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The Unholy Grail
Perhaps the eeriest thing about Osama bin Laden’s death is how little it means.
Yeah, I know: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” The raid on the devil’s compound outside Abbottabad, Pakistan this week apparently kick-started our patriotic fervor, which had been languishing over the course of a pretty bad decade of military quagmire and economic collapse. Killing Osama — turning him, as the New York Times put it, into “a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head” — brought back a rush of national purpose and glory.
“On Sept. 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together,” the president reminded us in announcing the success of the Navy SEALs operation. “We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country.”
And we went off in search of the mastermind of evil. We fought and lost two wars under the banner of righteous purpose, squandered trillions of dollars, wrecked two countries, displaced millions of Iraqis and Afghanis, killed a million or so more, spread pollution and cancer (among many other horrific illnesses and conditions) far and wide, popularized torture, shattered the lives of our own endlessly deployed troops and, in short, did everything Osama could have asked of us in terms of recruiting America-hating martyrs to his cause.
And a mere ten years later we found Osama and killed him, and for a moment it was as though that’s what it had been about all along. Indeed, after I learned of his death, I entertained a fleeting thought that maybe the point of it was to give us an excuse to declare victory and begin dismantling military operations. What wishful thinking!
“The cause of securing our country is not complete,” President Obama told the nation. Of course not. The “new normal” is perpetual war, and nothing — certainly not “victory” — can be allowed to change that.
For me, the only question is how we can interrupt the trans-national consensus that is committed to perpetual war. Mark Weisbrot, writing this week in The Guardian, suggested that Osama bin Laden foresaw that the U.S. reaction to the planned 9/11 attacks would be military intervention throughout the Middle East, a situation that suited his purposes — to garner recruits for al-Qaida — precisely.
“While it was not predictable that President Bush would necessarily invade Iraq — although it was a strong possibility — it was foreseeable that the U.S. government would seize on 9/11 to create a new overarching theme for its interventions throughout the world,” Weisbrot wrote.
After the fall of Communism, which for more than four decades had provided the United States with an excuse to intervene militarily and politically in countries on every continent, the defense establishment was in a pickle. The country still had military bases and “interests” everywhere, but no clear justification for throwing its weight around. We were, good God, at a sort of peace; the defense budget was shrinking and there was talk about how to spend the post-Cold War “peace dividend.”
“Prior to 9/11, the military interventions had to be done on an ad hoc basis (for example, ‘enemy-of-the-month’ as in Panama or the first Iraq war),” Weisbrot wrote. “But this is a weak basis for mobilizing public opinion, and, in general, Americans have to be convinced that their own security is at stake in order to acquiesce to most sustained military adventures.”
My sense is not that bin Laden brilliantly lured us into a trap — or, contrarily, that the convenience with which 9/11 filled an ideological void means it was an inside job — but rather, that the trans-national forces of war are in perpetual collusion with one another, united, you might say, in their servitude to Mars. The two sides are really one side and continually, and unconsciously, give each other what they need in order to keep the game going. During the Cold War, the dance of nuclear provocation had its own acronym, M.A.D., which stood for mutually assured destruction. The human race has been playing this game with itself for six millennia.
Much as we might want peace, if we cheer Osama’s death we cheer for the perpetuation of war and, ultimately, our own — our children’s — mutually assured destruction. We will not achieve peace through that one big kill, that one final quaff from the Unholy Grail. We will achieve only more of the same: “The cause of securing our country is not complete.”
War is organized and always ready to roll. Peace remains mostly a private longing, though I take heart in the words of my friend Kathy Kelly, who describes the walk from New York to Washington, D.C., that a group of people, including some who had lost loved ones on 9/11, took in November 2001. They were carrying a banner that proclaimed: “Our grief is not a cry for war.”
The only viable future I can imagine is a continuation of their journey.
