He went to self-destructive extremes. And continued on disillusioned to were ever next Democracy USA, Inc. was digging the next mass grave.

Then, in Haiti a last glimmer of hope, finally broke down all illusions of the possibility of the USA ever democratizing anything beyond the shareholder’s meeting (And only if you are a mayor one, mind you).

Today, he runs a blog and periodically pleads for employment. And writes books. And calls himself red as a baboon’s ass.

His name is the domain name of this site. Read his book on Haiti. It is the most personal, painful and ultimately hopeful indictment of the USA foreign policy since General Smedley Butler decided he was no longer going to be gangster for capitalism (his words).

For all our disagreements and agreements, I think this book will earn Stan my eternal gratitude.

And of course, his other books are not to shabby, either.

BO: I don’t

HRI: Are you a pedophile murderer? You do support them you sick bastard! For example, in Haditah.

etc…

Historically speaking democracies have proven to be detrimental to those who lose the vote and, in times of war, the losers lose more than just their voice; they can lose their lives as well thanks to the military victories of the Athenian and other similar democracies.

When given a choice to vote, most people will vote on issues that concern them and their immediate relatives and communities. Most people do not vote based on the needs of all the people in the country, let alone the welfare of the rest of the world. We have not evolved that far yet. That is why we also have laws that should guarantee the same opportunities to everyone.

I think U.S. policymakers need to get off their high horses and let people govern themselves the way that suits them best. It is not our job to fix every political system out there and, if we were truly interested in the welfare of the women of oppressive societies, we would be assisting the world organizations that are actually trying to do something about it. Instead, we have tended to ignore the women’s movement in the Middle East in general and in the specific countries (yes, those countries have had thriving “feminists” for many decades now), but their role was not considered important enough to be included in the political, let alone, military options.

As far as tyrants are concerned, there are ways to deal with them without killing innocent people and waging war on countries. There are ways to minimize their impact without traumatizing the same people we are trying to protect. It is called the rule of international law and human rights legislation. Unfortunately, the same empires that have historically and currently used the “democracy” and “human rights” arguments when invading other countries are the same empires that have contributed to the eradication of the rights of women. In war, women lose much and have to bear the burden of taking care of the children as well as earning more income to support the family, especially if the male provider is gone. This makes them more vulnerable to abuse, and political and religious exploitation. It also contributes to their inability to parent their children in an effective manner, at a time when parental supervision is the most vital in a time of war.

We need to strengthen the reach of the United Nations (despite its shortcomings, yes, no one is perfect) and allow it to remove those tyrants who are oppressing their own people based on the request of the people themselves and without our interference. If we do not tolerate interference in our affairs by other nations, why do we give ourselves permission to do the contrary? The UN has saved the lives of millions of women and children through education and the provision of vital resources that “empowered” these women to take charge of their and their families’ lives (in the absence of or lack of interest by the men sometimes).

The United States can be a model, but it has to lead by example, not by force. I can never fathom how some people think that somehow democracy can be “imposed” on people. This approach is failing miserably because it is not being carried out with good intentions and because it is a fascade we use to promote the interests of those we deem are like us. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon are the current arenas where the bush administration has taken credit for the “positive changes” and “emerging democracies.” In all those cases, the intervention has failed because the Neo con ideologues have such a poor grasp of history, the human condition and psychology, the nature of suffering, the will to live and die, etc. and because they are so self-absorbed in their own greatness and superiority that they disregard all other human beings. This administration and its handlers are no more than racists dressed in the pompous clothing of academia and moral righteousness.

You got it.

The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were not simply justified and honorable retaliations to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. They couldn’t possibly have been that, because both of them were premeditated – conceived, planned, and prepared long before September 11, 2001.
[...]
When George W. Bush took office, a concern for the “significant portion of the world’s oil supply” was never far from view, because the Administration’s personal linkages to the oil industry were intimate, historic, and numerous. The president and vice president were just the first examples: eight cabinet secretaries and the national security advisor were recruited directly from the oil industry, and so were 32 others in the secretariats of Defense, State, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, and the Office of Management and Budget.
[...]
In his second week in office, President Bush appointed Vice President Cheney to chair a National Energy Policy Development Group. The supersecret “Energy Task Force,” as it came to known, was composed of officials from the relevant federal agencies and beyond question heavily attended by energy industry executives and lobbyists. (The full membership has yet to be revealed, but Enron’s Kenneth Lay was conspicuously present.)

