Middle Eastern Nations held back by religion, socialism, corruption by Heads of State and exploitation by other nations has not evolved to a stage that could produce Fascism. by Chuck McGlawn
(libertarian)
Monday, September 22, 2008
If you support the Bush war in Iraq because you think it is a war against Islamo-Fascism, you have been hoodwinked, because there is no such thing as Islamo-Fascism. The term came into existence when President’s first used it on Oct. 5, 2005, almost three weeks passed before it was used a second time. It is a word clearly designed to garner support from among the naïve, and inflame your passions. Support for the war, which is precipitating an expansion of governmental power and loss of individual rights unprecedented in history.
Fascism is a societal development that is more than five centuries ahead of the development of any Islamic nation. There was a time when the Middle East was the most advanced and technologically superior, area of the world. When they accepted Mohammad as a prophet, their social and technological advancement screeched to an almost dead stop. Fascism is a development that requires many elements not present in any Middle Eastern Country.
The culture that gave the world the zero, and the numbering system still used by most of the civilized world is hovering in and around the 18th or 19th century. Nations whose growth had not been impeded by religion, socialism, outright theft by the Head of State or exploitation by other nations, experienced an Industrial Revolution. Almost all of the Middle Eastern countries suffer one or more of those obstacles to progress. Please note that as late as the beginning of WWI the national dress for most Middle Eastern nations was still the flowing robes of the 8th century. The Middle Eastern Countries had not evolved to the point where the, "division of labor" stage so necessary for the next step in the progress of any nation had been reached.
WWII revealed that the Middle East had not advanced beyond flintlock rifles. By the time of Desert Storm, the Middle East military had barely reached the 20th century with simple rifles and automatic weapons bought from others. The vaunted Scud Missiles are just big "bottle rockets" bought from China, a China that could have provided more sophisticated weaponry, but training levels locked them into the simple point-and-fire Scud.
Anything in the Islamic world that smacks of the 20th century is imported. In an area of the world where energy would have been so cheap, and their location so perfect for the development of a world-class automobile industry, it is doubtful that the manufacturing capability of the Middle East could produce a simple bicycle without importing that capability. And this is the Great Enemy we are supposed to fear.
The Middle East holds a position of significance on the world stage only because of policies of the US Government. Moreover, the supporters of the war with pom-poms in hand are cheering Bush along to even more stultifying policies with that effect on the US economic development. The Middle East as a threat to the US is a total fabrication of the Military Industrial Complex.
Please note the previous great enemy to the US, namely the USSR was beginning to crumble by July of 1989. Gorbachev freed the Warsaw Pact Nations to choose their own futures. By November, the Berlin Wall came down. By Jan, of 1990 the Soviet Union ceased being a power. Just a little more than eleven months later the US propaganda machine had manufactured out of whole cloth a new Great Enemy.
The US government picked a fifth rate power, (Iraq) and goaded its leader into attacking a 10th rate power Kuwait. Then the Great Moral Leader of the world stepped in because it could not allow Iraq to occupy (Kuwait), even though by geography, religion and temperament they were brothers in the field, and had been fighting amongst themselves for centuries.
If the US had just stayed out of the foreign policy business, and allowed a free market system to deal, or not deal with a particular area of the world, then the disparity in the standard of living would have been so gigantic, that $5.00 per gallon gasoline would have been a small price to pay. If you add to today’s gasoline price the taxes and borrowing necessary to wage an ever-escalating war. Then include the loss to economic expansion caused by the war, we are paying more than $5.00 per gallon today. Alternatively, who knows if we had pursued a different course a different source of energy may have emerged.
We need to get out of Iraq, and the 100 or more nations of the world, and notify the world that we will no longer be acting as the world’s police. Take the money dispersed through out the world and return it to the beleaguered taxpayer. Then experience a growth in the national economy that would send signals around the world that war is excessively costly, not only in life, but money, that peace would be the wave of the future. Then no tin-horned dictator in the world could hold its populations in the semi-slavery now so commonplace in many parts of the world. Then Americanism could become the positive forward-looking philosophy that it set out to be in saner times.
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