War, the experts say, is organized chaos. The just concluded campaign in Iraq
has demonstrated the logical correctness of that assertion and has proven beyond
a reasonable doubt both the limits and capabilities of technologically-advanced
warfare. In doing so however, it has underscored one enduring fact of life; that
despite the hypocritical intentions or dubious humanness of warfare, it is at
its core, a raw and unadulterated (increasingly fanatical) portrayal of the
primal and rabid instincts of our animal species in furtherance of our
interests. And that despite our self-proclaimed Intelligence Quotient and moral
compunctions, humans adhere to a strict survivalist code that closely mirrors
the Darwinian dogma of interrelationships amongst our species. The Americans
went to Iraq to validate that recurring doctrine of human "civilization" and
interrelations, the doctrine of "…if I slap you…" diplomacy. The crudeness of
the term itself underscores the crudeness of the technique, it hinges on the
principle of politics by intimidation. America went to war (if you can call it
that) to prove a point to her real or imagined adversaries the world over, which
can be summed up by the phrase "…you better behave or else I will give you a
dirty slap…" The likes of Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and even China
have essentially (nay officially) been put on notice that America is being run
by fundamentalists, with the hardware to back-up their ambitions. If you
evaluate the amount and appraise the diversity of military hardware that the
Americans have in their inventory, and their willingness to use said hardware in
the furtherance of their foreign policy (based as it is on cowboy diplomacy and
the Lone Ranger mentality to go it alone if need be), it is no wonder that Dubya
(Bush), Dickey (Cheney), Rummy (Rumsfeld), Pauley (Wolfowitz), and Richey (Perle)
have no compunctions putting their investments to use.
America's intentions become clearer in a dispassionate assessment of
America's foreign policy since she burst unto the scene of international
relations, dating back to a watershed in her history, when she defeated the
Spaniards in 1898. Citing intelligence and an investigation that have on further
analysis and in retrospect become obvious trumped-up charges against Spain, the
US went to war and in the clearest demonstration of the recurring pattern of
gunboat diplomacy (a precursor to Cowboy diplomacy), defeated her and seized
some of her colonial possessions (Cuba, the Philippines et al.). This created
one of the earliest identity crises for the world's "greatest" democracy; it
created a situation whereby the world's greatest (I use this term pejoratively)
democracy traversed the realm of a "democratic" experiment into the
Imperialist's paradise. A democratic country founded on freedom and the rights
of man now took possession (by force) of foreign lands that had no affinity
(cultural or otherwise) to the motherland. They (the inhabitants of said lands)
had no rights nearing that which the white majority in the homeland were
entitled to, but served mainly as geo-strategic platforms from which American
power was projected abroad. Despite their classifications as "territories" as
opposed to colonies, they created a more recognizable connotation (which was
familiar to "Old Europe" and the rest of the world) then the utopian ideals of
the Declaration of Independence. The protestations of a few good men, who held
unto their convictions in the face of public euphoria over the Spanish-American
war, were overrun by the American media's love affair with the swashbuckling
Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough-Riders. In the end, it propelled him into the
presidency, and sealed public acquiescence to America's role as a "reluctant"
imperialist power. It was from this platform that the American public by and
large was weaned from the diffident logic of isolationism, and force-fed the
more abrasive (in-your-face) unilateralism. In the final analysis of the
Spanish-American War, just as in any analysis of International Law, as it
relates to the Iraq Campaign, I shed no tears whatsoever for the vanquished.
Neither the racist conquistadors of Spanish hegemony, who single-handedly wiped
out an entire race of Ameri-Indians in the Central and Southern Americas, nor
the fascist regime of Saddam Hussein Al-Tikriti a.k.a the Ace of Spades, gets
any "love" from me. They were despicable entities that deserved what they
received; however, this does not automatically preclude any discussions or
debate about the validity or duplicity of American military actions in effecting
either outcome. To the victor goes the spoils of war, and an even greater
advantage; the latitude to pen the history of the circumstances permitting and
related to the military conquest. And so Rome was right in annihilating Carthage
after the battle of Zama; Kaiser Wilhelm, Emperor Franz-Josef, and Mehmed V
become the villains of the First World War; Shaka Zulu becomes a war mongering
and barbaric tout; and Jaja of Opobo becomes the obstacle to H.M trade in the
Oil Rivers "Protectorate". This is not to say that all of the aforementioned
were saints, but perhaps history would be different had they prevailed, and the
20/20 hindsight through which historians now assess them, would be viewed in a
different light.