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24 Comments so far
Show AllRobert Koehler wrote: "My sense is not that bin Laden brilliantly lured us into a trap"
Oh, but I think he did. The trick to toppling empires is to get them to overextend themselves and then goad them on as they ruin themselves by spending more money and resources then they can afford on a futile attempt to maintain dominance. Looking at the shape of the Amerikan economy the plan seems to be working - perhaps another decade or two and the Amerikans will be about where the British and French were at the end of the German wars (WWI and WWII) i.e. still full of imperial ambitions but too bankrupt to carry them out.
The saddest part is that Amerika is unlikely to manage a soft landing, of the sort that France and Britain experienced. While those two powers were humiliated and forced to pull back they were, at the same time, shielded by the power of the USA. Their ignoble retreat never became a route. Who will provide such a service for the Amerikans? China? I doubt that!
On the domestic front as well, the spirit of Amerikan triumphalism is so ascendent it is hard to imagine the public giving up all the martial glory abroad to concentrate on rebuilding at home without being forced to do so. As the German resistance to Hitler lamented - there was little possibility to gaining traction until after Stalingrad. As long as Hitler kept delivering victory his popularity with the masses was secure and resistance was futile. So long as power, wealth and glory seem obtainable their intoxicating allure will trump peace, truth and justice every time. I fear that, in this regard, the relationship of the Amerikan people to their Military Industrial Complex is similar to that of the German people to Hitler, they will never give up their support and adoration until they are face to face with utter ruin.
Great post. You summed up things very well. Throw in the complete corruption of the government and large corporations and you can guarantee that the Amerikan experiment is not going to end well.
SYD: Your post is good, yet many of the points could be taken further. For instance, what explains the origins behind these martial patterns, and why does the pattern recur?
Leon Uris penned the novel, "Armageddon" to examine why the German people worshipped the male, macho super-hero.
Hitler identified with the "Aryan" ideal which sounds a lot like Aries, the God of war. Plus he was born on the cusp between Aries and Taurus.
Patriarchal religions ONLY lend their credence (with Catholicism tossing a sacred bone Mother Mary's way) to God the father. Fundamentalist religions construe this father god as a highly punitive one.
It's not a huge stretch to then equate male power with god, or the right to use deadly force.
Sports also champion raw, naked expressions of power or brute force.
The concept "we're number one!" does not leave room for any other expression.
My list in support of what I term the bankrupt ethos of Mars rules extends far longer, but for the sake of brevity these examples will suffice.
My point is that a lot of covert conditioning goes on to PREP a population for its adulation of war and the worship of the killer, cum super hero.
I've dedicated a good deal of time to deconstructing the memes that support these outcomes. Like the frog caught in gradually heating waters, most don't recognize how the worship of the warrior archetype creeps up over them until they find themselves supporting the unthinkable. It IS happening here, in the Homeland Security state, and I am ashamed of the ignorance shown by so many fellow citizens.
Humanity must move beyond tribal identifiers into a greater understanding of the Oneness. Humanity, like a tree, has a variety of ethnic (or race-based) branches... yet all are part of the same fundamental tree. When one branch goes to work tearing at another branch, there comes a point where the integrity of the entire tree is sufficiently compromised to weaken its root structure. Either we save the tree, or the thing rots... then Mother Nature will have to start all over again erecting a species that can think, learn, and not use those skills to once again wipe out OTHER.
"Sports also champion raw, naked expressions of power or brute force."
Sioux Rose: We can now add to this comment the adulation being given to the Team Six guys who killed bin Laden. Brave men, but gladiators none the less.
Good observation, SR.
And while I have the impression that you don't really approve of lewd, lascivious, salty humor, I must say that I find the phrase "tossing a sacred bone Mother Mary's way" an apt and witty allusion to the Catholic doctrine of the Virgin Birth.
Even if you didn't, you should pardon the expression, see it coming.
O.S. I knew some people could take IT that way. In your highly erudite case, lapses into lewdness are not offensive. I lived with an Aries partner for 7 years and his language was often raw... but he had a good heart, and the thing is, he was always genuine. He said what he thought (or felt), and never played any games. The naked honesty (along with a fine body to match) was refreshing. I realized I was "dancing with Mars" in that particular bond, but as something of an esoteric Margaret Mead (crossed with Dianne Fossey), an educated lady's got to be willing to sample what's out there, even on what sometimes seems like an only slightly more advanced Planet of the Apes... in slow evolution.
