[Peace-discuss] "Failed" states

[C. G. Estabrook]

[David Green has an excellent comment in today's DI, in response to the
shock of the awful Fred Gottheil, who spoke at the "Students for the
Defense of America" rally 21 April.  His remarks were exposed by Mike
Simon in a letter to this list, reprinted in the DI.  Here's another take
on Fred's "thesis," which I've sent to the DI. --CGE]


It was good of Fred Gottheil to reduce his thesis [Letters, April 28] to
one simple (if rather awkwardly phrased) sentence, viz., "societies open
to modern technology, modern ideas and that participate in world markets
succeed while those who choose to shut out modernity fail."

Unfortunately, what is presented as an abstract principle has only one
really interesting example for its author.  Let's recast the sentence with
the actors unmasked: "societies that are open to modern technology and
modern ideas and that participate in world markets [read: Israel] succeed,
while those that choose to shut out modernity [read: Arab states] fail."

Furthermore, the terms have specialized meanings.  "Modernity" turns out
to mean toadying to the American empire -- and, in Israel's case,
corrupting itself into a mercenary Sparta, a serious danger to itself and
others.  In this sense Israel is modern and is "open to" vast amounts of
US military technology, with which it carries on an illegal occupation.

But any resistance on the part of Arab states to the goals of that
American empire -- run not even in the interests of a majority of
Americans but rather in the interests of a narrow economic elite -- is
"shutting out modernity."

"Success" and "failure" are also terms of art.  In the case of Israel,
success seems perfectly compatible with a racist polity, brutal attacks on
its neighbors, subventions from a foreign power far greater than those the
USSR once bestowed on Cuba, and an economy that is nevertheless in its
third year of recession.

The US government in general works avidly to insure appropriate success
and failure, under its definitions.  "Empirical evidence" shows that if a
given Arab state doesn't fail on schedule, it can apparently be subjected
to a dozen years of near-genocidal sanctions and then invasion.

Last weekend, to guard against the danger that a popular democracy would
be a success in Iraq, the US announced that it would not be leaving
anytime soon and shot protesters.  Meanwhile, to forestall failure in
Israel, it was announced that the US will give Israel a new $9 billion in
loan guarantees ($1 billion more than Israel requested) and $1 billion in
military aid.  (Israel was already by far the largest recipient of US
aid.)

Speechifying about successful and failed states seems primarily a US
propaganda device and a tendentious description of the activities of the
American empire and its chief client.

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[PS-- In the version I sent to the DI, I removed the parenthetical remark
in the first sentence, much as I liked it.  Wilde once said that a
gentlemen is never unnecessarily rude, and I wasn't entirely sure that
that was necessary...  --CGE]