To further comprehend America's intentions in regards to her empire, it is
important to understand the real implications of Globalization and Free Trade on
America's terms. In addition, it is pertinent to understand her inclinations to
wield her military might as a tool in the furtherance of these intentions no
matter whose ox is gored in the process. The disconnect between the hypocrisy in
America's foreign policy and her self-proclaimed status as "the" Defender of
democracy, highlights the inveterate duplicity of her new age mantra; democracy
for America's enemies in the middle-east and elsewhere, but detached tolerance
for "good-guy" brigands (tin-pot dictatorships all of them) such as Mubarak of
Egypt, the Al Sabahs of Kuwait, Musharraf of Pakistan, and the Al Sauds of Saudi
Arabia among others. In America's mind, democracy becomes a less viable option
when it threatens her "strategic" interests. Perhaps, regime change would be
necessary in Turkey if the costs of such an adventure were negligible. The
Americans tried to bribe and intimidate her "ally", Turkey, into allowing the
famed 4th ID to open up a northern front for the Iraqi campaign, failing which
she forswore any favors or aid that Turkey might have received in return. This
brazen combination of checkbook and "if I slap you" diplomacy shocked the world
because increasingly, world opinion is formed and forged by rapidly disseminated
information via the 24X7 news coverage that has become the gold standard amongst
news organizations. Fueled primarily by America's success at birthing the
Internet and advances in Satellite and Communications technology, an increasing
number of the world's citizens have almost immediate access to information that
their predecessors of the gunboat-diplomacy age were not privileged to have. As
such, most people mistakenly regarded America's machinations and diplomatic
maneuvering as made-in-the-US evils, rather than recognizing the roots of such
actions in our instinctively primal human nature. The difference between
American Imperialism today and Europe's Imperialism of the past (as the clearest
example in the not-to-distant past) is that Cowboy diplomacy is being practiced
in the age of information technology, while Europe's patented gunboat diplomacy
occurred in an age of industrial technology devoid of any notion of non-European
human rights.
Chalmers Johnson in his 2000 book (Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of
American Empire) cogently articulated the behemoth that US military expenditures
have grown to become. To provide a minor insight into the costs of American
hegemony and the perpetuation of her global influence, the Brookings Institution
estimates that it has cost the US $5.5 trillion to build and maintain her
nuclear arsenal. The US in the past five years alone has spent over $1 trillion
dollars on maintaining her armed forces. America's defense budget has been
increased by 14 per cent to $US379 billion, a greater amount than the next nine
biggest military spenders combined. It is evident to all and sundry that an army
this well-equipped needs wars to fight from time to time, it is an inescapable
fact of life. It needs to justify the investment that has been pumped into it,
in other words, it has to yield dividends. The transformation from
neo-conservative fantasy to mainstream reality is accomplished by finding and
labeling a desirable bad guy or villain just like in the movies, and finding a
reason, any reason, to wield the proverbial big-stick. 9/11 (despite all its
destruction and calamity) had a silver lining for a clique within the US polity;
it provided them with a blank check to run rough-shod over any person or entity
deemed by the C-IN-C as an enemy of the state. Watching the 30-day war (as it
will no doubt be dubbed) unfold, gave me the eerie feeling of watching a
third-rate Hollywood testosterone-filled and muscle-bound superhero do battle
with the bad guys. From Chemical Ali, to the Missile Man, to Dr. Germ, and
Comical Ali, (even to Hollywood celebrities such as Baghdad Sean); to even
familiar "enemy combatants" of the War on Terror such as Jihad Johnny, the Dirty
Bomber, the Shoe Bomber, the Gitmo Inhabitants et al. it just seemed too surreal
to be taken at face-value. America has won the war in Iraq, it is not clear how
she will fare in winning the peace (apologies for this oft-stated cliché),
because it entails skills and resources other than the military might to which
American policy-makers and opinion-shapers and to a significant extent the
American people have grown addicted to. The American polity has increasingly
found diplomacy by consensus a less viable option (an anathema perhaps) in her
relations with the rest of the world ever since the demise of the Soviet Union.
