March 15, 2003

IDES OF MARCH



This article had been submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune but since publication is far from certain it is presented below.

The Ides of March are upon us again and decisions are made which will affect our lives as well as those of our children and grandchildren for decades to come. Let us, therefore, step back for a moment and reflect upon the origin of these words. On March 15, 44 B.C. Brutus, Cassius and other Republicans murdered Caesar in the Capitol because they wanted to rescue Rome's republic from incipient despotism. What did they get? Mark Anthony’s fiery funeral oration precipitated a brutal civil war between the followers of Caesar and those of the Senate. Two years later Brutus and Cassius committed suicide when they were defeated by Octavian and Mark Anthony. A shaky coalition between the victors lasted for a few years but by 30 B.C. it was open warfare again. Mark Anthony lost, committed suicide and Octavian became Caesar Augustus, the undisputed ruler of Rome. What Caesar's murder was supposed to have prevented came to pass anyway. But, as they saying goes nowadays, this is ancient history and our college students tend to be told "it's all about dead white males" anyway, so why bother?

There was, however, another March 15 which changed the world and I witnessed it. This was the day when Hitler proclaimed from the balcony of Vienna's Hofburg the annexation of Austria. The Greater German Reich was formed on that day and with it began the road to WWII. Without Austria, neither Czechoslovakia nor Poland could have been invaded. The Greater German Reich was supposed to have lasted a thousand years but made it only for seven. If a Cassandra or Jeremiah had told the cheering crowds on that day that seven years later American bombs would ruin their city, that the Red Army would occupy it, and Stalin instead of Hitler would be calling the shots they would have declared her/him as insane. But that was precisely what happened. The consequences of violent political acts are always totally unpredictable and unexpected. This brings me to the current situation.

Those of our citizens who believe that a "preventive" war against Iraq is wrong are now labeled as "Ideologues" of "appeasement," as Mr. Lavender recently put it. Bill O'Reilly on his "no spin zone" is even more outspoken. While he reluctantly tolerates dissent from the current party line he has made it clear that if demonstrations against the war persist after the shooting has started the participants are "bad Americans." Let me now go back again to March 11, 1938. On that morning I awoke as a "good Austrian." Although I was only twelve and a half years old my family was conservative and had no use for Nazis. We looked forward to the plebiscite which was supposed to have been held the coming Sunday, March 13, and we were sure that the government would win the declaration that Austrians want to have a free and independent country. Since Hitler knew that this would be the outcome, the plebiscite was not allowed to take place. The Schuschnigg government was forced to abdicate, a Nazi government was installed during the night of Friday 11, and by Saturday morning we awoke to the roar of the Luftwaffe which had come to "liberate" us. This was the phrase which was given as the reason for the invasion. At that moment I had, in official parlance, become a "bad Austrian" because I was not in favor of this liberation. By the following Wednesday morning I had become a "bad German" because Austria no longer existed. I had not changed my views from Friday to Wednesday. They had remained the same but politics, over which the individual citizen has no control, decreed the difference in classification. The details of these events are documented in a book I published a few years ago.

Eventually I came to America because I wanted to breathe the air of freedom. I became a citizen and on the day I received citizenship my wife and I celebrated with champagne. We were and are good Americans. The Clinton scandals deeply disturbed us and we voted for the Governor of Texas in the hope that he would bring honor and sanity to the White House. But since his administration seems to be in the process of dismantling the very foundations which made America great and to which I swore allegiance, out of my own free will, I am now in danger of being labeled a "bad American."

Mister Lavender's article which caused me to write this reply quoted from Thomas Friedman's book that "When it comes to thinking about Middle East politics, the American liberal mind is often chasing rainbows. They are living in a world of delusion." This is correct as far as it goes except that the word liberal needs to be omitted. It is a conservative administration which tells us that when Iraq is defeated, democracies will spring up all over the Middle East, the Palestinians will get their state, Israel will be safe and for all practical purposes the messianic age will have arrived. This is the delusion for which we are now asked to shed innocent blood and deplete our economic resources.

