Thursday, August 7, 2008

Church of Later Day Neocons

Fighting Guerrilla Warriors with Conventional Tactics All for the Sake of Godly Profits

“War on terror” coins a sacred phrase in the Iraq crusade. Karl Rove, high priest of spin, led the neocons’ faithful choir through the doctrinal hymns, especially regarding Bush’s military mission.

Now the Sanctified Church of Later Day Neocons has anointed John McCain to take the pulpit for the steadfast congregation, a political party on a mission from God, bowing down to corporate avarice at the detriment of public interests. The neocon party promises to maintain stilted, stodgy status quo of old, slogging industries. Though, what we need these days is Yankee ingenuity, innovation, and invention--the heart of American entrepreneurism in government and in business.

Except for Secretary of State Rice, the ex-oil executive automaton, this special cabal of wealthy, white codgers has woven a web of myths so thick that everyone believes the country is divided between the red and the blue: the virtuous, righteous party versus the diabolical, liberal socialists. Behind the neocon marketing hype, the issues draw a real line between rich and the bleeding middle class and the economic policies that shove the poor deeper into debtor’s slavery while the wealthy reap the profits from the uneducated, gullible middle class.

At least twenty percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. As many Americans also believe they pay fewer taxes than Europeans who enjoy high quality public healthcare and education through university level.

I know firsthand by attending a German university. Otherwise, coming from a blue collar background in America, I never would have been able to afford an education. I lived and worked more than twenty years in Germany and France and paid fewer taxes than we do in America. I pursued the American dream where it was available.

Considered an enlightened saint among the neocons, Milton Friedman claimed that unregulated industries operate most efficiently. Contrary to this twaddle, we have witnessed how unbridled Savings and Loan banks imploded under Bush Sr. in the early 90’s. Corporations can and will destroy themselves by greedy feeding frenzies as we watched in the scandals like Enron and Anderson Consulting. Lack of government intervention, a lack of political will and leadership in America generally allows this trend to continue.

Once the Berlin Wall fell, hollow winds blew through the streets of Soviet Union’s communist ideals and gave the captains of American industry free reign to practice arrogant forms of unrestrained and turgid capitalism at the high costs of public interests.

After disastrous Reaganomics were implemented, Bush Sr. became president, campaigning on a promise to reduce taxes which he later increased in a desperate attempt to reduce Reagan’s inflamed deficit, and pushed Friedman policies, voodoo economics, further, allowing certain industries to gorge on consumers’ savings accounts, wolves on meek lambs. Bush Sr. cooled the corporate feeding frenzy that turned into a blood bath by paying over $120 billion in public tax funds to bail out the Savings & Loan crisis in the early 1990’s.

So, rather than maintain a Keynesian mixed economy in which government calms corporate passions for predatory profits, the neocon doctrine allows industries to devour gullible consumers until streets flow red with blood. Unimaginative industries, banking, healthcare insurance, and energy, resist innovation and change. The only way left for them to make profits is by praying on consumers' ignorance. Only then does government intervene by giving the status quo industries, which lack any innovation, a transfusion of tax payers’ money.

America’s government has become a mere socialized emergency room for industries that overdose on the crack cocaine of greed. Tax payers now pay industries to cure them of their own addiction to larger and larger profits and executive salaries.

As if ambitious to outdo dad, President Bush Jr. drove Milton Friedman’s free wheeling economic policies like a freight train on a downward spiraling track until it finally crashed into the limits of melting consumer credit cards and fraudulent, bloated mortgages. Bush Jr.’s administration will hand out hundreds of billions of tax dollars to subsidize the mismanagement of credit card and mortgage banks while their CEO’s carry their multimillion dollar paychecks to the bank, laughing all the way. Meanwhile middle class workers lose their homes at a neck breaking rate.

In so far as incompetent politicians sell their souls to corporate contributions and voodoo economics and consequently mislead this country into destruction and mayhem, the guerrilla Islamist warriors, like Osama bin Laden, are accurate in assessing the US as corrupt and decadent.

McCain’s campaign promises continue the neoconservative holy crusade for the Iraq War which directly affects the economy. The differences between Obama and MacCain are blatantly clear. Whatever McCain says about the economic fiascos of the mortgage crisis, the credit card crisis, or the Iraq War, Obama has an opposite view and innovative solutions.

The 2008 election is about diametrically opposing views between the Keynesian versus the Friedmaniac policies. In 2008 we also choose between the neocons’ imperial war to impose corporate turgid status quo over a sovereign nation for the sake of its oil reserves versus the innovative solutions in such industries as healthcare, banking, energy, and war.

Corporate Campaign Contributions – Industrial Domination

Tied to the unparalleled power of the Israeli lobby money and to the huge corporate defense and energy contractors, Bush and his chums have been operating only in terms of conventional warfare. Influenced by corporate campaign money, they only think in terms of corporate interests. This involves no bid contracts and the use of expensive, sophisticated weaponry that applies best to the warfare of one sovereign nation against another and not to guerilla warfare.

In other words, the stodgy political church of Bush and McCain is less interested in armor to protect the individual soldiers on the ground, fighting house to house. That sort of activity represents social welfare to individual human beings, brave soldiers. Armor for body and Humvee hardly increases profit margins in comparison to a billion dollar B2 bomber.

Following Bush’s footsteps, McCain embraces this same agenda. If Bush says, “stay the course in Iraq,” McCain says, “stay there a hundred years.” If Bush says timetable to pull out, McCain dittos the Anointed Decider. McSame has developed his economic and war policies from his ties with big business lobbies and not with the interest of the American people. Like Bush, McCain abides by unregulated big business as indoctrinated by Milton Friedman since the Reagan years.

This is the reason why Bush invaded Iraq, a sovereign nation. “It’s just business,” as he would say, “nothin’ pers’nal.” He could have pointed his finger at any piece of fresh meat and the American people were eagerly drooling to revenge the 9/11 attack.

The golden opportunity, the casus belli,a perfect justification for war arrived. The neocons knew exactly which war to wage, the low hanging fruit of the world’s second largest oil reserves. Despite many warnings of the 9/11 attack, W did nothing to restrain the well known Islamist guerrilla warriors, as indicated in his August 6, 2001 Presidential Brief, which he chose to ignore.

According to Ron Suskind's new book, Way of the World, Bush chose to ignore and deny clear intelligence that Iraq had no connection with al-Qaida and no WMDs:
Then, in the fall of 2003, the White House decided that a letter should be fabricated, dated July 2001, from the Iraqi to Saddam Hussein establishing a link to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. "And the letter should as well say that Saddam Hussein has been actively buying yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al-Qaida," Suskind says.


The neocons had long ago planned to knock off Saddam Hussein since the day he nationalized Iraqi oil. They have well documented this fact. Take a look at PNAC. It’s always been about the oil and a drive for global dominance backed by a fanatical Judeo-Christian fundamentalism. We cannot act too surprised when former Fed Chairman Allen Greenspan explained as much in his biography after he left his cushy government job where he practiced the Milton Friedman rituals devoutly in his bathtub, enlightened by flickering candles.

Invading Iraq made great financial and political sense at least for Dubya and his Friedman disciples from Podhoretz to Falwell and Pat Robertson. Defense and petroleum contractors made boat loads of profits, thus fattening the coffers for Bush’s 2004 campaign. Beyond campaign money, the Bush family as well as members of his neocon church, including Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and so on—they own millions of dollars in stocks with defense contractors and petroleum companies such as the Carlyle Group and a long list of others.

Cheney’s stock options at Halliburton skyrocketed, once the company landed those no-bid billion dollar contracts. Unless you’ve read up on this subject, you wouldn’t recognize the names of these companies, except for maybe the ones that advertise regularly on TV like Exxon, Boeing, Lockhead… By paying for multi-million dollar ads, they were able to stifle freedom of media journalism for at least as long as it took to get Neil Cavuto, comedian Bill O’Reilly, and Wolf Blitzer a whoring chance to sway public opinion to wage an imperial, conventional war against a loosely organized network of guerrilla fundamentalists.

Waging Conventional War Is Good for Re-elections

Bush desperately needed to increase his plummeting popularity score after the Supreme Court appointed him to the presidency by overturning the 2001 election. He could only win a second term in office if he initiated a major war against a well defined country. Iraq was a ripe target with an army impoverished by decades of sanctions. US history shows that no president has lost a second term election after declaring a war in the first term. Now the same scenario plays out for opportunist, citizen McCain who playfully sings his own song, “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”

This is how the American industrial military complex works. It’s become a cookie cutter process for presidents since the Mexican American War when the Thornton Skirmish arose between the U.S. and Mexican militaries, handing President Polk a justification of war against Mexico in 1846. The sinking of the USS Maine gave Teddy Roosevelt a trumped up reason for the Spanish American War just as the Tokin incidenthelped justify the Vietnam War.

This is how the American industrial military complex has operated at least since the Mexican American War (1846). President Eisenhower knew this and warned us about it. However, at the slightest incident, the unschooled masses repeatedly jump on the bandwagon for nationalistic pride, all too willing to take a blind patriotic ride to hell while all the way handing the pillaged profits to the robber barons of war. Is there a cure for the American middle class’s credulity?

Well, everyone could turn off the boob tube and read some books other than the Bible. In France and Germany, they’ve developed a remedy to some extent. It’s called a damn good secular public education system, one that does not muddle science and reason with religious poppycock like creationism, End Days, and all the hooey about holy lands.

Guerrilla Warriors, Not Iraqi Armies

There’s a little problem, though. The groups--groups plural--that perpetrate terrorist activities in the name of Allah are non-conventional warriors. They harbor loyalty to no sovereign nation but to a fundamentalist creed similar to White Supremists or the 700 Club. The US military could never bomb the terrorist groups involved in attacking US and European cities. The US could never invade any one country and expect its leaders to surrender and end the “war on terrorism.”

If attacking any main source of the trouble makers would solve the problem, then they would have to bomb Saudi Arabia because 15 of the 19 terrorists were born, raised, and indoctrinated there. The Devine Decider didn’t invade Saudi Arabia for the simple reason that, unlike Saddam Hussein, the royal family of Saud are long term allies and reliable petroleum suppliers since Franklin Roosevelt made the deal with King Saud in 1945, essentially saying, “We’ll support and protect your tyrannical monarchy so long as you deliver the crude.” It seemed like a good deal at the time, but times change.