One brute fact had to be apparent to the Task Force: in the Caspian Basin, and beneath the Iraqi deserts there are 125 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and the potential for 433 billion barrels more. Anyone controlling that much oil could break OPEC’s stranglehold overnight.

By early March, 2001, the Task Force was poring over maps of the Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, tanker terminals, and oil exploration blocks. It studied an inventory of “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts” – dozens of oil companies from 30 different countries, in various stages of exploring and developing Iraqi crude. (These documents were forced into view several years later by a citizen group, Judicial Watch, with a Freedom of Information Act proceeding. It wasn’t easy – the Bush Administration appealed the lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court – but the maps and documents can now be seen and downloaded at : http://www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oil-maps.shtml.)

Not a single U.S. oil company, however, was among the “suitors,” and that was intolerable. Mr. Cheney’s task force concluded, “By any estimation, Middle East oil producers will remain central to world security. The Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy.”

Condoleezza Rice’s National Security Council, meanwhile, was directed by a top secret memo to “cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered melding two seemingly unrelated areas of policy.” The NSC was ordered to support “the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

How explicitly do we need it to be spelled out for us?

Yup. You’re catching on.

The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were not simply justified and honorable retaliations to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. They couldn’t possibly have been that, because both of them were premeditated – conceived, planned, and prepared long before September 11, 2001.

(Yes, there have been premeditated military incursions in the past – Panama, Grenada, and Kosovo come to mind – but none was of the magnitude and duration of the Afghan and Iraqi wars. Never before have we unleashed full scale combat, unprovoked, on sovereign foreign nations and then installed permanent military bases to occupy them.)

Though it has not been addressed in the mass media, the factual story of the President’s premeditated wars is clearly visible, and when the story is read at one sitting, the dreamlike quality of our politics is apparent.

The story to follow will not be a great revelation to anyone who has read, perhaps a bit more than casually, about our recent political, military, and diplomatic past, and has spent some time searching the Internet for corroboration and details. On the other hand, it is far from common knowledge, because in the manufactured reality crafted by the Bush Administration, it does not exist.

Two strands of history converged in the Bush years. One led to the invasion of Afghanistan, the other to the invasion of Iraq, and the strands came together on September 11, 2001.

The opening chapter of the story reveals a photograph dating to the Reagan years of Donald Rumsfeld cordially shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. We supported Saddam in his war with Iran. But history convulses: on January 26, 1998, Mr. Rumsfeld and 17 others, members of the Project for a New American Century, wrote a letter to President Clinton, urging the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime. If we fail to do so, they were candid in asserting, “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will be put at hazard.”

This could be considered the fountainhead of our surreal politics. The PNAC proposed premeditated war explicitly, in a bizarre retrogression to the centuries of unapologetic European imperialism. Since World War II and the birth of the United Nations, however, the world has been seeking to surpass imperialism, struggling to settle international difficulties peaceably – and here was an open, sad, and radical rebuff.

(In addition to Mr. Rumsfeld, 10 others of the signatories would serve in the Bush Administration: Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, William Schneider, Jr., Robert Zoellick, and Paul Wolfowitz.)

When George W. Bush took office, a concern for the “significant portion of the world’s oil supply” was never far from view, because the Administration’s personal linkages to the oil industry were intimate, historic, and numerous. The president and vice president were just the first examples: eight cabinet secretaries and the national security advisor were recruited directly from the oil industry, and so were 32 others in the secretariats of Defense, State, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, and the Office of Management and Budget.

The Bush Administration came to power anxious, we know from published sources, to fulfill the PNAC’s vision of regime change in Iraq.

In his second week in office, President Bush appointed Vice President Cheney to chair a National Energy Policy Development Group. The supersecret “Energy Task Force,” as it came to known, was composed of officials from the relevant federal agencies and beyond question heavily attended by energy industry executives and lobbyists. (The full membership has yet to be revealed, but Enron’s Kenneth Lay was conspicuously present.)

One brute fact had to be apparent to the Task Force: in the Caspian Basin, and beneath the Iraqi deserts there are 125 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and the potential for 433 billion barrels more. Anyone controlling that much oil could break OPEC’s stranglehold overnight.