Choosing instead to assert herself by pursuing aggressive military expansionist
diplomacy, the US has adopted diplomacy by imperialism, and seems content to
pursue this approach ad-infinitum. The paradigm of a new reality is upon us,
Cowboy diplomacy as an approach to foreign policy was revealed by Dubya on the
set of his new reality series appropriately entitled; "Who Wants to be the Most
Patriotic American?"; and was underscored by his Oscar-winning performance on
the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Dubya took a calculated risk in launching
his Operation Iraqi Freedom, his political success was tied to a quick,
relatively-antiseptic campaign. In so doing, he recreated an old theme in
political governance, at least in 21st century America, "How to Win an Election
Using the Fog of War and Cowboy Diplomacy". Republican pollsters have correctly
determined that America has undergone a backlash from the liberalism of the 60s,
70s, and to a lesser extent, the 80s. However, the hardening of American public
opinion, and the increasing conservatism of not only the American heartland, but
also of American Suburbia, has left the Democrats in complete disarray. In
simple terms, the hippies (the peace, love, and happiness devotees) have grown
up. This is further emphasized by the increasing supremacy of the Fox News
Channel in the ratings and the success of Conservative Talk Radio. Cowboy
diplomacy appeals to the primal American, especially in the wake of 911, and as
they say, all politics is local. Against this backdrop, it will be entertaining
to see election 2004 unfold. The unintended consequences of Cowboy Diplomacy
manifest in diametrically opposing viewpoints; one is Dubya's coronation as
Emperor of the U.S (a modern day Caesar if you will) and the other is the threat
to the lives of innocent Americans and sundry bystanders who will be the ones to
pay the price of "if I slap you diplomacy"; either as victims of terrorist acts
or collateral damage or casualties of war a la Ali Ismaeel Abbas, the
12-year-old Iraqi boy whose arms were blown off in an explosion that killed his
family.
The fog of war in any conflict is an inevitable byproduct of the chaos and
degeneracy that characterizes the relationship between the adversaries. It is
germane to any discussion of the socio-political and economic issues bedeviling
Nigeria today. As a lucid demonstration of the madness that pervades our
collective psyche, it provides irrefutable insight into the dynamics of our
myopic existence. Election 2003 was fraught with the same irregularities that
have characterized our practices of Oyibo man's "demoncrazy" since he left us of
his own volition in 1960. Some might argue that he did not leave on his own,
that he was forced out. Yeah right, just go ask the South Africans what it means
to actually fight for your independence. Our fight for independence (if you can
call it that) is a recurrent theme of another ancient paradigm, the principle of
"See-Finish". The principle of See-Finish accentuates the situation whereby a
people take for granted that which in other circumstances or societies would
have more value or worth than all the pillaged loot in Switzerland. There is a
large disparity between the value of freedom in Nigeria and the value of freedom
in places where the fight for freedom claimed a lot more than our founding
fathers going to drink tea with their British overlords and deciding on 1957 or
59 or 60. The differences between Soweto and Ajengunle are at first glance
superficial, but further examination reveals one major difference, the only one
that concerns me; that the value of freedom and democracy in Soweto is higher
than the price tag that Ajegunle's long-suffering and smiling masses attach to
it. The length to which Nigerians will go to defend their rights disintegrates
under the sophisticated and technologically-advanced nay precision strikes of
ethnic chromatography. The centrifugal forces of tribal absurdity take
precedence over an honest appraisal of reality vis-à-vis politics on a national
level as it affects all Nigerians. Too frequently in Nigeria, national politics
(in terms of elections) degenerates into a run-off between the devil and the
deep blue sea. I leave each citizen to resolve the question of the
devil/deep-blue-sea nomenclature in terms of who the devil was and who the deep
blue sea was in election 2003. However, it strikes me as curious that the AD
chose not to field a presidential candidate because the incumbent president of
the rival PDP is an "eminent" Omo Oduduwa. As for the ANPP (Arewa Nationals
Peoples Party) choosing the realistically unelectable religious fundamentalist
Buhari as its flag bearer in 2003, I leave you to draw your own conclusions as
to Atiku's ascendancy come 2007, and the calculations therein. The speculations
and calculations could go on and on, but it is obvious that the most viable
candidates for the election where precluded either by ethnic balancing equations
or political "antecedence" from having a shot at the presidency. The culpability
of the Nigerian "masses" in this charade is highlighted when people concede that
though there was massive rigging in the elections, the "people's" choice
ultimately carried the day. It became a case of who out-rigged the other, not on
the merits of their capabilities as leaders at a watershed in our life as a
"nation". The rest of Nigeria's nationalities have been held hostage, as the
wrangling and whining between the Big Three rises in crescendo as to who has
been marginalized the most. No solutions have yet been proffered or honestly
debated in terms of lifting ourselves from our self-imposed ineptitude and
scandalous degeneracy. The one precondition that must transpire before any
"democracy" can take root, referred to by different aliases but known
universally to all and controversially to some of Nigeria's disparate interest
groups and nationalities as a Sovereign National Conference, remains a Utopian
(some might argue, Libidinous) fantasy for Nigeria's real patriots. I say real
patriots because there are a multitude of counterfeit (419) patriots
perambulating the length and breadth of société Nigeriana.