The American industrial military complex makes less money in the labor intensive guerrilla wars than they do in wars that require sophisticated, manufactured weaponry. It’s basic business strategy to maintain high profits—to hell with the reasons or the outcomes of the war. Defense contractors earn much smaller profits in guerrilla warfare which requires labor intensive work in urban settings with ears to the ground. In his books, Robert Baer makes this a central argument. Using bombers, sophisticated equipment, missiles,...it's the only thing that makes business sense.

The guerrilla war we face has no one leader, no one country, no standing army. Our enemies in this so-called war on terrorism do not wear uniforms. They are guerrilla warriors who use any means possible to harm their enemies. They use bombs, booby traps, and hijacked airliners because they have neither conventional weapons nor armies. They made this point abundantly clear when they bombed the World Trade Center’s basement in 1993, not to mention earlier bombings of American assets in many places like Tanzania and the Congo.

Any one with a pulse could understand this as early as 1983, when a terrorist cell blew up the US Marine barracks in Lebanon. Likewise most intelligence agents operating in the Middle East knew that a persistent, organized movement of Islamist guerrilla fighters bombed the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. In his many books on the subject Robert Baer describes how he tracked militant Islamists. They had been a well known enemy decades before 9/11/2001.

Bush Jr. would have us believe that these guerrilla warriors hate America and its freedom. He never bothers to consider the simple economic situation in which only the small royal families control the opulent oil wealth in most Arab countries and they do not give a fig to diversify their own economies and develop their own people.

Unemployment (over 35% in Saudi Arabia) and poverty enrage Muslims. Fanatical anti-American religious training helps to set an unemployed, hungry, angry, idle man down a path to murder and mayhem, as was the case for Mohammed Atta and others. Most any religious group provides this sort of narrow education. Just watch Pat Robertson on his evangelical TV show, the 700 Club, or visit one of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Universities to witness how the later day church of neocons indoctrinate our own credulous youth.

Among Bush’s many mutating reasons for invading Iraq, he finally claimed that it was America’s moral duty to create a democracy throughout the Middle East. For a year or two around 2003, he had most American yahoos believing this. It is another part of the neocon catechism.

Another one of Friedman’s mind boggling theories is that once a country’s economy begins to operate in a capitalistic fashion, it will inevitably become a democracy. Likewise, so the theory goes, if a country becomes democratic, it naturally seeks to implement a liberal capitalism. Neither has proven true in the real world. As a totalitarian regime, China thrives on capitalism. We buy products from totalitarian capitalist China because their regime encourages, nay, enforces, sweatshop labor. It's why US corporations outsource American jobs; labor is cheaper in authoritarian regimes.

Contrary to Pope Friedman’s crack-pot ideas, once given the vote for a democratic government, several countries have recently voted against democracy in favor of theocracy, Islamist regimes like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, or President Gull in Turkey who has an Islamist background. Like the Catholic dominated politics in most of South America, many Islamic countries are theocracies.

Given the theocratic proclivities of President Bush, he too would like to see America governed by some inerrant, one and only Biblical interpretation and not by its Constitution. "We need common-sense judges who understand our rights were derived from God," --As quoted in Understanding the President and his God

Guerrilla warfare is messy and much more difficult to win than invading a crumbling nation. For this reason it never benefits individuals like Bush who intend to expand their personal, political, and financial success at the detriment of national security and economic stability.

As we learned in our own War of Independence and, likewise in Vietnam, guerrilla warfare is extremely messy, costly, and bloody. Contrary to Rumsfeld’s infamous statement that “democracy is messy,” it is the insurgency and the guerrilla fighters that clog the wheels of industry. The Russians learned this when they invaded Afghanistan and it cost them the collapse of their already frail economy. And these schmoes would have us believe that Reagan caused the fall of the Soviet Union.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Conspiracy Theories

The media, TV journalists in particular, continue to leave some important questions lying dormant beneath the dusty cover of “conspiracy theory.” Why did W decide to invade Iraq while 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia? Why is Saudi Arabia a cradle for such terrorists?
President G W Bush with King Fahd
Years ago, when W still had some credibility, he and his Roving gang could ridicule anyone who spoke against his actions. Whenever brave souls dared to question the Divine Decider, he and his cronies dismissed the dissenters as nutcase conspiracy theorists. And they continue to do so even after the Iraq War has officially run its miserable course to disastrous guerrilla warfare and our economy whimpers.

UFOs

Back in September 2004, Senator Bob Graham, (Florida Democrat) a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the Divine Decider of covering up evidence that might have linked Saudi Arabia to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Graham made the accusation in his book, Intelligence Matters, and repeated it at news conferences. Republicans called the accusations "bizarre conspiracy theories," and Saudi officials said they were unsubstantiated and reckless.

In his highly informative book, House of Bush, House of Saud, , Craig Unger criticizes the Bush administration for allowing so many Saudis, including the relatives of bin Laden, to leave the country quickly, while all other flights were grounded, without being questioned about the terrorist attacks. Unger cites FBI and Police agents as witnesses.

In his book, Saudi Arabia Exposed, John Bradley, who lived and worked as a journalist in Saudi Arabia, interviews several bin Laden relatives who rode on the very same plans that the FBI and the White House deny ever existed.

These UFO’s, such as the small LearJet 35 from TIA, among others, that flew bin Laden relatives and Saud family members from the USA quickly on 9/14, represent just the tip of an iceberg of cover ups that conceal the special treatment for the Royal family of Saud.

Money Walks

Once upon a time there was a Prince Naif bin Fawwaz Al-Shalaan, with a diplomatic passport and a family Boeing 747, who transported cocaine often from Columbia to France. DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) Agent Raffanello says some of the drug profits have been used to fund terrorism. The Prince transported up to two tons of cocaine. In order to shake the charges against him, he threatened French business interests of cancelling huge defense deals in an effort to persuade the authorities to drop the investigation. The Saudi Royal Family united to help their Prince out of the jam. Case closed.

Yes, Saudi Royalty is above the law. They are the law. After all they control trillions in petrol-dollars. Any surprise that they are close friends with Bush Sr. and Jr.? The family dynasties are joined at the wallet in oil interests.

Once upon another time there was a Prince Turki bin Nasser, the Royal Saud family's principal contact with the British defense industry, who allegedly received about $32 million worth of luxury benefits paid for by BAE Systems, the largest British defense contractor. British authorities opened a case of serious fraud against the Prince. To pressure the British into dropping all charges, Saud Royalty threatened to cancel billions of dollars in defense deals for combat aircraft. Case closed.

Many other cases haunt the halls of the Saud family palaces.

In London police arrested a 41-year old Saudi, close friend of Saud Royalty, for sexual assault against an 11-year old girl. London police were forced to release the man who claimed diplomatic immunity. The Royal family of Saud supported his return to Saudi Arabia and complained that the London media was putting him on trial, not the courts. Saudi authorities would not allow police to question the man further. Case closed.

Back in Riyadh, the Saudi government owns the media and uses it to smear any and all opposition.

Justice for All

For the regular guy on the street, apart from soccer matches, the only form of public entertainment is a beheading. If you ever vacation in Saudi Arabia, you’ll learn to recognize this occasional diversion by the way people leave their cars parked chockablock in the streets near a city’s chop-chop square where authorities carry out the executions. Of course, members of Saudi Royalty are virtually exempt from this system.

In partnership with the Saud Royalty, Wahhabi fundamentalists run the justice system. The country still applies a strict form of Shariah law, which includes public beheadings for, among other offenses, murder, drug trafficking, apostasy, rape, and adultery—and occasionally thieves’ hands are amputated. More than 50 beheadings take place per year...in a country the size and population of Texas.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency reported that crime among young jobless Saudis rose 320 percent between 1990 and 1996 and more than 136 percent by 2005.

Slums such as Kerantina in Jeddah and Al-Suwaidi, a southern district in Riyadh, are two of many homes to prostitutes, drug traffickers, and booze peddlers among the poor and destitute. The gap between the haves and have-nots has grown at least as fast as the population. Unemployment rises above 35 percent.

Terrorist Incubators

As these slums grow, so too the pressure for the young and unemployed to seek retribution for the inequality and hopelessness. The slums, like the provincial countryside of tribal villages, have predictably become fertile breeding grounds for Islamic radicalism and perfect for guerilla warfare.

These slums provide little sources of culture, education or entertainment other than drugs or the fundamentalist Wahhabi schools where young men receive their Islamist indoctrination. Many documented terrorists graduate from hard-line radical schools such as Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University. They learn to hate the West for many reasons, including supporting the tyrannical monarchy which hordes the petro-dollars. Resentment grows naturally against the Saudi government because its inequality, arrogance, and greed is rubbed in the faces of the poor every day. Hatred for the West arises from a natural logic that the Royal family of Saud exercises its abusive power because the West supports them as reliable suppliers of America's most intoxicating drug. Meanwhile Big Oil uses its financial power to maintain status quo, restraining alternative and cleaner sources of energy.

The combination of radical Islamic doctrine, hatred of the West, poverty, and a perceived pro-Western ruling elite has created a schizophrenic monster in the very heart of the country. This combination delivers a powerful recruitment tool that the likes of Al-Qaeda could only pray for.

And for some reason, we were led to believe that 9/11 was only about an irrational religious war.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Publisher's News Wire: Mojave Winds

Publishers News Wire
Mark Biskeborn's New Book Concerns Difficulties Faced by Iraq Veterans

Published: Thu, 21 Feb 2008, 11:57 EDT
By Angela Polchat Staff Writer, Publishers Newswire


IRVINE, Calif. -- Mojave Winds, (ISBN: 978-0-9801383-0-6), a novel by Mark Biskeborn, highlights the growing social impact on Iraq War veterans returning home, and their struggles to reintegrate to the civilian world.

The recent book by author, Mark Biskeborn, "Mojave Winds," has been met with wide acceptance, attracting a great deal of attention with its controversial storyline:

A combat veteran returns from the Iraq War, struggles to readapt to normal life, only to find conflict in the United States as well.