Concerning your remarks about male dominant thinking in general. Why is it that males write and enact laws that define the rape of women? Why is it that males write and enact laws that determine reproductive processes and the rights/lack thereof of the female? These remarks pertain to the laws being enacted by the Repubican congress now. Males defining rape of women and what women should do with their person.
As long as there are MSM anchors at the end of the day to tell is all is well, then it will be.
Who says Osama is dead?
I have seen no body, heard no independent verification. All we have is the word of the killers, with pictures they show the public.
This was a CIA operation to "remove" a CIA operative.
Do you really believe the CIA?
So far whether Osama is alive or dead appears to be of no consequence to the US's actions in the world. It appears the so called war on terror will continue as if nothing happened. My educated guess is that he was killed to give Obama a political bump, and to be sure he would NEVER go on trial. Remember he was our man when he was fighting the Russians. He was a walking Wikileaks that probably had lots of dirt on Amerikan dealings in the world, and so had to be put out of commission.
I dont trust the US government at all, but I have to say it would be awfully brave of them to make the claim if they didn't really do it. If Osama's alive, all he has to do is make a videotape holding up a recent headline and Obama would look horrible beyond words.
How the "American Experiment" ends is still the responsibility of US citizens. We must grow up; stop being passive political children. We must stop shifting blame away from what we allow in our name, and we must stop abdicating responsibility for our destiny. If we can't be bothered to go into the streets with a clear and unified demand for a just society, then there is no honor or credibility in this repetition of deploring organized and persistent special interests, who put our determination and results to shame.
The greatest threat to peace and justice is not an elite conspiracy- it's public apathy. We're ruled by soundbytes and spin because we're too dumb for democracy; we're all too self-absorbed to build, maintain, or deserve a great society. It's not giving up to acknowledge this most fearsome black hole calling us to our oblivion, that does not confront us not from the halls of power- it's inside all of us, commanding that we Just Give Up.
Most USis deplore the way things are, but can't articulate a way forward. To suggest that the experience of Nazi Germany is our inescapable fate is no help- that's the unmistakable voice of our greatest enemy within- "Let our system collapse into apocalypse- what's it got to do with me?" Everything.
We live in a time when activism can make a real difference, and cynicism is the most dangerous political toxin. We're on the wrong collective trajectory because we won't go out and become the change we want to see in our country and the world. We are not under a political lock-down in the USA. Our failure as a privileged citizenry, endowed with much greater political freedom than so many braver populations in our time, is a morally indefensible failure to act responsibly. Things are the way they are because we allow it; there is nobody to blame for our reckless irresponsibility but ourselves. When we catch ourselves or others falling into this sort of cynical abdication of political responsibility, then we must immediately call it what it is -giving up- we must disregard it, and exclude it from sincere political discourse and action. We're running out of time to keep entertaining (in ourselves and others) sentiments of political cowardice.
Osama Bin Laden's demise, and his entire disastrous diversion of our national psyche need to be put behind us. We should go to Ground Zero and refuse to accept the Presidential Wreath. We should clearly instruct our highest-placed employee to go straight back to Washington with the expressed and specific business of the people: For these wars to immediately, and for Congress to completely repeal the Patriot Act. That's the closure we need. A wreath should not be accepted on this occasion- Come back with your wreath Mr. President, when you've stopped the wars and the assault on the US Constitution that followed the 9-11 attack.
We should demand that the obsession with terrorism and state security end, and that we turn our immense national capabilities to more pressing and honorable national matters: Government accountability; democratic society; ecologically and economically sustainable policy; Reason. Rationality. It's not too much for us to ask or achieve, if we can only respect and embody these defining principles as citizens.
HYPE & NOBODY: You both raise excellent points.
What the announcement of Osama's death means:
1. It sets a precedent that citizens can no longer question the word of the government.Even people who thought every word Obama uttered was a lie in the past are now saying, "you're making yourself look ridiculous if you think this isn't true."