It is against this milieu that I inject that most insidious of post-Gulf War
II metaphors, "fog of war" (often attributed erroneously to Clausewitz); because
it is the only apt description for our inability to objectively critique
national politics without resorting to the myopic clutches of ethnic sentiments
and primordial subversion. In analyzing what moonlights in Nigeria as politics
and democracy, we too often fail to grasp the import of our ultimate place in
realizing a renaissance within Africana. Nigerian society is a conundrum of
chaotic and disoriented interlocking battlefields that depicts a convoluted and
frenzied state of anarchy and war. In our case, the fog of war clouds our
judgments in deciding what constitutes the lawful and orderly practice of
democracy and the exercise of freedom via elections, versus the chaos of warfare
that has become our natural state. I borrow the assertion attributed to Bola
Tinubu when he said that the PDP rigged "without imagination". But that does not
automatically mean that I endorse the man or his candidacy; perhaps he would
have rigged "with some imagination" had he been in a position to do so beyond
the confines of his state. The power of incumbency is a powerful juggernaut to
confront, and the maturity level necessary to practice a reasonably
irregularity-free democracy is not even in our mind's eye at the present time.
We live in the era of "when you were not looking" democracy. This being the
answer that an INEC official gave Jimmy Carter during the 1999 elections, when
he (Carter) confronted him with his personal eye-witness account of inflated
voter turn-out at a polling station. Today, OBJ castigates the EU for not taking
Nigeria's environment into consideration while observing the conduct of the 2003
polls; tomorrow, Atiku will chastise the EU observers for failing to keep faith
with the Nigerian masses and democracy-lovers the world over, should he loose
his bid for election in 2007. Today's champion of a "rigging-free" fantasy of an
election will become tomorrow's denouncer of a marred and irregularity-filled
charade, should he loose. Like Robert Nesta Marley said, "who the cap fit, let
them wear it"; today's victor is OBJ and his PDP, but the vanquished is not Imam
Buhari, ultimately, it is the Nigerian people. The Mexicans learned their lesson
after 70 misery filled years; do we have that kind of time?
OBJ said that any observer, who claims to have witnessed instances of rigging
and other election-day shenanigans, must have been dreaming; but I guess one
would say that having just won 93% of the total votes cast in a riverine state
that had a voter "turn-out" of 96%. Only in Nigeria, but then again, Saddam's
Iraq had similar "voter turn-outs" also. It is a wonder that all the political
parties did not adopt OBJ as their "consensus" candidate. But of course, the
people's choice ultimately prevailed so is it important how he achieved that
victory? Obviously, the people's wishes in Iraq prevailed also, what does it
matter that international law was shoved aside in actualizing the American
"mandate" in Iraq? In any endeavor, pragmatists and realists will argue that the
ends do actually justify the means; fantasists and idealists will argue for the
preeminence of due process. However, I am a hybrid; a realistic-idealist; I
know, I know, warped logic yes, but what does it matter if a revolution in
Nigeria (bloody or not) effects a transformation from the currently inept and
morally bankrupt Status Quo? To revolt or not to revolt? Now this is real-life
Shakespeare, to hell with the trepidations of confronting the unknown, the known
is not feasible going forward, so why should we stick with the familiar just
because we fear the unknown? Let the unknown come to us, lest the known (after
years of experimentation and mindless perambulation) comes to naught. If the
mountain will not come to Africana, Africana will go to the mountain. Should we
get to the mountain top and discover the ultimate mirage of paradise; then we
will create one in our own image and likeness, one that guarantees our existence
on this sordid planet.