The new Stop-Loss law imposes unprecedented hardships on soldiers now. The prolonged combat missions increase tensions complicating soldiers' return to daily life- post-traumatic-stress, divorce, child custody, financial dread, and unemployment. These and other calamities unravel soldiers' nerves when they finally do get to come home. This book demonstrates the public concern over what happens when trained warriors show up on the streets.

With the flare-ups of domestic terrorism within U.S. borders, this book also reminds readers that the battles have now made their way to the United States as well. Fighting the enemy 'over there,' does not exclude fighting them here.

In the past two weeks, over 20,000 new visitors have flooded the author's website, http://www.markbiskeborn.com. This includes his online blog discussing the issues facing soldiers on extended missions. The impact of these American policies has received a sudden influx of new public attention. Traffic has also spiked from searches relating to the calamities of prolonged military tours of duty and concern for domestic terrorism.

The rapid spread of interest in Mojave Winds has been felt in the publishing world as well. The book was selected as a feature for the Southern California Writers Conference held in San Diego this past weekend. The prestigious International Thriller Writers conference in New York will feature Mojave Winds (thrillerwriters.org). The Writers Digest newsletter also features Mojave Winds (writersdigest.com) as the author will attend the Writers' Digest conference in L.A., 28 May.

The author, Mark Biskeborn, has been a contributing author for several blogs, especially The Smirking Chimp, and has received a swarm of letters and comments from his regular weekly writings. Mark is currently scheduled to appear at the International Thriller Writers Conference and the Maui Writers Conference this year. Amazon Shorts has featured several of his short stories recently.

As a result of Mojave Winds unprecedented sales success and rapidly growing popularity, several mainstream publishing houses are considering author Mark Biskeborn while he works to complete his next novel.

Mojave Winds is now available through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and many other booksellers, as well as the Author's own site.

The current state of affairs and the highly volatile political discussion concerning the legality of the Stop-Loss policy, the calamities that returning U.S. veterans now face, and the concerns over domestic terrorism continue to fuel public interest in the book. While the book is considered fiction, many of the issues discussed in its chapters are anchored in current affairs in the U.S. and world news events.

About Mojave Winds and Mark Biskeborn:

Mojave Winds, a novel by author Mark Biskeborn, depicts the difficulties protagonist Kris Klug faces; a returning Iraq War veteran, he struggles to integrate back into the civilian world. He suffers from flashbacks from his war experience, the drastic difference in civilian life, and the effects of post-traumatic stress. He also is shocked to discover that the war has followed him back home to the U.S., as a series of events puts him in the cross hairs of domestic terrorism. Despite the high-tension stakes, with an Islamist gang at his heels, he meets a classical dancer, Sheila, whom he finds especially intriguing while crossing the Mojave to Las Vegas.

The author is a long time resident of California, and has also lived and worked many years abroad. He has contributed many non-fiction articles, essays, and book reviews to magazine publications and blogs. He also has had several short stories featured recently on Amazon Shorts. He is now completing a sequel novel, Follow the Sufi's Ghost, for release in winter, 2008.

For more information on the book or the author, or to order online, visit http://www.markbiskeborn.com or call 949-293-2016.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Why Iraq and Not Saudi Arabia?

Bush insisted on invading Iraq, trumping up claims about its alleged WMD's, connection to al Qaeda, dictator...although…15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis, rebellious against the tyrannical monarchy protected by the US.

“Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” means a lot of things to a lot of people. Literally it means that the Al-Saud family owns the country and its residents are their vassals. The Royal Saud family rules “Saudi Arabia” mostly by force.

Nevertheless its ministry of communications attempts to present the kingdom as a country of peace and harmony. If this were true, how could 15 of the 19 terrorists of the 9/11 attack come from the kingdom?

After World War I, at the Cairo Conference of 1921, the British rewarded Sherif Hussein, naming one of his sons, Faisal, king of Iraq, and another, Abdullah, ruler of modern-day Jordan—both countries, like most in the Middle East, were imperial inventions whose borders were sketched in the sand. The winners of WWI carved up the Ottoman Empire into the modern Middle Eastern countries we know today and they assigned rulers who seemed cooperative.

The British also backed Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi followers because he seemed most capable to pacify rival tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, especially since he had already regained control of Riyadh after a final power struggle against Al Rashid in 1902. Thus the Saud family gained royal power to rule what became the Saudi Arabia we know today.

In 1945, US President Franklin Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud to negotiate an important oil deal in which the US would back the Saud dynasty by providing military support in exchange for a reliable supply of crude. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

Shady Partners
To this day, the US continues a similar policy in the Middle East: support a ruler in order to maintain a dependable trading partner, regardless of how that leader rules his country—monarch, tyrant, dictator, or popular nice guy. Few, if any, beloved leaders have yet to arise in the oil rich land of the Levant. Thrust into Iraqi power mainly by the US in the early 1970’s, Saddam Hussein eventually turned his back on his Yankee supporters and nationalized the Western-owned Iraqi Petroleum Company. Well, you know what happened to him—the good’ol boy gone maverick finished at the end of a rope.

Only in the post-9/11 period do we begin to question this sordid history of propping up compliant governments to satisfy our needs for petroleum and its profits. Eventually we, Western oil consumers, will have to admit at least partial blame for the terrorism that now plagues us.

The imperial support we provide to dictators, tyrants, and kings contradicts our own ideals of free trade democracy. Now, as we miserably attempt to reclaim control of Iraq, we find that our own freewheeling democracy comes under question, what with our undeniable oil interests in the country we invaded for all the most ridiculous reasons.

As far as our oil supplying countries go, we only play lip service to democracy as a marketing ploy to justify our on-going neo-colonial holds on reliable oil traders. This has been our implicit policy since 1945.

When Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud, this “scratch my back I’ll scratch yours” policy made sense. Back then, the Levant was a tribal frontier and the United States a new born industrial powerhouse. Things changed in the half century since then.

The United States grew into a global empire. Its strongest power brokers became the international petroleum oligarchs we know today; these few companies enjoy the highest levels of profits in all of human history and are fully entrenched in the status quo of oil as our source of energy, albeit an obsolete technology considering Global Warming and the current Petroleum conflicts.

Thus the West became blindly addicted to fossil fuels and never bothered to develop alternative fuels over the decades. This poses a huge pressure on the oil suppliers of the Levant.

In many ways similar to Iran and Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, the Saud Royal family garnered enormous wealth over the decades while all but ignoring the development of the people in their tribal frontiers. This imbalance intensified resentment between the Royalty and the various tribes, the vassals of the kingdom.

Theocratic Tyrants
The Royal family owns the powerful army and Crown Prince Abdullah heads the elite National Guard, made up of young men drawn from the various ranks of the Bedu (Bedouin), tribes, and official Wahhabi establishment. The Wahhabists, the extremely conservative, fundamentalist Islamic sect, owns the moral and judicial power to control the people’s behavior, how they think, dress, eat, drink, and, well, every other detail.

To this day, the Al-Saud family rules in partnership with the direct descendants of Abdul Wahhab, known as the Al-Asheikh family.

“The Al-Saud princes hold all the key government posts. Members of the Al-Asheikh family hold the key positions in the religious establishment and are responsible for enforcing Islamic orthodoxy on the streets by intimidating people by the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” says John R. Bradley in his book Saudi Arabia Exposed.

People fear and revile this “religious police” for its Stasi style of wide reaching and nefarious attacks, its members drawn from lower classes who resent the freedoms and ease of the wealthy.

Things that us westerners consider a birthright such as dissent on the issues of religious belief, are out of the question and punishable by public beheading. For this reason, “chop-chop square” in Riyadh is often a busy place.

Like the Al-Rashid, several tribes, their cultures, and their religious variations struggle to survive under the US backed Saudi regime.

Restless Natives
Before the Ottoman Empire fell (WWI), several ancient tribes called the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia) their home. “But the Hijazis in the West, the Asiris in the south, and the Shiites in the east did all suffer massacres, witness their Islamic monuments destroyed, and have their various Islamic beliefs damned as apostacy by the new official ideology: Wahhabism,” says John R. Bradley in his book, Saudi Arabia Exposed.

Although all were eventually cowered into submission, many of these diverse people Ibn Saud finally ruled over were not originally Wahhabis. Indeed, many members of these tribes still resent and resist Wahhabism, while Al-Saud bought or promised or compelled the loyalty of others under threat of beheading. These tribes have always fiercely resisted the Wahhabi-Al-Saud tyranny which arose from the central region of Al-Najd.

Shiites make a majority in the Eastern Province on the oil rich Gulf. The Saudi regime has impoverished, often harshly oppressed, and at times massacred them (not unlike Saddam Hussein’s Kurd massacres using gas and helicopters supplied by the US).

The Hijaz is home of the House of Hashem, or the Hashemite tribe, descendants from the Prophet. They enjoyed considerable autonomy and a belief in Sufism, the mystical Islamic belief system based on the idea that love is projection of the essence of God to the universe. This greatly contrasts from the Wahhabi’s strict literalistic and legalistic approach to religion.

The Asir tribes, like the liberal Hijaz and the Shiites, have always been reluctant vassals to the Al-Saud Royalty. Like the many other tribes, the Asir have never fully adopted the Wahhabi doctrine. The Asirs carry out periodic rebellions and low-level struggles to keep their regional identity alive.

The Asirs view the Al-Saud family as outsiders imposing their rule, backed by the West. They call both hypocritical: the Al-Saud Royalty for preaching piety and purity while living in opulence and the West for espousing human rights and democracy while supporting a tyrannical regime that disrespects the rights and customs of others. The hypocrisy fuels hatred for the West and local alienation from Al-Najd, the region of Wahhabism.

The governor of the Asir region, Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, surprisingly admits to the crisis that the Wahhabi influence has created.

Who teaches children in orphanages and schools that Saudi Arabia is not their home, that their only home is Islam? That their future vocation is jihad?...Who convinced Saudi youth that the surest path to Heaven is to blow themselves up and take citizens, foreign residents and security officers with them? Who did this to us?
Quoted from John R. Bradley’s Saudi Arabia Exposed.