In August of last year about a dozen of us Utahns saw this imminent war coming and were granted an audience with Senator Bennett. We didn't bring placards but reason and laid out why a war with Iraq, before the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy is resolved, cannot bring peace but only greater disasters. We were a cross section of law abiding citizens ranging from descendants of Mormon settlers to immigrants like myself. Unfortunately we were met by a closed mind. The senator listened politely but answered all of our concerns with the administration's stock mantra: Saddam is evil, he has weapons of mass destruction which he may give to terrorists, he has invaded neighboring countries and gassed his own people. I called it a mantra here because it is mindlessly repeated over and over again without ever considering the context in which these actions occurred. I pointed out to the senator that Saddam was 65 years old and this is not an age where one willfully engages in political adventures. It is in their forties and fifties when politicians are most dangerous. By the middle sixties a peaceful life in security and splendor is much more desirable even for dictators. But as mentioned our presentations were of no avail.

We are also frequently told that Saddam is a "madman," and as such his actions are totally unpredictable. After having watched the Dan Rather interview I can confidently say that this is not the case. He is a shrewd, calculating, ruthless dictator who will do whatever is necessary to remain in power. Arming terrorists to hurt America does not fall into that plan, because it would be self-defeating. We are being told, furthermore, that we have to go to war because we have to liberate the Iraqi people from an evil dictatorship. As mentioned I have been "liberated" twice. First by Hitler from Schuschnigg and then by Stalin from Hitler. It took Austria ten years and the death of Stalin before the country was really free again and decades more to repair all the damage those ides of March 1938 had caused. The lost lives can, of course, never be replaced.

When we are told that Iraqis will dance in the streets of Baghdad when GI Joe and Jane come walking in, just as they danced in Kabul, we should remember that they are not dancing in Kabul any more. Potshots are taken on American peacekeepers and President Karzai has to have American Special Forces protecting him because he can't trust his "liberated" people.

So what should our administration have done? We should have agreed to a continued inspection process, if needed indefinitely, because as long as the inspectors are in the country Saddam's ambitions are hamstrung. To leave the inspectors in Iraq would be infinitely cheaper in blood and resources than first destroying the country and then occupying it for years to come. In addition we should have impartially worked for a genuine peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. This would have required respect for the rightful aspirations of both sides and would be the only way to bring finally a just peace to the Holy Land. This is what should have been done and this is what some of us have been and are working towards. We are not "ideologues" but people who know war and the concomitant tragedies. It is not the goal of removing Saddam Hussein from power we disagree with, just the means to do so. Although it seems that our efforts are not going to bear fruit in the near future we still owe it to our children to have insisted that there is a better way than the brutality of war.



Now some additional thoughts. It is obvious that as far as the real reasons for this war are concerned, and the behind the scenes maneuvers of the administration, we are to be left in ignorance. Where are the Woodward and Bernstein's who would tell us, for instance, what really went on in the meetings on energy policy held by Vice-President Cheney in 2001? Why are taxpayers not allowed to know who the members of this elite group were which met behind closed doors and why the minutes are such highly guarded "national security" secrets, that even members of Congress are not allowed to get a peek at them?

For clear thinking Americans the moral posturing in regard to Iraq and the questioning of the relevance of the Security Council, because Saddam ignores the resolutions, is bound to sound hypocritical. Israel has refused to meet UN demands to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, and America has never hesitated to use its veto in the security council when Israel's interest were at stake. Now France and Russia are not supposed to do so when they follow their financial or strategic advantages. It has also become apparent that our love for democracies around the world is limited and we infinitely prefer pliable dictatorships like those of Musharraf, for instance, over those countries where freely elected parliaments follow the will of their constituents and object to pre-emptive wars.

As of this writing our president has kindly agreed that he will give diplomacy "one last chance" and delay the UN vote and/or war until next week. We are being told that this is done in order to give Prime Minister Blair more time to come up with a resolution the British parliament can accept. The deal is sweetened further by the belated discovery of the Palestinians' plight who are promised a road map to their very own state. That this road map is doomed, because the Sharon government has absolutely no interest in allowing a viable Palestinian state to emerge, neither PM Blair nor President Bush are willing to acknowledge. As usual it will be the fault of the Palestinians, when the talks break down because they will be unable to rein in their extremist elements. By insisting on Israel's security (defined as no suicide attacks) before giving up the settlements and achieving a functioning Palestinian economy is putting the cart before the horse again. Inasmuch as this is, of course, no secret to administration officials the public is to be pacified by these gestures.

