I have to laugh. When I reflect on this revolt within the ranks of the military I cannot help but look in my own little journal from January 2004. I still keep one of those journals like the ones that were required in high school English (at least it was required in my school back in 70’s) These reflections are perhaps relevant now—perhaps not.

From 13.01.04

THINGS TO SLEEP ON

How one struggles here in life . . .listening to our president helps me . . .. I mean he’s a good comedian if you have a sense for death row humour. As governor of Texas he certainly had a sense of humour. Remember to him execution was more than the mere implementation of justice—it was a rather good occasion for a barbecue.

The rest of the free world is denied such fun. In the rest of the free world had a political leader attempted to turn execution into a sort of modern ritual of human slaughter and feast he would be banished from political life and would not even dare to show his face in public—he’d probably have to move to America. In the free world outside of America execution is basically viewed as barbaric and immoral.

Isn’t it strange how different the values of the free world are?

The people of the world are not one in belief or in law. Ultimately the question is whether this is not how it should be? Strange as it might sound today the idea of an individual state’s right was a central architectural concept in the American constitution. Each state was to have a high degree of self-autonomy, yet linked together by a central government to form one nation. Thus the states were more than a mere confederation of states.

This has proven to be quite a historical accomplishment actually. The Soviet Union failed to find an acceptable way to hold its multi-ethnic states together, as was the case in the Balkans and today the European Union is struggling with this problem of just how all of these nation states are to be separate yet joined as one—finding an acceptable constitutional form. To date they have found no acceptable solution, only that the old adage; "In the end it’s all economics" is false.

The demand for a solution has never been greater. If Europe is to be a power with a voice that cannot be cast aside it is going to have to resolve this problem—a way in which all states are unified, especially on issues of foreign policy, yet autonomous and self determinate with regards to its domestic parts. To govern such a state will require a stroke of genius; on the other hand to fail to govern such a state will mean that in world affairs Europe will be reduced to a position akin to The Liberal Kid’s Union of Europe—interesting and cute but no punch.

Consider the Iraq war. Had the United states looked to Europe and found not just "Old Europe" as Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld so rudely put it, but rather found Unified Europe with a unified foreign policy, one that supported the French and German stance, the United States would have met a no confidence vote concerning pre-emption in Iraq that would have encompassed the entire Eurasian continent and probably would have had to back down.

The fact is, unified Europe is strong, at least in spirit, while divided it isn't. Divided it makes itself open to the Caesar concept of "divide and conquer". That's what the United States did. Were Europe unified in a sense of foreign policy they would almost be like the heedless lion of antiquity—mighty Rome. They would still lack the lion’s claw and teeth but would have the mane and mouth and in many situations that would be enough. Such a Europe could quickly find itself at odds with the United States, but it wouldn't mean an end to mutual security cooperation.

Yet in a rivalry of the Iraqi type where true security isn't directly threatened, ones opinion of American unilateral foreign policy is only weakened and demands that an alternative voice have viable strength—One that echoes the values of the free world.

Indeed playing a game of bleeding could prove advantageous for those European states that defied the American conquest of Iraq. The idea of bleeding, I believe, revolves about allowing a powerful state like America to waste its resources in campaigns that won’t give a return in the short run and increasing the likelihood of long-term losses. By remaining aloof and offering no help or only superficial help a state can bleed a more powerful state because it incurs no financial burdens while increasing ones power at the expense of the other’s folly.

For example Iraq could be understood as a gamble. The planners of this attack appear to have been of the opinion that once they ousted Saddam they’d be met with open arms and yahoo the Americans are here, which was clearly wrong—that was the gamble. Thus instead of being prepared for a worst case scenario (getting bogged down in a long guerrilla war) they went into Iraq undermanned for an occupation only to find winning the war was only a small part of the true battle and that to properly police the country required far more resources.

The present situation means that all business operations in Iraq must be seen as high-risk ventures where the probability of sabotage and collateral damage will be extremely high. Headline events like employee kidnappings, random killings to induce fear, combined with suicide bombings and more systematic attacks on the oil infrastructure, foreign business offices and so on. This is the present and indefinite future business conditions for the NEW Iraq. Were it true that the Iraqis wanted the American presence risk would be low and the oil would already be pouring like a river.