Why Terrorism?
Asir was where the 15 Saudi hijackers lived when the 9/11 attack took place. Several of the hijackers came from the same tribe and bonded there in the late 1990’s. They listened to the same radical Wahhabi sermons at the Seqeley mosque in the region’s capital. Shortly before they left Saudi Arabia for Afghan training camps, they pledged to join jihad.

At least 12 of the hijackers came from the impoverished, highly tribal parts of Hijaz and Asir. Like most young Saudis, well educated or not, but almost all unemployed, oppressed, and impoverished, they imbued the anit-West and anti-Saudi sentiment. Like them and other hard-line Islamic dissenters in the past, Osama bin Laden was always a harsh critic of the official Wahhabi religious establishment that joins forces with the Al-Saud Royalty.

The hijackers also shared bin Laden’s tribal roots. Like him, they resented the Saud Royal clan that ruled them while living a double standard and they hated the religious sheiks from the Al-Najd region who legitimatize Al-Saud while “issuing fatwas for money” as the dissident saying goes.

By attacking the US--supporters of Saud--these tribal hard-line Islamist Saudis targeted the Wahhabi-Al-Saud tyranny. The Saudi-U.S. alliance motivates the
otherwise powerless, disinherited tribe members to attack their source of disinheritance and resentment.

Since Al-Saud remains a reliable oil partner, unlike Saddam Hussein, need we wonder why the US invaded Iraq instead of the real source of the 9/11 attack?


Main Source for this article: John R. Bradley's Saudi Arabia Exposed.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Father's Day

Today is more like Memorial Day. Father's Day calls my father to mind, but WWII was one of the most defining events in his life.

Just a farm boy from Nebraska, hardly 18 years old, he served in the Army's 89th Division and shipped out for the third wave of landings onto the shores of Normandy.

He saw a lot of action. Carrying a high quality German camera, he took a lot of pictures of the war. None of them pretty.

When he returned home, he had a lot of shrapnel embedded in his flesh. Many years later, when he'd started a family, contributing to the baby boom, he had to go to the VA hospital several times to take some of those pieces of metal out from under his skin as they began to resurface.

As I grew older, his experiences and stories of war fascinated me. And the shrapnel that took so many years to surface again now remain as a memory and a metaphor.

As my father advanced in age and then learned that his days were numbered, like the resurfacing shrapnel, he began to remember his combat experiences. That's when I learned a lot more. He talked about it more than ever.

Since then, I've written a novel mostly based on a character similar to my father, though, placed in our modern times and circumstances.

War is war no matter the time or the generation. Soldiers return home and try their damnedest to forget. Only the self-proclaimed gung-ho soldiers, the ones who dance around in flight suits for photo ops...only they are eager to talk of war. Eventually, combat experience comes back, haunting the soul. I remember how my father often woke up from nightmares. All his short life, he suffered from narcolepsy caused by combat.

Mojave Winds is a novel, its main character, Kris Klug, is a young man returning home, looking for job and faces calamity while readapting to the civilian world.

Mojave Winds, though, is partly a memoir about my father, despite the time that's lapsed. It's in honor to him.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Culture of Deception

“My husband and I’ve thought about this next election. We realized that McCain is more than seventy years old. It’s his last chance. The other candidates are younger and have many years ahead of them. So, we’ve decided to vote for McCain.”

While driving to work, I heard a caller say this on Air Talk, the Larry Mantle radio talk show, KPCC.

Think about it. One of the best reasons to vote for McSame, right?

If this represents the way a large part of Americans reason or just gut check the issues, then the very foundation of our democracy shakes on sandy grounds. Does this murky thinking reflect the quality of our public educational system?

A crisp sunny day awakes us with a blue sky here in Southern California. The miracle of humanity begins to scurry, we hop into our cars and off to work. Busy people, we want to make the money that buys the things that we enjoy with our families. The paycheck routine seldom allows time to contemplate the big picture, or any picture at all for that matter.

The sunshine drives shards of brightness through the cracks in the curtains and roof top windows. We awake to the light, though, the more we ignore the darkness, the more we allow it to thrive. Soon darkness can take over the sky and the light fades such that we seldom ever awaken, if not only in our dreams.

The Matrix

We enter into a fabricated world, a virtual reality, like that depicted in the movie The Matrix. It’s a place we inhabit but our eyes are covered, the brain perceives images and an entire life in a society, a culture, a world, but it’s all merely a video feed plugged into the nerves at the base of our skull. We become so incapable of discerning what is real that we lose all sense of it. Our critical thinking dwindles. We drift into an existence without awareness.

The Secret Service code named Bush’s press secretary, Scott McClellan, as the Matrix, referring to the movie by the same title. McClellan acted as the main video feed into the mainstream news channels, the one who fed the lies at the president’s requests. Bush often referred to his ol’ pal Karl Rove as “The Architect,” referring to the character in the Matrix movie as the master mind that created the enchanting delusions which people believed as reality. Karl Rove worded most of the spin that McClellan presented to the media.

Rove, the Architect, and McClellan, the Matrix…they fabricated a whole world around Bush, albeit one of intentional deceit. From Bush all the way through his entire administration, a constant marketing campaign of propaganda fed deception to the public about life and death issues, including healthcare, war, and the economy. Matrix, Architect…code words. People in organized crime like the Mafia use them to cover illegal activity.

Dispelling the Deception with a Vengeance

Once a fervent spokesman among Bush idolaters, Scott McClellan now peddles his book entitled, “What Happened.” It claims to illuminate how Bush’s public image as beer drinking, ranch hand was mere chimera. By now though, to most of us, it’s redundant to talk how the real Bush lives in his own loser’s bubble.

McClellan’s testimony as an eye witness offers one more of the volumes and volumes of solid evidence in the public courtroom. Will the justice system function as it should? Will its wheels turn and begin impeachment proceedings? The eye witness testimonies of the Bush Administration’s criminal conduct now bust the seams of the bookstores and libraries. Does the US justice system do anything?

Without the light, the colors of flowers would pale and turn their smell sour. The leaves of grass would rot. Without the light of day, truth itself becomes unrecognizable, if not entirely lost.

Can The Working Class Get Tough?

Democracy depends on the working class. We are the majority vote. Like the leaves of grass, we have to keep our feet planted on the ground and respect our
common sense, as Thomas Paine once called it. If we fail in the basics of life, we lose our footing, nothing else supports us.

Growing up on a small, remote Oregon farm, my mother could size up a sleazy politician by mere glance. Economics did not allow her to finish high school, yet, she was smart enough to tell you if the town’s Evangelical or Southern Baptist preacher was nothing but a flimflam. Her generation lived by a hard-bitten skepticism that pierced through the darkness of deception and into the light of truth.

What happened? What generation picked up the torch after that generation of America’s working class, the ones who fought in World War II and knew how disastrous war meant for everyone involved?

Was it too much TV for the baby boomers? Did the baby boomers overdose on the Pollyanna Disney characters? Hopefully the Bush years have taught the “baby boomers” and the “gen-Xers” about the consequences of political indifference. Too bad we Americans have to always learn by experience and mistakes rather than by reading a history book. The tide has turned though.

Even legions of hardcore Bush devotees have turned their backs on the con artist. Among the growing list of fall guys and disgruntled sycophants, we find high level officials, including Colin Powell, Paul O’Neil, George Tenet, Douglas Feith and so on and so on.

Like some of these authors, McClellan became a fall guy. From Bush’s Texas days, he was in it for the money and the glory. As may be the case for many baby boomers, money took a priority over any civic duty to a higher good. Only after the chips fell against him, did he rediscover his civil duty to unveil the lie. Although years late in divulging Bush’s already well documented intentional sham, McClellan has made a noble gesture by adding to the mountainous public testimony.

Even the top Israeli political officials and U.S. defense contractors, the strongest of Bush supporters, the most fervent instigators of the war and investors in Bush, have turned their backs on the now unpopular mess. When the war was popular, many prominent people were behind it. Defense contractors are still enjoying the huge profits from Bush’s propaganda.

Today, though, only those in blind darkness would support this total disaster of duplicity.

And that’s exactly where McCain and his followers are right now.

Citizen McCain Embraces Bush’s Chimera

The son of a celebrated four-star admiral, John Sidney McCain III started his Navy career as a pilot. After being shot down during a bombing mission and taken prisoner, he returned home. Thanks to a famous father, McCain enjoys many gratuities. Thanks to his father’s status, US News & World Report printed a 13 page spread, describing his ordeal as a POW.

Shortly thereafter he attained captain’s rank. His POW ordeal, more than anything else, gave him the credibility to launch his political career. He then took over his father’s old job as liaison to Congress, enabling him to hob-knob with many elected officials.

“I attribute it more to John turning forty and wanting to be twenty-five again than I do to anything else,” said Carol, McCain’s first wife, mother of his first three of seven children, when asked about the grounds for their divorce.

So, when Hagee, whose initial claim to fame derived from his right-wing family values, endorsed McCain recently, it was just another spin on reality for the sake of votes among the dreadfully gullible fundamentalist holy rollers. Any association with the wacky Hagee buys votes for McCain from the flocks of sheep that follow the zany preacher.

Shortly after his divorce, a travesty of Hagee’s view of family values, McCain found new love with a daughter of wealth, Cindy Hensley. His marriage with Cindy afforded him more gratuities, including the connections and cash needed to catapult him to a Senator seat for Arizona.

When McCain and Cindy needed to move quickly from Phoenix to Tucson, her cash made the move easy to buy a new house. McCain had to establish residence in Tucson to take the Senator slot from retiring John Rhodes. His rivals called him a carpetbagger and opportunist.

Rebutting his critics, McCain told a little story about how much he had to move around his whole life as a Navy serviceman and cited Hanoi as the city where he’d lived the longest in any one place. The symbolic reference to Hanoi recalled his claim to heroism. McCain, like the Architect, had learned how to spin a political narrative more powerful than the truth.

As a legislator, he’s not particularly effective. The McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act took torturous paths to enact. And despite this law he helped to establish, McCain’s campaign has taken huge amounts of contributions from lobbyists who expect payback in political favors.