Blowback refers to the unintended consequences of any action or policy
undertaken by a person or group of persons. It was coined by the CIA to describe
the inadvertent effects of carrying out clandestine and other sundry actions
around the world on American interests and concerns. It is predicated on the
third Newtonian law of motion which states simply that, "for every action, there
is an equal and opposite reaction." As an admonition of America's arrogance
today, it is interesting to note that like I learned in school back in those
days in Nigeria, no condition is permanent. Today's "hyperpower" will eventually
become tomorrow's historical specimen. No empire can flourish and consolidate
its power indefinitely, there is such a thing (Chalmers Johnson argues) as
Imperial Overstretch/Overreach. There is a limit to elasticity; in the 17th
century, British physicist Robert Hooke (1635-1703) defined elasticity as the
measure of an object's ability to deform in proportion to the amount of an
applied force and then return to its original state when the force is removed;
stated formally in The True Theory of Elasticity or Springiness (1676). Written
in Latin as "ut tensio, sic vis", which translates to "as is the extension, so
is the force" or in contemporary language "extension is directly proportional to
force". But it has also been determined that there is a point at which the
object looses its elasticity, i.e. it reaches its elastic limit and any further
extension causes it to arrive at its breaking point. The elastic limit is
defined as the maximum value of stress up to which the body shows elastic
behavior, and the breaking point is defined as the point on the stress-strain
curve at which the object breaks. America has a stress-strain curve, so does
every nation, Nigeria included; and at some point, both will arrive at their
breaking points and disintegrate if they are not pulled back from the precipice.
The limits for the tolerance of stupidity and callousness in Nigeria have been
tested continuously for the past four decades and some. There has been a
progressive decline in the quality of leadership and followership within
Nigerian society, physics cannot be wrong, there is definitely a point at which
Nigeria will implode into a cataclysm of nothingness along with the innocent
loss of life. The question is this, is there such a thing as "innocent"
bystanders? Hear me out; are the Nigerian masses who have passively tolerated
the machinations of their elite, innocents or collaborators? Are the American
people who by and large unflinchingly support their President's war-mongering
and uncouth prancing (because once the war commenced, they had to unite behind
their leader, even though he may be leading them into the debacle of pre-emptive
strikes) really innocent? How do they justify sky-high ratings for Dubya and his
policies, and then cry blue murder when the seeds that he is sowing today comes
back to haunt them in the future?
The fog of war is an unintended consequence of our present reality, in
America and in Nigeria, citizens searching for answers to their problems are
quick to point the finger, forgetting that in most cases at least, there are
four others pointing right back at them. Blowback is inevitable; it is the
nature of the blowback that is variable, it is the one thing that can be
influenced either positively or negatively, the missing ingredient is the will
to do the one thing that will guarantee survival in the long-term. The parallels
between American arrogance and Nigerian myopia are a hard sell, I can concede
that, but a coup d'oeil is insufficient in determining intersecting failures in
followership regardless of context. Ours is worse than the situation of the
Americans, we are still striving to have some semblance of order amid the chaos
of our environment, and they are trying to maintain an empire. The prerogatives
are the same for both though, because whatever either group decides will affect
their ultimate survival or non-survival. Blowback is a bitch; the unintended
consequences of America's projection of power and disregard for international
law today, will haunt the peace and security that she so cherishes for her
children tomorrow. Yes I said it, blowback is a bitch; the unintended
consequences of Nigeria's flirtation and ultimate love affair with mediocrity
and infamy today, has sounded a death knell for any semblance of revitalization
and will expunge her progeny from the future. As a corollary of our docile
"suffering and smiling" mentality, and our naïve submission to the ravages of
our elite, we have become collaborators in the biggest scam in recent history.
The Nigerian masses have become agents of the failed state which they
desperately want to change, but cowardly acquiesce to. Just like the "mgbadas"
of 419 fame, we are blinded by our greed for easy wealth (and compunctions for
ethnic jingoism), and are making steady progress in our quest to exceed our
breaking point; perhaps our breaking point will usher in a qualitative
improvement in our reality. Perhaps we are better off returning to our natural
state, which may very well be death. This will explain our intrinsic
inclinations for disequilibrium and our addiction to the perverted.