That bleeding would be effective is mainly thanks to Donald Rumsfeld's thinks he's a general complex. Rumsfeld’s refusal to send an adequate number of soldiers on the campaign—his new way of fighting wars—gave the Iraqi army adequate time to reorganize and restructure itself into a formidable guerrilla force and by not having enough qualified people (the logistical side of warfare) necessary to meet the needs of the Iraqi people quickly—things like running water, electricity, food, medical care, not to mention adequate police security, they have basically lost the people of Iraq and obtaining their trust will be perhaps impossible, while guerrillas can rise at will and vanish with the complete support of the population as a whole. At the same time the coalition soldiers there have already realized that they’ve been lied to and that they are not liberators but occupiers. What all this means are more costs in lives and mounting debt—the IMF has already sounded the alarm due to the budget deficit—as well as increasing doubt about the government’s ability to handle the situation alone. The wound of Iraq on the American budget and image (the world's dictator is acting like one) is definitely a bad case of bleeding. In my amateur opinion the American move towards unilateralism will prove to be a short lived unipolar illusion—the Bush administration will bankrupt America without accomplishing anything except for wasting resources and loosing important allies—i.e. weakening National Security as well as world security. The world needs an America they can trust because our role in terms of being a stabilizer is a global security fundamental. At present any unexpected threat or disaster will leave the US scraping the bottom of the barrel for funds to pay for the unexpected. Such disaster could bring our mighty nation to its knees. From this perspective the Bush administration represents a greater threat to our long term National Security than that of the terrorist madmen!

If anything is clear in the Iraq war it is that the “Red” republican administration had no grounds for war other than they wanted one. The question is whether anyone will dare to stand up to these "evil men" and let them feel the force of "don't tread on me." As things are terror definitely holds the throne of power since pre-emption itself is essentially a terrorist doctrine and is incompatible with our system of values and our sense of justice.

As one of those typical Americans who normally belong to the silent majority, I find the Bush administration’s power play confusing, unacceptable as well as dangerous. They’ve succeeded in creating what is for me a rather schizophrenic atmosphere counter to what I have been brought up to believe in. The administration’s ultimate goal is difficult to foresee as the smoke screen is being laid on thick and secretively from above and I don’t mean heaven.

The idea of the constitutional rights of the individual is one of the founding pillars of democratic society. Individuals are said to have and are protected by constitutional rights and it is precisely these rights the president is sworn by oath to uphold. Yet under the Bush administration this is apparently unpatriotic—it’s as though the entire foundation of democracy—to ensure the rights of each and every citizen—never existed and that anyone who is shocked by this abrupt transition, is written off as a "god damn liberal". A relatively recent act of congress, an act which beyond all doubt can be said to be one of the quickest pieces of legislation to have been drawn up and pass through the Congress in American history (it required one and a half months following 9/11 to create and pass a piece of legislation that basically removes the bill of rights) defies the very principles upon which the United States was built and is ironically called Patriot while being both undemocratic, unconstitutional and consequently unpatriotic yet to those who follow it and enforce it there can be described a crude sense of being patriotic—patriotic in the sense of doing ones duty out of mindless obedience, but with out any conscience for what constitutes democracy—the line so to speak between what we define as freedom and that which is out and out fascism. Thus the famous speech of president non-elect Bush in which he says either you are with us or against us is indeed a mouthful. If you follow him you willfully agree to the unlawful and to say the least the insane institutionalization of a police state, stand against him and you’re a terrorist sympathizer—this is the domestic aspect of the Bush administration. What kinds of minds think this way? Indeed how is it possible for any sane man or woman to trust such leadership? How does one entrust their nation to men who have basically proven themselves to be incompetent, except in their performance of being devious? This leadership when the smoke settles is going to leave Americans with the cold reality that in the world’s eyes America can’t be trusted. Ultimately one must ask the question whether the mechanics of a unilateral foreign policy imply the end of domestic democracy—something that can infect the entire free world, as we know it?