Though again, as part of his image building, McCain participated in campaign finance reform mainly to restore his reputation after the Keating Five incident in which he, among four other senators, took huge campaign contributions.

His media acumen has proven his greatest, perhaps his only, survival skill. He has been smooth in spinning a response to suit his political needs for the moment. In 2006, Chris Matthews (MSNBC) said, “The press loves McCain. We’re his base.”

Although as McCain advances in age, his media instincts falter. He’s made many gaffs during his current campaign. Unbeknownst to him, someone cam corded him while singing about bombing Iran in some morbid sense of humor, undignified for a senator, much less a presidential candidate.

Like Bush, McCain stitched his political career in mythologies. Just as Karl Rove architected an artificial reality for G. W. Bush, he now constructs that sham magic for McCain’s campaign.

In 2004, former counterterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke published Against All Enemies a blistering testimony of his career in the White House under President Bush. On CNN Clarke said, “they’re saying some of the exact same things about McClellan they said about me.” Bush’s propaganda machine routinely smears any dissent or criticism.

Now that Bush is raising campaign funds for McCain, the new presidential candidate mimics Bush’s policies, making it possible for Bush to serve a third term at least vicariously.

I knew an American working class that made decisions from a tough, bitter, and skeptical gut. A carpenter could see the snake oil salesman in an Evangelical Preacher like Hagee. A plumber could smell the slimy stench of a rich kid charlatan like G.W. Bush from great distances. Now it’s time that all America’s working class wakes up and finds the light. We are the majority vote.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Book Expo America -- Market of Free Thought

Los Angeles, CA—Most publishing professionals consider Book Expo of America the industry’s compass in trends and innovative thinking. This last weekend, the spirits of Magic Johnson, Ted Turner, Thomas Friedman, Michael Moore, and others drifted through the convention center’s halls, as the Zeitgeist of our times flashed glimpses of its elusive light.

Agents, writers, and editors roam through the aisles and rows of new books. As the publishing industry's annual showcase, it’s one of the world’s largest flea-markets of books and thought trends. The event focuses on business to business relations, not intended for general public.

Coolest of all people I met at the event was by far James Rollins, my favorite writer buddy. He told me about how he wrote the novel entitled “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” based on the latest movie.

As a journalist I meandered around hoping to shake hands with the Zeitgeist, peer into its eyes, and listen as it whispered secrets to me. Things didn’t turn out quite like that though.

Not following any plan, I first stumbled onto the guys at the Bowker booth. They told me that books sales have dropped, whereas in Europe, people buy more than twice the number of books compared to the USA.

Here in the USA, we might complain about the disappearing small corner bookstore and the rise of the corporate sellers. Don’t gripe too loud. You take a trip down to South America, you’ll discover that there’s a brisk pirated book industry where few respect copyright laws. So you can buy a DVD or a book for pocket change on the street, though selection is extremely limited. As a consequence you’ll find hardly a bookstore in Lima or Bogota. Stores can’t pay their expenses if the market goes underground.

That may explain partly why some countries remain in the third world. In South America, the main source of culture and ideas remains the Catholic Church, keeping a lid on truth and freedom with a dogma that includes “subdue the earth and multiply.” The old religions want us to ignore the dire issue of over-population and their lack of science in education, or secular education at all. The healthier the market for ideas and free expression, the stronger, more innovative goes the culture. Book Expo America thrives on new ideas.

A theme of innovation cropped up in Thomas Friedman’s hour long pitch for his new book, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded.” Friedman demands a Green revolution in the USA. He warns us about the exponential population growth rate and its ecological impact on our planet. Nothing in his speech was new or revolutionary. I can remember reading about all these issues in high school from books like “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler.

What’s new about Friedman’s passionate voice in the wilderness is that it now echoes through the otherwise empty channels of mainstream media. Despite the Bush Administration’s attempts to completely squelch ecology, Al Gore brought it back front and center. We can applaud Friedman for hopping on this band wagon. Though, in many ways, I sense that Friedman has sipped too much of the right-wing Cool Aid.

In his speech, Friedman warned us against the USA’s dependence on foreign oil and its despot barons. Among such petroleum tyrants, Friedman only mentioned Chavez and Iran. He didn’t mention a whole host of monopolistic practices among oil corporations, not a word about the American automobile industry’s complete resistance to new technology. His approach to revolution would make Mickey Mouse look aggressive.

Friedman’s lack of depth and of full disclosure begs the question if he’s siding with the Neoconservatives in their love affair with dictators like the Saudi royalty. I suppose he has to muffle his tone in order to sell more books. But to make the Green revolution happen, we’ll need radical and immediate shake-up of the corrupt energy, defense, and transportation industries. His version of Revolution lacks leadership and any real critical view for change to occur. Without sharp teeth, at least in innovative, creative, critical thinking, his so-called revolution will gain the momentum of frozen yoghurt. I left Friedman’s speech wondering if he’s also joined in the search for WMD’s in Iraq…and now in Syria and Iran.

As a self-proclaimed trend-spotter, Book Expo of America’s choice of Thomas Friedman was a let-down, like casting Mayberry’s Barney Fife in the role of Rambo. The survival of the planet is at stake, hey, let’s call on Donald Duck.

Speaking of third world dictatorships, China, one of the world's fastest-growing populaters and polluters, was the subject of a five-hour seminar. About 750 officials from China and other Asian countries attended, the highest ever at BookExpo.

Virtually every major publisher, from Amazon, with its Kindle ebook, to Random House, announced environmental plans, mostly through the increased use of recycled paper and fiber from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international environmental organization.

Alas, Book Expo management has yet to walk their talk. The event and the program guides added up to more than 10 million pages, none on recycled paper.

Aside from saving the planet, increasing income remained at the top of publishers’ priority list. "I expect the usual jockeying for possession of `The Next Big Book,' since there are no clear candidates," says Steve Ross, publisher of the Collins division of HarperCollins.

I wanted to blurt out and tell him about my own new novel, “Mojave Winds,” as the obvious choice, but I succeeded in containing myself.

Celebrities always seem to hype up book sales by virtue of their profile. Alec Baldwin, promoted his new book on parenthood. Other speakers this weekend included media mogul Ted Turner, whose new book, entitled “Call Me Ted,” resonates as if he’ll have a beer with us in some gesture of American democracy and egalitarianism. He wants everyone to think of him as “Captain Planet,” a clever marketing position, considering how his boob-tube programs like CNN cower down to commercial sponsors when reporting tainted truth.

Strolling around aimlessly, I also met Federal Public Defender Steven Wax, author of “Kafka Comes to America.” I’ve had time to read only the first chapter. It’s enough to see that Wax’s office works harder than any lawyers to exposing the truth about prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Wax delivers a harrowing story of the erosion of civil liberties after the September 11 terrorist attacks in a powerful account that reads like a thriller.

Steven Wax and I talked briefly about how so many Americans seem to remain apathetic even during a war waged on the whim of a rich kid who wants to prove he’s a better Texan than his father. Wax offered no answer to the enigma and offered less to say about how most of America’s popular fiction is based on escapism. Is it the publishing industry that nurtures a culture of lethargy? Or does the droopiness of the American mind demand what it deserves? In all fairness, I suppose my questions were a little loaded.

Novelist Michael Connelly hosted a fabulous cocktail party. I was honored to shake his hand. He explained how he found inspiration for his stories and characters, not so much from books but from the lively conversations with criminal lawyers and LAPD detectives. His soon to be released crime mystery entitled “The Brass Verdict” delivers a smooth read. His story telling skills inspire many novelists to raise the bar.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Memorial Day Celebration

One thing you can count on, the department stores offer special sales. But if you’re going to visit the VA Hospital, leave your expectations in the car.

(This piece was also posted on Huffington Post.) 

Los Angeles, CA-- Smoke rises up in the neighborhood. Aromas of steaks on flaming gills perfume the air. The sounds of kids running around, laughing, playing, remind you of Memorial Day. Families get together. Guys drink beer and chat. Women talk about family and fashions. People go to the movies and talk about their goals. Memorial Day is all about these things.

Well, unless you’re remembering. And this might mean that you’ve resisted forgetting. A little something might chafe there, in the back of your mind. It’s so easy to forget. It’s healthy to avoid harmful, bad, ugly things.

What could be worse than war’s flesh ripping, bone smashing carnage?

This Memorial Day weekend I went to visit the wounded, the dying at the Veterans’ Hospital on Wilshire Boulevard. If you’re looking for it; it’s just where Wilshire passes under the 405, a huge complex of buildings, packed with broken, tired veterans from old wars like Korea or Vietnam and new ones, like Afghanistan and Iraq. Among the many large buildings, veterans from different wars are scattered and placed in wards depending on their wounds. Very few remain of World War II, and if you meet any of them, even fewer care to talk about it.

Even though I’ve been around veterans all my life, my naïve expectations were many about this complex of so many buildings. I had an agenda…and even an ulterior motive. I wanted to pass my new novel, Mojave Winds, to as many wounded soldiers from Iraq or Afghanistan as I could find. Today though, most of the staff took the day off to celebrate Memorial Day. So it became a challenge to find the wave of young, wounded soldiers from this new war. I had expected legions of visitors coming here today.

I envisioned hoards of those pious, religious folks here, especially those fundamentalists leaders who preach about how important staying the course is…and the surge…the surge. Maybe large groups of Jews, or Evangelicals, or Catholics, maybe Baptists… For some reason I expected them to come here in bus loads on Memorial Day to sacrifice their time, provide some comfort for these wounded men.

Roaming through the halls, I stumbled through a couple of doors opened to rooms. Young guys were lying in bed. Brian is 27 years old. He’s been here for months. Two years ago, he returned from Iraq with some strange disease that took hold of his body. Maybe it was the water. He’s lost a lot of weight. When I gave him a copy of my book, he formed a smile, though it didn’t last long. I stayed a while and watched the news on TV with him.

No cheerful faces, no energetic young guys, ready take on life, eager to embrace the future. Instead I learned things from them. When going to a VA Hospital, it’s best to readjust your sense of time. Slow down. No one is going anywhere fast. Living in a healthy, civilian life, you might have goals, schedules, and plans. Here, a lot of the guys take it one day at a time.