While keeping Tony Blair in power is one reason for the postponement of the war there is also the nasty problem with the Turks. Plan A, the kidnapping of Saddam in October of last year by Special Forces, was shelved as too risky. Plan B was a two pronged attack from Turkey as well as Kuwait. The Turks have unfortunately asserted their democratic right to disagree with American war plans and it may turn into Plan C. Our troops are supposed to halt in front of Baghdad and Special Forces will "leapfrog" north to capture the oil fields of Mosul and Kirkuk. Since this is obviously a more chancy adventure, because the Kurds might get there before we do, the carrot and stick approach is still vigorously wielded to bring the Turks on board. In addition the wavering Security Council members are being subjected to intense pressure so that the so-called "coalition of the willing" has now been dubbed the "coalition of the billing!" American taxpayers, including Congress have so far not had the opportunity to find out how much the destruction of Iraq and its subsequent rebuilding is likely to cost us. The question as to who are the companies which stand to gain from this human disaster, must also not be asked because it might involve "national security." The idea that we might be considerably more secure without inciting further terrorist attacks by this war is also frowned upon in public debate. Furthermore, there has been remarkable silence in our news-media about Israel's request for a handout by Congress to the tune of 12 billion dollars this year. This surely suggests that "we the people" are no longer in charge of our country but are instead ruled by a monarch who yields to an unelected oligarchy and where questioning the wisdom of the country's policies by its citizens is not desired.

In the previous installment I mentioned Montesquieu’s Of the Spirit of the Laws, but there are also the Persian letters (published anonymously in 1721) which are highly á propos. By the way it may soon be unpatriotic to use such French expressions since even "French fries" have already been renamed in government cafeterias and a boycott of French products is advocated. In letter 94, dated Paris 1716, Montesquieu wrote:

International law is better known in Europe than in Asia, yet it can be said that royal passions, the submissiveness of their subjects, and sycophantic writers have corrupted all its principles. In its present state, this branch of law is a science which explains to kings how far they can violate justice without damaging their own interests.

Kings are gone, or have their powers severely curtailed, the people supposedly rule but those two sentences are as valid today as when they were first penned.



On a more cheerful note it was gratifying to hear that Salt Lake City made again national and international news this week. The odyssey of the missing girl, Elizabeth Smart, has had a happy ending when she was found wandering the street in company of her "abductors" right here in our very own Sandy City. The case is surely bizarre and has led to numerous speculations. How can an adolescent from a good home and loving family spend nine months with vagrants without making any attempt to escape or contact her family? The first four months were even spent here in Salt Lake where posters of her face could be seen everywhere. Yet the trio "Emmanuel," his wife, and Elizabeth mingled undetected in public places and were even photographed attending a party. All she had to do at that time was to take her veil off and say: "Help me folks, I'm Elizabeth, I want to go home!" There was no possible danger to her and the only conclusion is that she stayed willingly with Mr. Mitchell and his wife. This is also attested to by the fact that at the time of her arrest she lied initially and pretended to be the daughter of the Mitchells. These are the meager facts and we will probably never hear the full truth because the parents have every right to shield the privacy of their daughter and let her recover from this strange episode.

Psychologists are now spending their time on TV explaining that she was probably a victim of the Stockholm syndrome where hostages begin to identify with their captors. But before there was a Stockholm syndrome Laségue and Falret (again those nasty French, why do they have to be so smart?) introduced in 1877 the term folie á deux, which was later enlarged to folie á trois, when three people were involved. This seems to be what has happened here. A dominant male in the grip of a delusional system converts a submissive female who lives with him to share his delusions which are, not uncommonly, religious in nature. Initially it was the wife, Wanda, who succumbed but she in turn then found a substitute for her own daughter, who had run away from home as a teenager, in Elizabeth. As a good Mormon in an impressionable age Elizabeth then began to identify with the religious delusions of the other two and was all set to save the world. If psychologists and psychiatrists can be kept away from her, the prognosis is excellent because once removed from the environment people always come to their senses again in short order. This applies also to wife Wanda. To send her to prison for at least twenty five years, as has been suggested, makes no sense at all and neither does the death penalty (which we still have in Utah) for "Emmanuel." The man is psychotic and as such good and evil, the terms which are so freely bandied about even in this case, simply do not apply.

Let us hope that reason will prevail and Elizabeth will be left in peace again. Unfortunately this flies in the face of our commercial culture and I'm sure there will be books written about her and her likeness will star in a movie.
 
 
 
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