In
the struggle for power the extremes appear to be bent on their mutual
extermination, but in fact they are complimentary and operate on the basis of a
brutal shared concept: a tooth for a tooth. You hurt me, I hurt you. But I need
you to hurt me to justify my actions. War therefore is perpetuated and “beneficial”
to both sides.
The
“victory” of U.S. led capitalism against Soviet style communism was indeed
short lived. It is well known that the “Cold War” pitted Western supported
dictatorships and anti-communist regimes—characterized by neo-liberal market
economics—in the world’s peripheral areas. Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina…Afghanistan…Iraq…
It
was sufficient to become a “friend” of Washington to get money and guns for the
struggle against leftist and populist movements considered peons of the Soviets
by U.S. experts in counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency tactics—clearly in
violation of basic human rights—were used in this cloak and dagger war. The
justification? The ends justify the means.
Certain
countries, considered geopolitically essential, were lavishly supported not
only for the cold-war and post-cold-war tug-of-war, but because of oil—the
black gold of the Western industrial system. Curiously enough, many of these
regimes represented values in nearly complete opposition to those professed by
Western democracy.
Perhaps
the best example is Saudi Arabia, a repressive Sunni oil producer, into which
the Pentagon has pumped an enormous amount of weapons and money. Yet not a few
Sunni terrorists have been nurtured there.
The
Hollywood type view of good guys and bad guys perhaps had its most pathetic
appearance in CIA training of “guerrilla” groups in Afghanistan to fight
against the Soviets. That backfired in the form of Ben Laden’s subsequent
appearance and the attack against the Twin Towers.
The
reaction of President George Bush was to declare war and he chose what appeared
to be a push-over: Iraq. The invasion of that country, with the death of
thousands and massive destruction of property, led to the death of Dictator
Saddam Hussein and the ousting of the Sunnis from power in favor of the Shiites.
But that in turn provided the fire wood necessary for the organization of
extremists Sunni groups such as the present Islamic State.
And
the violence has been growing by leaps and bounds, taking Syria as the point of
departure for a burgeoning potential world war: arming and supported supposedly
“moderate” groups against the Assad dictatorship has led to a virtual military
free-for-all. From Shiite groups such as Hezbollah, to the half dozen extremists
of the Islamic State and others, and the bombing operations of the U.S., France,
Russia with others… England is now on the point of joining the bombing attacks.
(During which an uncalculated number of civilians have been killed…
A
curious reader could have noticed something shocking following the brutal
extremists attacks in Paris recently that took some 130 lives:
The
stock of companies producing weapons took a sharp upturn on Wall Street and
Europe: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northop Grumman, Gernal Dynamics,
Ingalls Industries, Airbus, Finmeccanica, BAE Systems, Thales…all of them raked
in enormous profits. According to
Claudio Scaletta (Página 12) “The main arms producers on the stock markets in
the U.S. and Europe increased their capitalization in close to $15 billion
dollars.”
The
theory of those who support the notion of tooth for tooth is that applying more
violence will eventually solve the problem. Washington points out that winning
the war against Hitler’s fascist regime and the use of atomic bombs against
Japan gave way to democratic governments.
But
the unending wars in the Middle East have a different facet: oil. The Western
industrial system is based on petroleum. Therefore, regimes opposed to most of
the basic tenets of Western democracy have become allies or “friends.” This has
sent millions of dollars into the hands of dictatorial and repressive regimes
in the area and has bloated banks in Switzerland and elsewhere while exacerbating
social and cultural clashes.
The
increasing number of rightwing neo-liberal market oriented governments in Europe (with threats in Latin America) has led
to the growth of racism and a tendency to place the struggle as of religions or
civilizations, feeding the notions of a tooth for a tooth: the “other” becomes
an enemy to be eliminated. Terrorism and extremist actions are crimes and must
be dealt with as such. But the use of terror against terror would appear only
to push the violence into more violence. And violence in today’s world is not
only in Paris: it is pathetically manifested in language used to refer to the other, in domestic violence, the alarming
number of women who suffer aggression on the part of their husbands, lovers or
ex-spouses; violence against children, hunger, the growing disparity in income
and opportunities, in drug oriented brutal attacks and assasinations...