In a nearby room, Don was sitting on the side of his bed, trying to think about standing up. I sat in a chair. Together we watched the news on the TV for a while. Doubting that he had the strength to read a book, I didn’t dare offer him mine. In addition to the physical wounds, loneliness can weight heavy everywhere, in the air, in these gloomy rooms, out into the halls. As I walked out to the parking lot, I think of how each one of those guys could have been me. I could be one of them.

Then the twisted poetic metaphor came to mind, something about a “smoking gun turning into a mushroom cloud.” Was that all it took to get an entire nation of pious believers riled up for this crusade, a war that makes so many an anointed political leader and CEO extremely wealthy? Those who never carry a gun into battle all too often enjoy the luxury of making war a romantic and lucrative enterprise.

On Memorial Day, we might also remember the greatest of all Infidels to all religions, Walt Whitman, who visited the maimed, the mutilated, and lay down next to the dying.
But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade,

Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless,

The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive,

I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.


Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,

That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew,

For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.


If you find the courage to visit the veterans, the wounded, my advice is to go without any expectations. I believed that by giving out my new novel I would help them to take their minds off their pain, their confinement. I learned, though, that just being there, the presence of another human being is sufficient to help the wounded to remember what it’s like to be whole and healthy. This is their Day to Remember that. You become the simple example of hope for their goal…to get out and join the rest of us in every day life.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Starstruck Cafe

A legal drug in America can wake us up and cure our delusions.

Venice Beach, CA -- This early in the morning only the seagulls keep me company. The air still holds sea mist. This coffee shop opens at daybreak. Though, nobody shows up until the seagulls have eaten up all the crumbs left on the street from the Saturday night pizza and beer parties.

Soon the regulars will arrive. The first of them is a lady who scoots around in a wheelchair, whispering to herself and asking for spare change so she can buy a cup of Starbuck’s strategically revived Pike’s Peek brand. Past her prime, she seems to use the wheelchair to keep her increasing weight off her feet. What she may not realize, though, the more she uses her wheelchair, the heavier she’ll become and eventually bound to it, entrapped by her own convenience.

I suppose other reasons motivate her self-imposed slow ride into captivity. Wheeling around like that might make the charitable more inclined to hand her their spare change. She rolls into this coffee shop and out again at regular intervals, at least once every half hour. Passers-by rush to help her maneuver through the door, but they’re not regulars here. They haven’t seen her walking around on her own two feet, and they don’t know that she’s probably fallen into that habit just to attract attention. Her eyes flash like bright neon lights saying, “I’m lonely. Pay attention.”

That might also serve as a great sign for the bar down the street,”The Galley” one of Charles Bukowski’s old haunts. The heavy drinkers become who they are in noble attempts to escape their troubles. Not knowing that by drinking more heavily, it only gets worse. Eventually they, too, become bound to their own mental prisons. At the break of dawn, I ask a woman, sitting on a bench why she’s crying.

“I spent my whole week’s wages on booze,” she sobs. “I drank all night.”

By the time the wheelchair lady, no, I won’t tell you her name and, yes, I talk to her, has made enough to buy what Starbucks calls a coffee, the younger local Yuppie types show up. They were out at their usual pizza parties last night, blowing out on beer and pepperoni. Blow-out…a term Martin Amis uses in his novel “Money,” about how bad habits can ruin the best of us. I remember it from years ago. The term fits for how these young, college educated office workers toss off the frustrations of working in cube farms and for bosses who want to optimize returns on their backs. I know. You’re thinking that the term yuppie is so dated. Like, dude, who says that anymore?

Well, it just seems fitting. The “new” line of Yuppies, the Generation Xers or the Generation Yers. Their differences are only nuances apart, just a tattoo, video game, and a skateboard apart. Labels like these are useful mostly for marketing departments for consumer goods. The comfort zones apply from one generation to the next. You get stuck in a routine, you imprison yourself. You let your mind think the same way for too long, it’ll handicap you. Make you wheelchair bound, mentally or physically or both.

That’s the message I received this weekend. The nice thing about going to the movies in a city like LA, you get to step out of the same ‘ol same ‘ol of American movies. You know, the movies produced first from the perspective of careful psychographic and demographic research, the ones that break down the needs of market niches, like the Generation X, or Y… Independent movies, especially the European variety, tend to break those static rules taught in business schools. A good story is often the one that helps to break us out of our own comfort zones. They help us to see the world in new eyes.

“Reprise” is a chic flick with hip looking 20-something Norwegians who grew up in Oslo, hang out with the same circle of friends and maintain the same sort of dependencies in their comfortable relationships. Two or three of these buddies become famous for their first novels. It’s not until one of them discovers that, by going to a foreign country, he’s able to break out of the rut. This dissolves the old comfort zones through his old circle of friends. It shakes things up. His closest friend even learns to love a woman when she snips his mental chains by finally telling him, “Stop.”

“Roman de Gare”is a cool French movie. None of the fast action, flying in the sky comic book adventure as, say, “Iron Man”, but it does offer glimpses of human warmth and relationships, some that grow and thrive, others that whither. It’s only when the protagonist realizes he’s not the man everyone taught him to be that he discovers his own life and identity by stepping out of trails he’d beaten down throughout his life. A woman of a most unlikely occupation helps him to change his eye glasses and so too his perspectives.

In a similar story of recent American history, our anointed religious and saintly political leaders tend to want us to stay the course. From one miserably failed President to McCain, they want us to keep doing the same thing while expecting new results. Human spirit isn’t made for this type of mental absurdity and living, though. We naturally follow an instinct to break away from delusions once unveiled. It’s in our genetics. Drinking new brands of coffee is necessary for our survival.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Bush Visits His Only Friends

The Bush Administration celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Israeli nation this week.

W visited the one or two places in the Middle East where the entire population would not massively attempt to undo him. Israelis are the only people to give W a standing ovation, moving our grossly failed president to tears. It’s the only country where he feels welcome. Well, except maybe the US military during his usual speeches, but the soldiers are always on orders to stand.

In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of the Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arab League rejected the plan, but on May 14, 1948, the Jewish provisional government declared Israel's independence. Israel thus became the first Jewish state in the world, now with a population of just under 8 million. It’s about the size of greater Los Angeles and 85% Jewish.

Since the UN recognized this new nation, especially after the 1948 Israeli-Arab War, Israelis have pushed their borders east into Muslim territories. Israeli expansion has enflamed decades long fighting between Jews and Muslims with no resolution in sight. Emphasis on the differences in their religions has continually ignited hate on both sides of the battles.

Neither side is innocent in this ongoing war between Jews and Muslims. Despite the holy image of Israel that once warmed the hearts of many Americans, war has stained the saintly Israeli aura.

Israel remains the preeminent military power in the Middle East. It has nuclear weapons, strong conventional forces and the capability to strike at will, as it did in September when it destroyed what it believed to be a Syrian nuclear facility.

Last year, Israel signed a 10-year, $30 billion arms deal with Washington aimed at keeping that edge for years to come.

Given Israel’s massive military capabilities, is it any surprise that Iran does everything it can to protect itself? Once a close ally with the US, Iran is now forming alliances with China and Russia for its oil and weapons exchanges.

Given Israel’s US support and military might, is it really any surprise that Palestinians resort to terrorist reprisals and other such guerrilla war tactics? Of course, terrorism and guerrilla warfare is unacceptable, as should be all types of war. Yet, let’s also keep in mind that Israelis have not been innocent of their share of terrorist reprisals either.

For the US to grant Israel complete unconditional love is to take sides with one party in a war that has no innocent perpetrators.

Israelis roll out the red carpet for Bush mainly because W and his old neocon war mongers have loved Israel unconditionally...and waged war for them. Israel enjoys all the benefits as if the 51st US State and without the tax bill for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Many experts on Middle Eastern affairs have shown convincing evidence that W pushed the invasion and occupation of Iraq solely to serve Israeli interests to fortify its power in the region. As a fundamentalist Christian, Bush believes in the second coming of Jesus and, so prepares for Armageddon.

This means that neither oil or freedom or anything else motivated W more in his personal war against Iraq than religious ideology.

It was about the religious fervor that stirs the hearts of neocons like Bush, and now McCain who has gained endorsements and support from Israeli enthusiasts like Pastor Hagee and Preacher Pat Robertson. Those religious fanatics beguile the blind following of large swaths of gullible, uneducated American voters.

It stands to reason that without the interest in oil wealth of the region, the US would not support a war in those deserts for the sole sake of ousting a dictator. If this were the case, the US could easily invade North Korea, or China, or Zimbabwe…ruthless dictators run all of these and other countries.

When W first came to power, Israeli leaders like Sharon and now Olmert had long since urged the neocon fundamentalists in the US to invade and occupy Iraq and Iran. This has been the Likud's agenda for decades. Likud has in the past espoused hawkish policies towards the Palestinians, including opposition to Palestinian statehood and support of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many prominent Israelis adhere to these goals, including Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is so publicly documented no references are needed, except for those in denial.

The bitter pill of Bush’s complete failure as a President, though, comes from how these Israeli leaders now voice disappointment in the US invasion of Iraq. Did I say “bitter?” Bush served the Israeli leaders faithfully like a choirboy serves the Catholic priest, in orthodox and unorthodox manners, bending over, assuming the position, and taking it all in deeply.

During the Bush admin, the US has granted Israel complete and utter unconditional love, sacrificing thousands of young American patriots and trillions of tax dollars.

"The sum total is that if you measure Israeli security at the beginning of this administration and at the end of the administration, based on things the president either could have done, should have done or failed to do, the report card is pretty negative," said Daniel C. Kurtzer, who served as Bush's first-term ambassador to Israel. (Washington Post, 14 May 2008)

Kurtzer has since switched political parties. He saw the light. He now advises Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Kurtzer sees Bush's neglect of the peace process for most of his seven years in office. Despite the president's optimism that he can achieve a Palestinian-Israeli deal in his final year, Kurtzer and many other analysts believe that Israel remains unwilling to negotiate peace with its neighbors. As is typical of Bush, he ignores the advise of non-religious, non-neocons. In his recent speech in Jerusalem, Bush claims that “Israel stands for peace.”