2. It sets a precedent that Congress can't question the president. All of the advanced executive powers are now justified by Osama's death and will be used to justify further advances of executive power in the future, strengthening his status as dictator.
3. It prevents everyone from questioning war, and the war crimes of the US. "Hey, you don't think waterboarding or drone attacks are justified? You wanted Osama to WIN!"
4. It provides the fascists with a litmus test to see who are the true domestic enemies..
Some in the news have been wondering if Osama's death will mean the introduction of a new iconic enemy. It already has. Us.
so true. bin laden lost all relevance once bush went into iraq. but he did serve his purpose. and it was nice that this country gave him a burial at sea, an honor usually accorded a fallen comrade.
Gee, Mr. Koehler... I'm not sure if you check in with the CD forum, but your words are almost a direct mirror of my own, as taken from this quote:
"but rather, that the trans-national forces of war are in perpetual collusion with one another, united, you might say, in their servitude to Mars. The two sides are really one side and continually, and unconsciously, give each other what they need in order to keep the game going. During the Cold War, the dance of nuclear provocation had its own acronym, M.A.D., which stood for mutually assured destruction. "
No need for attribution... it could well be that "Hundredth Monkey" phenomenon at work.
Ultimately, I'm glad that more thinkers are waking up to the influence of this destructive archetype (Mars, god of war) upon not only the collective consciousness of the U.S., but also in how it manipulates mores, along with federal budgetary priorities.
Citizens, beginning in the U.S. must transcend the atavistic influences that empower Mars to rule!
"... I entertained a fleeting thought that maybe the point of it was to give us an excuse to declare victory and begin dismantling military operations. What wishful thinking!"
__________________
I appreciate this essay, and especially that Koehler lets us know that he caught himself entertaining a happy fantasy and quickly pulled himself together.
Frankly, it amazes me that thinking, reflective, experienced adults can be susceptible to this kind of spontaneous magical thinking.
It's like hearing a sudden, indefinable noise coming from the roof-- or chimney, if one has a fireplace-- on Christmas Eve, and suddenly thinking, "Hey! Maybe it really IS Santa Claus!" And I write this as one who would rush to break out the milk and cookies if Santa ever DOES turn up in my house.
FWIW, I think that Ray McGovern, whose article published here today inspired a long-winded critical comment, has yielded to the kind of folly Koehler promptly recognized and abandoned-- the sudden willingness to believe that maybe Team Obama IS benevolent at its core, and that the "bin Laden" caper, whatever the truth of it may be, is one of those eleventeen-dimensional chess strategies to finally withdraw from the Permanent Global War on an Abstract Noun.
Or even that if it wasn't planned that way, that our political leaders have sufficient probity and virtuousness to seize the opportunity to wake us all up from this long, dark, bloody nightmare.
To me, this is a resurgence of the same wishful thinking that prompted people of good heart and good will to hope that the events of 9/11/01-- whatever the truth of THOSE may be-- would inspire Team Bush to embrace the world's sympathy in the immediate aftermath instead of intensifying its militant, imperialist, Manichean, apocalyptic vengeance and ultra-violence.
Apparently people are still fatally disposed to hope that the Amerikan Imperium's unwillingness to take the high road in 2001 was a fluke attributable to the malignant narcissist on the Oval Office Throne and a Republican maladministration-- and that Team Obama, against all evidence and indications, might be better than that.
Koehler knows better. Good for him.
A final tangential point: I didn't think much of Weisbrot's article at all. It occurs to me that I still struggle with an apparent contradiction:
I do believe that the real bin Laden may have had something to do with making the 9/11 events possible, even just as a catalyst rather than an agent, planner, or operational participant.
Or at least I believe that an observant militant opponent of the Amerikan Imperium could foresee that a single large-scale successful terrorist act on Amerikan soil might be sufficient to cause Amerika to implode and begin to tear itself to shreds without the need for continuous follow-up provocations.
But I think that reducing it to "bin Laden brilliantly lured us into a trap" is fallacious to the extent that it implicitly reinforces the bogus Official Story, and suggests that bin Laden alone conceived and executed the trap; I don't think this is the case.
