How Birds Fly and Cats Get their Milk

Iraq Again. How can we not be ashamed, and weep for “fellow Muslims” killed and dying? Are our hearts already dead?

Last week terror stuck the University, killing 50 students. Last Friday it was the animal market. As Marc Santora reports, “In the chaos after the blast, snakes slithered through bloody streets where animal carcasses were jumbled with human remains. Exotic birds flew off as rescue workers tried to aid the wounded.

“We were standing in the middle of the market, looking at the birds, and suddenly there was a massive explosion,” said a man who gave his name as Qusay, and who liked to scout for rare pigeons to breed. Both his legs were broken by the explosion. He said he was taken to the hospital, where he found doctors with no supplies trying to treat ghastly wounds.”

The Iraqi state is shattered on the ground, stinking like a corpse dumped at midnight. Well, it had a great fall. Now what?

Humpty Dumpty must have been high on crack to begin with, sitting on that wall. Will 20,000 additional troops be too late to undo Rummy’s losing bluff? All the king’s horses and all the kings men most likely cannot do what Bush says they’ll do. Now there’s egg on his face; or is that just his crazy fanatic grin?

Despite such bad eggs, the US soldiers are brave men, mostly; but right or wrong, the Iraqi government does not want them on its soil. And yet the Bush Administration goes on huffing and bluffing and we don’t know how to stop losing at this game. We can’t stop searching for advantage. And who are we?

Well, here “we” are, in subtly tailored suits flying in for a photo op far from the suffering of the crowd. Here we are shaking soft hands while our red-eyed body guards stand around. Protected by the private army Blackwater, private sector men chew secretly over the numbers. And how are you? Here is Iraq's minister for industry and minerals Fowzi Hariri with ABB Lummus, a unit of Swiss-Swedish electrical engineering company ABB Ltd., and over there Dow Chemical Corp. and KBR put their well-clipped heads together. An international, pleasantly cosmopolitan crowd of vultures! Here are the black helicopters of the New World Order! No need to look further!

According to news reports, “Over the next several years, the minister said Iraq would look to privatize all of state-owned industry, which number around 60 companies.” Yes, murmur the suits, how much more civilized than that time we had to send in the CIA after Mossadeq nationalized the oil in Iran. Yes, too bad about the sectarian unpleasantness. And they also note the nationalizing trend in Venezuela with a tiny groan, perhaps the taste of acid reflux.

But war has been a tasty meal for these fat cats. The average compensation of the Chief Executives of the 34 top military contractors in Iraq is $7.2 million per year. United Technology’s CEO was given almost 32 million. According to the Institute of Policy studies, this is almost as much as the average received by the top 15 oil company executives, which is 32.9 million dollars per year. Of course it’s expensive at the top floor—the Presidential Suite. And so, gentlemen, may we ask: how is the view from Peak Oil-- What comes next? Does something come next?

The future? No answer. So what? Short-sighted politicians usually prefer to pay for the present with the future. Yes, privatization is the way! One lump sum, cash and carry. Forget the energy sector for a moment. And put those privatized ports out of your mind as well. And pretend the private prisons are not expanding. Health care? You guessed it. The new Bush Health plan takes money from public hospitals and moves it to the Insurers. Privatization increases the suffering of the poor? The unions and the hospitals are screaming? The Administration does not care, as long as the cats get their milk.

But now the states have jumped on the privatization express! The state of Illinois is selling its Lotto for 75 years. The states of Indiana and New Jersey are privatizing their toll roads. And last week the news reported that an Australian firm is buying 40 local newspapers to silence opposition to a 4000-mile toll road project known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. This 1200 foot wide road will apparently cost over 150 billion dollars to construct, requiring the acquisition of 9000 square miles of land in the areas it will cross. Many citizens risk losing their homes and farms through the powers of eminent domain." Will those newspapers ever honestly report on this subject? Do they have a chance?

I find it troubling and sinister that after the end of the cold war the USA should begin to resemble its late adversary, the Soviet Union. It is also disturbing how much alike the presidents of Iran and USA look when side-by-side or end-to-end: it doesn’t matter. Bush and Ahmadinejad both are populist demagogues, who have made deals with the devil of the extreme right. The Neo-Cons and the Haqqani Circle of Mesbah-Yazdi believe in the iron rule of a single truth, an infallible and divinely ordained state.

This authoritarianism is not the paternalism of the traditional conservatives. It is much more dangerous; we need to distinguish carefully. Even though neither has more than 30 percent approval rating in recent polls, due to economic and national reputation issues, neither bully shows willingness to back down. Surrounded by purring fat cats, apparently neither believes much in crying over spilled milk.

Last week, awarding Maher Arar a settlement of over 9 million dollars for allowing him to be deported into torture in Syria, the Canadian Prime Minister called on the US to also apologize, though he noted that the US hasn’t the grace to do so. But shouldn’t we be asking what happened to that grace? Isn’t asking for forgiveness part of all religions? Isn’t it opening the door of the heart?

It’s hard to see the future-- too much smoke blowing from that direction. I am tempted to look within instead. There are books to be read and thoughts and questions and work. Sure, there is smoke and mirrors and lies and violence within as well.

I think of the streets of my childhood. How were yours, what smells and local color? Now our life is not our own; the cell phones ring, and almost all our joys seem made in China and delivered to us by Mexico, and somehow unknown.

Even so, let us embrace this with humanity. What gives you hope? What brings you light? For you too are a mirror to the world. And like angels you and I are mirrors to each other, and to an infinity of doors within.