Someday, we have to realize that human society has changed;
like landscape amnesia, once we recognize the change we stand in wonder of why
we did not recognize it sooner. Therefore, the undeniable and sweeping truth
revealed in Friedman’s 2005 book, The
World Is Flat, shocked people; technology
has changed everything. Everyone had opinions but no one seemed to dismiss the basic
logic of his argument. What was more startling was that no one seemed to have
any idea of how to respond or even put his theory into day-to-day perspective over
all cultural endeavors including the blatant negativity that we call war. His well-documented
and systematic approach to our historical and geographical journey through time
was economically and business oriented and not from a general cultural
perspective.
Friedman treated the changes in technology in glowing terms
of enhancing human collaboration but almost as an aside, he also expressed
concern that terrorist networks could slow the flattening of the world. I do
not think he fully appreciated the change technology represented in terms of the
evolving changes in relationships between sovereign nations. The realpolitik of
Henry Kissinger had died. General Patten standing in a tank turret was long outdated—Gen.
Eisenhower and Adm. Hulsey supported by a massive Pentagon, with their massive
armies and fleets under their “heroic leadership”, gloriously battling equal
foes were essentially disappearing—however, there are still a few isolated and lingering
exceptions.
Part of the “flat world” created by technology in “warfare”
is the shift from massive million man armies to small clandestine, radical
groups in isolated regions. Lethal weapons include such bizarre things as internet
recipes for making lethal explosives in your kitchen to air missiles held by one
person to his shoulder for sale on the international market or to how to make
nuclear bombs. Governments counter by developing drones, explosive detectors,
supersensitive radars, and x-ray to screen everyone who boards an airplane.
In the “good old days”, legislative bodies could debate and decide
to negotiate after diplomatic efforts failed, an attack could be methodically organized
that is fund and prepare an army to defend against a massive army. Our turtle
like governments had time to organize a military draft to involve the nation’s
people in a war. Everyone now knows that the congress of the United States congress
cannot decide anything in less than years; even in emergencies, it takes months.
The point is that it takes a long time to prepare a massive invasion; amass an
army or navy, fund and activate a war industry, and prepare the people to
support a war or otherwise defend themselves in contrast a terrorist can
operate without warning.
We have played around with laws and treaty negotiations to
correct this situation to mount a sudden attack but not with success. The “Authorization
for the Use of Military Force” falls into that category. The 60-word resolution
put together during a meeting;
“That
the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against
those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized,
committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,
or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts
of international terrorism against the United States by such nations,
organizations or persons.”
People are unhappy with the resolution, as they should be. However,
all it really does was to allow the President of the United States to do what
the Constitution authorized him as Commander in Chief to do. After the shock of
9/11 passed, Congress chose to call any aggressive military act as “an act of war”,
which any president could only carried
out after Congress declared war on a sovereign enemy; however, there is never a
sovereign enemy in terror. Bush and Cheney needed a sovereign state to attack
so they use a convenient neighborhood villain and attacked Iraq under the
resolution. Advisors and the military industrial complex, religious interests,
and multinational oil companies urged them on. Everything that could go
wrong with that war went wrong; the American people became distrustful of the
president and obviously did not want him to have war powers to start full-fledged
wars as he had done.
A drone attack was not “an invasion” nor was it an attack on
a sovereign state it is not a full-fledged war. Most countries do not see drone attacks on individual terrorists as
attacks of war. Most people see them as effective, although some chose to see
them as violating human rights and demanded that the government bring terrorist
to trial to prove they were terrorists—obviously impossible.
Of course, collateral damage, especially unintended deaths,
were despicable but nothing compared to an act of war. Worst of all, the people
did not trust the Republican president who clearly lied. When the people
elected Democrat Obama, it was suddenly pay back time; if the American people
hated Bush, the Republicans had to create hate for Obama anyway they could,
which is where we are today. The resolution is not that bad but the Bush legacy
is that we can never trust president again. The “expanding” tragedy is that we
cannot trust congress either—they are bought and paid for by Koch brothers and
other plutocrats due to a corrupt Supreme Court; the ultimate sellout to the
military industrial complex: war for profit. We THE PEOPLE must debate this resolution in depth.
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