As a kick to the dead horse (Bush), the Israeli defense establishment voices second thoughts about Bush's decision to remove Saddam Hussein and the botched occupation of Iraq. Despite Israel’s urging the early Bush administration to invade Iraq, those policies, they now argue, have helped fuel the rise of Israel's nemesis, Iran, whose president has spoken openly of trying to wipe Israel off the map. The war has also threatened to destabilize neighboring Jordan with a flood of refugees.

Early on, the Iraq invasion "looked as if it would serve Israel's interest," said Shlomo Brom, a former director of strategic planning for the Israel Defense Forces. But "the way that it was implemented by this administration is eventually causing damage to Israel. It is strengthening the radical elements in the Middle East."

"People are mistaken,” says Brom, “to think that the most friendly president [to Israel] is also the best president that Israel has ever had."

And now to stave off further criticism from his Israeli masters, Bush pursues serious talks of invading Iran, and this even after various intelligence has proven that Iran has no nuclear capabilities. W and his neocons, like McCain, have not yet learned an obvious and simple lesson in leadership, namely, that to twist up CIA intelligence and to ignore common sense advise, can lead the US into military and financial catastrophe.

Like his neocon advisors, Bush wages his wars mainly motivated by religious ideology, ‘crusades’ as he calls them in speeches. We see the results.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Movie Review: Stop Loss

Opening in cinemas across the country this week, the movie is required viewing for anyone with a heart-beat. Its emotional drive keeps your pulse racing. You could go watch a flick about a bank robbery or a border crossing…but, hey, that’s been done before.

Though highly entertaining, the story carries us far beyond mere cinematic amusement, its characters deal with high stakes of country and duty, life and death, family and identity, love and self. Its narrative handles the complexity of how red-blooded Americans are coping with the war in Iraq.

The otherwise uninvolved civilian audience, we step quickly inside the lives of patriotic soldiers who care about their country and learn the hard way that good intentions and innocence hardly suffice as a compass through the big world.

The story helps us all to take a look at who we are as Americans regardless if we’re in or out of small-town USA, liberal or conservative.

The movie’s jumble of feelings and adrenaline delivers a taste of authenticity that we won’t find on the sanitized news channels. Instead of moral indignation, this story runs on earthy fuel: blood, guts, and beer. Testosterone, popular music, and ambiguous, confused ideology weave together a fabric of reality.

Whether over there or once returned home, the young men carry a bundle of pent-up rage for all they go through. They signed up for a justified war to protect the homeland, and to bring justice to an enemy. Once having believed their government leaders though, combat teaches them a whole new perspective on geopolitical ambitions. Stuff they never had to consider in public high-school.

In the first scenes of amateur video, young soldiers make it clear from the start that they’re good ‘ol boys trying to do their best. They’re not Yale graduates of a privileged ruling class, nor sons of a former president, pretending to talk and walk like Texans. They’re the real deal, blue collar guys, products of what America delivers from public education and pop culture.

Staff Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) leads his squad, supervising a checkpoint in Tikrit, where insurgents draw them into an ambush leaving some of them dead, others mangled, and the rest badly shaken by intense urban combat where friend and foe are indistinguishable.

After the trauma of that battle, Brandon and his best pal, Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum), are especially happy to end their tours and return home to Brazos, Texas, looking forward to normal life.

Once Brandon King’s squad returns home, though, they quickly discover how the war returns to them from inside out. Intense, extended combat duty dismantles some of the vets, such as Tommy Burgess (Joseph Leavitt). Others, like Shriver, feel homeless outside Army life.

Then when squad leader King tries to turn in his gear, some administrator tells him that the President has "stop-lossed" him and he must redeploy to Iraq. His response: brief but choice words about the President and his Stop Loss prerogative. This triggers the story. His superiors, parents and friends—form the heart of the movie. The situation illuminates gut-wrenching questions.

Outraged, King goes AWOL. Still naïve to the world of politics, he wants to fix things by hitting the road to talk with a senator he met during their homecoming parade. Steve’s fiancée, Michele (Abbie Cornish), a close family friend, helps by driving him in her car.

Steve finally comes to pick up his fiancée Michele and to bring Brandon back to his senses when he meets them at a Notell Motel. When Steve surprises Michele that their wedding is postponed for the sake of another military hitch, she breaks the engagement with him and stays to help Brandon. Sexual tension rises. Yet their road trip takes them nowhere—like Iraq.

Imagine if you will, returning back from war, wanting never to go back to it, and then the government steps in and tells you, “If you don’t go back to fight this endless war, we’ll make you a criminal, scampering around the country like a rat out of a cage. You might run to Mexico or Canada, but there, you’ll live in the empty shell of a man without family or friends, without your identity…”

In the movie’s 112 minutes much happens in non-stop dramatic action. We don’t have time to miss it.

Starring: Ryan Phillippe (Brandon); Channing Tatum (Steve); Abbie Cornish (Michele); Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tommy).
Directed by: Kimberly Peirce; screenplay by Peirce and Mark Richard.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Coffee Klatch

Running on caffeinated fuel, all synaptic pistons firing, I’m writing away, polishing up my next novel, The Sufi’s Ghost, and what happens? The stranger sits nearby. I keep my head to my laptop screen, taking cover. The stranger always comes in, white guy with the curly afro gray hair and suit, no tie.

Inevitably, he asks, “What are you writing? You’re here every morning early.”

Impromptu conversations at Starbucks always carry the opportunity costs…a waste of perfectly tuned caffeinated inspiration humming along. I say, “Just work.”

It’s never smart to admit to any creative endeavor, not here in Orange County, California where every man, woman and child engages in nose-bleed unbridled enterprise. Many a corporate professional speeds down the wide boulevards here, chasing after that promotion through the office political maze. Corporate automatons abound, wearing their pay checks in fine German cars. Engines of our economic strength, they live in the fast lane with hardly a smile, only a denial that they’re part of the middle class. Delusional nouveau riches, they vote right-wing just to feel like they’re part of that class of real wealth.

“How are you doing,” I say. “You’re here often. What is it you do?”

“Psychologist,” he says, “retired. I also taught English Literature down the street.”

“So, you like to read novels?” I ask.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, take a look. I just got a thriller out,” I say, shamelessly hawking my latest. I hand him a bookmarker with the pitch: Mojave Winds, Available at Amazon.com.

“Sounds interesting. Takes place in the Mojave… What’s it about?” He asks.

Now I eagerly say, “…a guy, Kris Klug comes back from extended combat missions in Iraq…tries to readjust to civilian life…looking to start his life, get over whatever post-traumatic stress he might have. Picked up some shrapnel and he lost part of his ear. He doesn’t have much family, so he relies on his uncle Fred for a job. A colorful character, Uncle Fred owns a trucking company that hauls goods between LA and Vegas. Once Klug arrives in LA, though, he begins to learn that Uncle Fred has a lot more going on than just trucking…”

“Sounds like a fun read,” the stranger sips his coffee, scrutinizing the bookmarker.

Silence falls. I return to editing.

“So, what’re the morals of your story?” The psychologist asks.

“There’s several…like individual spirituality.”

“What else?” He pushes on.

“Fundamentalism is another theme.”

“What do you mean?” He continues slurping his coffee.

“Fundamentalists…ones who believe in the holy books as the literal word of God…strictly by the text.” I look at him.

“Holy book as in the Bible?”

“Yeah, the Bible, the Torah, the Koran…whatever. Most any religion uses a holy book as a guide. Fundamentalists stand out by using their holy book as the word of God’s law.”

“I’m a fundamentalist.” He says. “But there are preachers, I’ll admit, who go overboard. They preach to others just to feel superior.”

“You mean like they have some sort of personality disorder?” I ask.

“Yes, some preachers do have personality disorders. I’ve seen them. They like to tell people how morally inferior they are, sinners. There are social-paths and insane people everywhere in normal working society…they can be functional, get work done…be productive and still have many symptoms of serious disorders. The manual of psychology defines personality disorder in clear terms. A severe disorder…a person must exhibit at least five of the nine main symptoms.”

“So, what are the nine? Manipulative?” I ask, having read a little on the subject.

“Yes. And tricking others. And bending the truth, lying, in order to satisfy their own fantasies. And such people would also be extremely narcissistic…always looking to accomplish some agenda, often a farfetched one.”

“And completely out of touch with reality?”

“Exactly,” says the psychologist, “and I’ve often seen that this type of disorder…Narcissistic personality disorder…they’re alcoholic or drug abusers.”

“Cocaine?” I ask the psychologist.

“Yes. They also often portray themselves as superior to others…talking with smirk…and a tone as if what they say is so obvious…that if other people don’t agree, then they’re just too stupid. Individuals with this disorder might strut and swagger…and talk tough, in a bullying way…arrogant.”

“Someone who would manipulate the truth so much just to show everyone that he is right and everyone else is wrong?” I ask, beginning to see a pattern here.

“Yes,” says the psychologist, “they start this often at an early age, trying to outdo their parents. I’ve seen boys with this problem always trying to belittle their fathers to prove...”

“Okay,” I say, “and the boys, when they get together, they only enhance their sickness?”

“How did you know?” He sips his coffee.

“Well, isn’t this the profile of George W Bush…joined up with Cheney…Rumsfield?”

“What?” Says the psychologist. “I have no way of knowing what President Bush is like. He didn’t manipulate the truth. He’s a man of God. He overcame his alcoholism by accepting Christ into his life. He takes counsel from many prominent Christians. He doesn’t manipulate the truth. He merely used what the intelligence community gave him.”

“Right.”

“There’s no way of telling what happens in those political circles,” he says.

“I see how you’d make a good teacher,” I say, figuring the guy could show kids how to toe the party line, go with the flow and blend in with corporate culture. I finish my triple espresso and focus back to my laptop.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Why are there Suicide Bombers?

Are suicide bombers similar to others who commit suicide? Do they derive their motivations from the same sources?

The more than four suicide bombings just last Monday to mark Cheney's visit to Iraq, keep this question alive every day we walk down the street. A woman entered a mosque in Karbala, killing dozens and wounding another hundred. What drove her to this?

