aspire to achieve. The pyramid is left unfinished not because the laborers abandoned their work, but because their work is never ending. We are bound by our mortal weakness and can only be elevated by the breaking of our mental boundaries.
So while the post-Soviet Era may have lead into a global structure moved by a type of combustion engine (still not that efficient and rather volatile), Capitalism, we began thinking that, just maybe, we like Marx can speed up history provided we add some force to the existent inertia. We pushed aggressively, in all directions. Demanding that the Knight in Shining Armor be given Lord's Right over the Markets of all nations, our companies should have unrestricted access. We coupled business liberalism with a type of democratic proselytizing that bore resemblance to the Christian fundamentalist bombing of an abortion clinic. Is it surprising that segments of the human race feel threatened by these developments? No and sadly they may even be justified.
A core concept of the American philosophy and of Christian tradition is that one may and should lead through example. One should empower and perfect the self before attempting to transform the world. Looking at our society we must notice our mutual alienation, the abandoning of fundamental values in exchange for nominal gain, foods marketed toward the underprivileged sections of society that are more akin to poison than to nutrition. The permanent assault on the human brain through media. Social structures built around family descendance, tribal loyalty and religious faith cannot be expected to welcome the social model that we accept in Western society. This does not however mean that traditional societies have no place in Globalization, or even Capitalism.
While it is common to accuse Islam of intolerance, we must remember that their very conception of the self and world is being assaulted by our actions- we expect human rights, democracy, market-capitalism and justice to be uniformly modeled after our own style, and our investment and trade deals often underlie these political motifs. Fundamentally this attitude is counterproductive; different situations require different solutions, and different societies follow different paths to the peak of the mountain. 'Shock and awe' policies do not fulfill the promise of propaganda meant to win hearts and minds, our media war is completely eclipsed by the meat-grinder that was set up in Iraq. Instead of convincing the world's reactionaries that our values are positive, we prove through our actions that we are the true enemy. If your brother was abducted and tortured by the intelligence services of another state after a bomb was dropped on your grandmother's house, would you not dedicate your life to avenging the injustices perpetrated on your loved ones?
I often wonder, could we have bought Saddam out? Like, had given him 20 billion US dollars to leave and settle on a fantasy island. I feel like that would have been a capitalist solution. The US will have a new poster-child next year, we should use that PR coup to get back to what we do best: marketing lifestyles. Let's market Freedom, Democracy and Responsible Capitalism, to ourselves, our leaders and our enemies. We have let ourselves slip too far in the direction of a police state, just when we could finally reach closer to an ideal. Progress has given us the tools for a Utopia, but the dystopias of Orwell and Huxley are increasingly descriptive of our daily experience. Let's not waste 200 years of hard labor and suffering. Let our compassion and love bury our enemies and resurrect them as the closest of friends, this only will overwhelm the obstacles we place before us.