And it lowers the bar for summary executions of US citizens.
Experts seem to focus on political myths and the liberal-progressive deficiency in developing one and repeating it until gets through the Republican myth machine's clatter. They give slight notice to the fact that the Republicans also have religious myths working for them, while most progressives-liberals, I would wager, are agnostic or atheistic. And we know that an atheistic person could never be elected president at this time.
In a wonderful little book, which I comment on in my sites: new-york-commoners-law.com and dons-review.com, Nicholas Wade in "The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures" (Penguin Books, 2009), says, "however strongly religion seems to grow out of people's personal beliefs, the practice of religion is heavily social. People desire to worship together with others of the same faith. A religion belongs to a community and shapes members' social behavior, both toward one another (the in-group) and toward nonbelievers (the out-group).
“The social aspect of religion is extraordinarily significant because the RULES for behavior [my emphasis] toward others are in effect a society's morality." He continues, "People will defend their religion because it undergirds so much else of what gives life quality [a social network, help with projects or in sickness, an emotional jubilation that's hard to get while living alone]."
Here's the interesting part: "Practical morality is NOT universal. Compassion and forgiveness are the behaviors owed to one's in-group, but NOT necessarily to an out-group and certainly not to an enemy...From this, one can see how crucial religion has been over the centuries in ensuring a society's survival. It enhances the quality of society and makes it worth fighting for and it inspires people to lay down their lives in the society's defense. Groups with strong religious inclinations would have been more united and at considerable advantage over groups that were less cohesive [see the GOP versus the progressives-liberals]. People in the more successful groups would have left more surviving children and genes favoring an instinct for religious behavior would have become commoner."
"The faithful are not mistaken," says Emile Durkheim, a founder of sociology, "when they believe in a moral power to which they are subject. That power exists and it is society [and the Darwinian unstoppable urge to survive and to spread a man's seed as much as possible. Look at the Mormon church, where baby-making is deemed a man's right and women are taught to stay home and take care of the man's children. Single people or childless people are given lip-service in one of every 100 speeches by the church's authorities.].
sr, nobody, nocountry, woodman, obedient, garland, et al, make excellent points. I used to post at this site some years back but realized one preached to the choir. It is good to read further insights and extrapolations as to what the announcement of OBL's execution really means for the rest of us. As garlan, obedient and Koehler point out, I, too, at one time was the pre-disposed victim of my evolutionary brain's embedded magical thinking/religious impulse. I fantasized, "The USSR has collapsed. Good, the peace dividend breaks out tomorrow morning," and other similar Scarlett O'Hara ingenuousness. All this despite the fact I had been a reader of "The Nation" for decades. I dared _to believe_ our permanent War Party (as opposed to Republican/Democractic parties) barnacled in DC would "vanish in the haze." Bush, Clinton, et al, and their will to war cured me of that fantasy. The Pentagon will discover and spin endless enemies-of-the-month with narratives that will stick and disseminate via a compliant corporate media. Sadly, when a "national security" state hoards hard-facts and information, as happened in the USSR and other dictatorships, rumors and conspiracies fill in the fact-and-knowledge gaps. It should come as no surprise that we've witnessed one conspiracy theory after another crowding our national political discourse to the exclusion of real substance, such as why are our taxes being mis-spent in foreign adventures and in garrisoning the planet? Our hard-earned taxes will not end up rebuilding our decaying national infrastructure nor send 10's of millions of kids to college tuition-free. Rather our taxes will continue to fall and vanish into the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex's bottomless abyss. Our republic began to die covertly circa 1914, and the overt acceleration toward Empire began with Reaganism. I have few words of encouragement to add, other than grassroot involvement in the political campaigns of independent, perhaps Green, candidates who provide authentic alternatives to Empire and martio-religious "thinking." And even that will not guarantee untainted elections and nor prevent electronically-stuffed ballots. Growinggreen makes a powerful statement about "lowering the bar." I am sure one day some good citizens of Berlin woke up in 1939 and asked themselves, "What happened and how the hell did we get here?" I have been asking myself that question for nearly three decades and my moods just grow darker and darker.