When Mahmoud Marmash, a young bachelor, blew himself up near Tel Aviv, in 2001, he took several Jews with him, perhaps to the same afterworld, or maybe not. “I want to avenge the blood of the Palestinians.” From a poor community-- he grew up where many people despair in poverty and hopelessness-- Mahmoud’s act is difficult for many of us to understand. We wonder what would push a person to such extremes?

An examination of suicide, though, uncovers that politically-based suicide is nothing new. It appears more than seven times in the Old Testament. Remember Samson in Judges 16:29-30? As an escape from the despair of Roman oppression, martyrdom is common in the New Testament.

Many of the same motivations for political suicide drive other types of suicide victims. Most infamously, many “experts” on TV News discussed the case of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack, as a well-established professional with a doctorate in architecture.

What most people fail to mention is that he never fit into the German culture where he studied and thus, lonely, frequented a mosque that indoctrinated him to fundamentalism of an extreme flavor. Like most such suicide cases, Atta was alienated and woefully under- or un-employed most of the time.

Contrary to many current assertions, a careful gander into this subject teaches us that the suicide bomber draws motivation from the same wellspring as other types of suicide victims.

As civilized people, we should be able to do much better than the Bush-Cheney approach: throw our hands up and say, "Nothing to do but kill them all. "Bomb the hell out of the entire Middle East! That'll fix it. Sweep it all up." The last sentence is an actual quote by Rumsfield.

Little wonder that terrorism has only increased greatly since the US Supreme Court elected the neocons into the Executive Branch.

We can diagnose this sickness and identify its causes in order to reduce them, and thus avoid so much violence.

Suicide at the Foundation of Sociology

In the early 20th century, sociologist, Emile Durkheim studied and categorized the reasons for suicide. Emile Durkheim lived during the peak of the industrial revolution, what Mark Twain called the Gilded Age, when wealth was extremely concentrated among the ownership class and labor movements incited violent riots, including terrorist bombings.

This was a time of great social and economic upheaval. Perhaps this explains both Durkheim’s theories of suicide and his interest in the subject. After careful analysis, Durkheim found it was the individual’s bonding to society that could determine whether or not he was likely to commit suicide, and he described four different types of these bonds:

Altruistic: Durkheim explained that too much social integration leads to self-sacrifice for society, patriotism, honor; the altruist, such as the WWII kamikaze pilots, commits himself to a goal beyond himself and considers this world an obstacle and burden.

Egotism: Too little social integration leads to alienation, loneliness; the egoist sees no goal to which he might commit himself, and thus feels useless and without purpose.

Anomic: Whenever an economy is not regulated enough, conditions such as unemployment or iniquitous distribution of wealth arise. Unlike the Neoconservative's preference for Milton Friedman's unbrindled "free market economy," Durkheim believed that it is the role of society to regulate the economy, and he sees a relationship between a society’s suicide rate and the way it performs this important regulative function.

Fatalistic: When society sets economic expectations too high, individuals who fail to meet these standards can lose all sense of self-worth.

Cultural beliefs can directly influence each of these types of suicide. Durkheim’s last three types of suicide seem to apply variously to most any culture, including American society.

Suicide in America

America’s culture and economic system often creates huge financial inequities and hardships leading to suicides. In volume of suicides, the U.S. ranks among the top forty among all countries in the world and 9th among industrialized countries.

Why would the so-called "wealthiest country in the world” rank so high above most third world countries?

The vicissitudes of America’s economy leave a vast majority of individuals to despair from unemployment and iniquitous distribution of wealth. In such situations, individuals are exposed to at least two of Durkheim’s motives for suicide: anomic and fatalistic.

Studies in the U.S. during the 1980’s found that every one percent increase in unemployment related to suicide increases of 360 per year. The U.S. offers hardly any social infrastructure to the unemployed. This often leads to the anomic and fatalistic suicide motives, as well as higher rates of crime and gang activity.

At the same time, consumer advertising promotes the expectations that everyone can take a piece of the pie if they work hard and "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." When a culture raises expectations high and some individuals do not prosper, hopelessness can overtake even the brightest individual, including the soldiers returning from extended combat missions, struggling to readapt to civilian life.

Sometimes our own political leaders contribute to the feelings of economic disparity. G.W. Bush’s administration recently promoted the U.S. as the beacon of free-market prosperity, a privileged nation, God-chosen to spread democratic wealth.

Bush used this image, as his most frequent among many ploys, to justify the preemptive attack in Iraq. However, compared to the world’s democratic nations, the U.S. currently grows one of the largest gaps between rich and poor: one percent of the population relishes in 40 percent of the wealth while 50 percent of the population struggles with 3 percent of the wealth.

The poor get poorer, the rich, richer. Fatalistic despair and broken expectations increase among those who fall behind, while the winners in the economic cycles sometimes suffer the emptiness of their egotistic drives to success. These economic gaps intensify the social hardships and represent causes for suicide in America, Durkheim’s last three motives: anomic, fatalistic, and egotistic.

Internationally, the U.S. government commands enormous influence over countries whose regimes it protects through military support. We call such countries “client states” such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait...and so on.

In these countries, the U.S. supports autocratic rulers, such as the former shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, the Royal Family of Saud, and even the early years of Saddam Hussein--before he made his fatal decision to nationalize Iraqi oil--among others. These autocratic states maintain much higher levels of economic gaps between the ruling elite and the working classes than those in the U.S.

The tough, autocratic Islamic cultures exacerbate the gap between the wealthy ownership class, such as the Royal Family of Saud, and the poor. They create environments of great social, economic, and political crisis. They push some groups to extreme behavior such as suicide bombing. This explains why 15 of the 19 highjackers of 9/11 were Saudi.

This crisis was long in the making through Muslim social and economic failures over generations. The list of humiliations goes on today through American military dominance in Muslim territories and unconditional support for Israel, not to mention decades of European colonization breaking up the Ottoman Empire.

The Middle East -- A Hotbed of Suicide Bombers

In many Muslim countries, unemployment runs high and the wealth generated by oil revenues trickles down like water in the Sinai. “Poverty and unemployment among Arabs are fundamental reasons for the spread of terrorism, an unsually enlightened Saudi prince said at the opening of a conference,” according to an AP report.

Saudi Arabia remains in the third world in terms of poverty even though its oil revenues provide a per capita GDP much higher than that in, say, Texas. The private owners of the oil wealth distribute it among the royal family members (19,000) while the population of Saudi Arabia, like Iraq, equals that of Texas (23 million).

“The very production of oil," says an AP report, "in otherwise underdeveloped societies often skews the local economy -- funneling vast wealth to a few and thus intensifying the preexisting antagonism between the haves and the have-nots.”

While Durkheim’s last three motives abound in the Middle East, fundamentalist religion adds a fanatic ‘altruistic’ motive to the mix, creating an apocalyptic cocktail in some Islamic societies.

In Muslim countries we find the suicide bomber for whom all four of Durkheim’s motives seem to work simultaneously.

National Public Radio reporter, Christopher Joyce, quotes a Palestinian psychiatrist as saying, “most of them [suicide bombers] are very nice, timid, introvert, have had a problem with power in their childhood, …personal experience with serious traumatic events in their lives…witnessing the helplessness of their fathers.” Joyce notes that terrorists groups use religious rites to create a sort of ritual bonding among bombers.

In USA Today, reporter Jack Kelley characterized suicide bombers from Jordan as young, sexually frustrated and “frustrated by the economic and political duress...”

Muslims are alienated and detached from their culture if they do not participate in mosques. Families sometimes support martyrdom as a successful fulfillment of the faith.

Thus, by altruistic martyrdom, terrorists win in many ways: they fulfill a perceived benefit for the entire community, gratify their own eternal salvation as well as sexual satisfaction with the promised 72 virgins they expect to meet in heaven--something the Prophet Muhammad promised after the Battle of Badr in the 7th century.

They find revenge in the injustices that they believe the infidels caused throughout history, such as American military presence, or European colonization. They attain notoriety in their community, all great improvements from their desperate poverty.

A defensive Jihad is legitimate and, for many, it is the duty of every Muslim when infidels encroach upon the Islamic territories, as the 7th century fundamentalist Khawarijites emphasized in the convoluted, confusing verses of the Koran.

In the Middle East, Muslim cultures often create all four of Durkheim’s motives simultaneously. Iniquitous distribution of wealth causing frequent high rates of unemployment, coupled with fundamentalist schools, these elements alone create a culture that encourages suicide bombing and aggression against any Western, infidel intrusion into Islamic territories.

In fact many people in the regions of Saudi Arabia hold burning resentment against the tyrannical monarchy which the US supports and defends for their petroleum partnership. In many ways, it's easier to attack the US or Europe than to attack a well fortified small group of Arab royalty.

Terrorism is a tactic of guerrilla warfare. It's a stateless enemy of insurent revolt against a tyranny. As we now well know, it has nothing to do with a nation like Iraq. Only after the US invasion did suicide bombing become especially widespread and kamikaze in style.

Peaceful Solutions

Through its fundamentalism, some Muslim cultures tend to intensify all of Durkheim’s motives for suicide to create the Muslim martyrs. By understanding the suicide bomber’s motives, economic, social, and religious, we learn its causes. By looking closely at the causes, we gain insight into how to eliminate them in order to solve the problem at its roots in a peaceful way.

Until now, the U.S. has supported oppressive, fascist regimes in its “client states” of the Middle East. We must change this economic and political situation in order to eliminate the terrorist’s martyrdom.

Though changing the economic and policital situation is no simple task. It's run by elite owners of wealth and vested power.

We can also take lessons from these causes for suicide as reasons for the high levels of suicide and crime within our own country.

In the Old Testament, Samson committed an act of suicide terrorism when he brought down the Philistine temple and killed thousands of his oppressors. He was in an extremely helpless situation.

In the New Testament, Christ, along with thousands of other Jews, willingly went into a martyr’s crucifixion as a form of defiance against the Roman Empire’s oppression. They had few alternatives. Likewise, in the Middle East, economic and social despair lead people to this terrorist’s martyrdom because they are left without even a glimmer of hope to live with dignity and respect.