By early March, 2001, the Task Force was poring over maps of the Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, tanker terminals, and oil exploration blocks. It studied an inventory of “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts” – dozens of oil companies from 30 different countries, in various stages of exploring and developing Iraqi crude. (These documents were forced into view several years later by a citizen group, Judicial Watch, with a Freedom of Information Act proceeding. It wasn’t easy – the Bush Administration appealed the lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court – but the maps and documents can now be seen and downloaded at : http://www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oil-maps.shtml.)

Not a single U.S. oil company, however, was among the “suitors,” and that was intolerable. Mr. Cheney’s task force concluded, “By any estimation, Middle East oil producers will remain central to world security. The Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy.”

Condoleezza Rice’s National Security Council, meanwhile, was directed by a top secret memo to “cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered melding two seemingly unrelated areas of policy.” The NSC was ordered to support “the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

How much more explicitly do we need it to be spelled out?

I am going to commit a social faux pas and quote myself:

world oil reserves are running dry
but of foolish young men we have ample supply;
therefore we conclude it is no great matter
in securing the former, to squander the latter.

No, the problem with military interventions – leaving aside their frequently questionable good faith as to motives – is that you can’t impose democracy by force, except maybe of the most superficial sort. By its nature, real democracy can only be created from below, by the people themselves.

I bet ify’s rooting doesn’t include plans for any of his kin. Let’s just increase “troop levels.” Like topping off the gas tank or filling the glass. Increase “troop levels.” Like the kid next door, or better still, across town or even in a different state. “Troop levels.” These aren’t kids with ambitions and plans, these aren’t young women with kids being raised by Granny, these aren’t the guys down at the discount tire store–no, they’re “troop levels.” Just “others” who ify doesn’t mind if they get their legs blown off or if they’re killed at age 23 just so ify gets his Iraqi democracy. Iraqi democracy is very important to ify–we want these people to have a fundamentalist Islamic regime allied with Iran, even if it takes increased “troop levels” and more dead non-ify kin.

These “troop levels” are human beings, with the same fragile minds that we have. Nevertheless, they must put their lives and their minds on the line to please the ifys of America. Take Jesus Bocanegra, for example.

Jesus Bocanegra, a 24-year-old former Army sergeant, says he is haunted by countless shots he fired at Iraqis while serving as an infantry scout in Tikrit in 2003-’04. The McAllen, Texas, native says he lost track of how many innocent civilians he killed. “How the hell was I capable of that?” he asks now. Back home and plagued with anxiety attacks, he said he tried to close himself off from the world by drinking to the point of passing out. He progressed to marijuana use and then cocaine. Eventually, he stopped taking drugs. But he said it took nearly two years for him to get an appointment at the closest veterans hospital, a four-hour drive, because it was overbooked. He was diagnosed with PTSD and given pills, but with no VA therapists in the area, he sought help from a group called Vets for Vets. “It’s good to have someone to talk to,” he said. “It’s the only thing that keeps me going.”

Medical experts say mental health and substance abuse problems are intertwined. And drugs ranging from marijuana to prescription anti-depressants are easily accessible in Iraq, according to interviews with more than a dozen soldiers. John Crawford, a 28-year-old former Florida National Guardsman with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, said soldiers in his unit drank alcohol, some took steroids, “pretty much everyone took Valium” and “some did all three.” Crawford said he bought 200 to 300 Valium pills on the street in Baghdad for $2 as a way to catch some sleep between patrols. After eight months, he built up a tolerance and was taking seven or eight at a time.

Army Maj. James Weeden, who directed a team of 200 specialists dealing with combat stress in Iraq, says senior officers recognize the strain their troops are under and have begun assigning some specialists to remote forward operating bases.

Weeden and other medical specialists say that they can only treat the symptoms of combat stress – with anti-depressant drugs and rest, for example – and that soldiers are sent out of Iraq only when they have clearly disabling cases of PTSD.

What the hell, they’re only “troop levels.” Small price to pay for a keyboardist’s democracy wet dream. Ify, do you have a conscience?

So democracy is the only option if you start something. I am half way willing to believe that the correction of the military to its soliders on ground was worth something. No way am I willing to say the US is perfect. But I am rooting for increased troop levels and democracy.