Kablooey

Kablooey is not a word you're likely to find in any of the mainstream media, certainly not associated with the destruction of (yet another) 'holy shrine' in Iraq. And my deliberate choice of that word shows how subtle is our understanding of each other as Americans and how difficult it must be to actually understand such subtleties in Iraq.

I am not under any false illusions, as I believe the Left and Pacifists are, concerning our ability to understand Iraqi passions. We can never really know exactly how holy that Mosque might have been or to whom it would actually be holy. It could be holy like Graceland. It could be holy like the Statue of Liberty. It could be holy like Crater Lake. It could be holy like Wrigley Field. Depending upon which Americans you talk to under what circumstances, the loss of any of those places in America might be cause for War or yawns. As we speak, there are men burning down churches in the American South, and we've been through this before. Nobody could ever say that it would be appropriate to judge America based upon the angry reactions some foreign journalist captured of those people closest to the tragedy. Of course that's all we've got, and in relation to Iraq, it's probably the best we are ever going to get.

This is bringing me to some interesting preliminary conclusions about the nature of war, and I think everyone is finding this war to be less satisfying than anyone may have imagined. Perhaps we are wrong to think of war in Rumsfeld's 'advanced technological' terms. Maybe war is best done as war.

What hasn't happened in Iraq is that the Iraqi people have not sued for peace. So when I think about the insurgency in Iraq and the inability for anyone to stop it there is a simple reason for this that was not the case in WW2. The nation has not been pacified. Understand that I am talking pacified in the harshest terms, ie we have destroyed their ability to carry out any war. I believe this is what we did to Germany and to Japan. We crippled them so badly and killed so many of their men outright that we left them nations of devastated women, fatherless children and wandering dogs. They begged us to stop. All they wanted was an end to the slaughter and the chance for a normal life. But we have attempted in Iraq to decapitate a despot without making war on the nation and society. It is what we have done. We have left so many Iraqi men standing that they retain the energy, capacity and desire to continue the destruction. Enough so that the question of Civil War is viable, enough so that other holy shrines are vulnerable, enough so that we ask the question seriously, 'Do Iraqis truly want peace?'.

The same total pacification hasn't happened in Palestine. As ugly as the Israelis may have been to the Palestinians, they have left enough of them standing to fight back for 30 years. Nobody sues for peace. Small weak nations, subnations, radical anarchists, and all manner of irregulars, looneys and splinter cells have somehow merited standing as combattants in War. They aren't, and we aren't really making war on them. We're battling them with slaps. We have entered an era in which the sound of war is 'Kablooey'.

Somehow, this New Agey combat has our respect and admiration. It certainly makes sense to a global capitalist neocon such as myself. Let's not devastate Iraq, I'd say. Let's get rid of the problem militarily. But there is perhaps finally only one thing militaries are good for and that is Total War. Beat them down until they sue for peace. And perhaps this Gulf War One and Gulf War Two are the proof, especially if there are enough men in Iraq to be humilitated but not broken, and that sustains an Iraqi Civil War.

I give GWBush all the credit. He has rightfully decided to use the military instead of the CIA to destroy the enemy. The enemy was clear - it was Saddam. And he rightly decided to stand in front of the world and say, we're going to do this, ready or not. And he rightly gave everyone a chance to get in on the action. But perhaps what Old Europe knew that we neocons didn't know was that nothing less than total destruction would lead to total peace.

The world over, foolish and superstitious muslims believe that they are in a position to challenge the might of the US and the West. They should not make that mistake believing that American neocons will play the footsie of surgical war with the next rogue state that crosses our path. We have taken the battle to the enemy and we have attempted, bravely and morally to give people in the land of the enemy a shortcut to democracy and Western partnership. But if Iraq falls into civil war, no matter what the reasons, and we walk away with a black eye for trying, there will be no moderation next time. The old conservative line about 'nation building' will have won the day, and the Wilsonian dream will be considered the exception rather than the rule.

So let us hope that the DoD retains some anti-neocon skepticism and keeps those nuclear sub contracts open. Because if the dreams of neocons go kablooey in Iraq, the next foe of Uncle Sam will not be met with the Rumsfeld Doctrine, but with the Powell Doctrine.