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America’s chickens are still coming home to roost

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorizedLeave a Comment on America’s chickens are still coming home to roost

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on Oct. 26, 2023.

It was nearly 60 years ago when Malcolm X famously suggested President Kennedy’s assassination was the inevitable result of chickens coming home to roost. One could easily say the same thing about the gun violence consuming America today.

Many of the mass shootings that have been perpetrated the past few years involved AR-15 style assault rifles, which are descended from a rifle originally designed for America’s war in Vietnam. Most estimates indicate America’s invasion killed approximately two million Vietnamese civilians.  Much like its more recent invasion of Iraq, no one knows for certain how many innocents were murdered because no one bothered to count the bodies. But most estimates suggest it unleashed hell. It seems tragically fitting then that a weapon first used to murder countless innocent Vietnamese has now evolved into the symbol of America’s gun culture, and the preferred tool of those who wish to wreak havoc in its schools, places of worship, concert venues, movie theaters, offices, grocery stores, etc. Talk about chickens coming home to roost.

This is not meant to suggest the victims of these mass shootings bear any personal responsibility for their fates, but to point out that we are all impacted by the actions of our nation.  Whether we had any direct participation in them or not is irrelevant. And the sad fact is America’s actions have been unconscionably violent and destructive.

The invasion of Vietnam was an unjust war of imperial aggression launched under the flimsiest of circumstances. The argument that it was necessary to stop the spread of communism is both inaccurate and illogical on many levels. North Vietnam may have been a communist state, but its struggle was primarily an anti-colonial one meant to liberate Southeast Asia from exploitative French rule.

The very premise of the invasion ignored the universal truth that people have the right to choose whatever form of government they want, even an inherently weak one that will inevitably collapse in on itself or give way to dictatorship. The only time war is ever justified is as a means of self-defense or coming to the aid of others in extreme circumstances. Since Vietnam never attacked America, there was no legitimate reason to invade it.

Whether through direct actions such as the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, or indirect ones such as its prolific arms sales all over the world, America has turned itself into the world’s most violent military power and a merchant of death. Its actions have killed millions all over the world.

Not long after withdrawing from Vietnam, America’s intelligence agencies armed right wing death squads in Central America who murdered hundreds of thousands of women and children. Most were indigenous people guilty of doing nothing more than demanding greater rights over their own land. Since these people held left wing political views, America used its right-wing proxies to unleash hell yet again. Its actions in Central America were neither isolated nor unique.

Under the guise of fighting communism, America supplied arms to right wing regimes and paramilitary groups all over the world. Without this support, the slaughters and oppression committed in places as far flung as Chile, Indonesia, and South Africa would not have been possible.

These crimes were justified by the need to win the Cold War, but that conflict ended over thirty years ago and America’s policies have yet to meaningfully change. If anything, its share of the global arms market and ubiquitous military presence throughout the world has only grown.

During the Cold War, the threat of starting World War 3 prevented America from taking direct military control of the Middle East and its energy supplies. However, once the Soviet Union fell, it used Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait as a pretext to invade the Muslim world and build a permanent military presence there that endures to this day. The sanctions imposed on Iraq to oust Saddam after the first Gulf War killed an estimated 576,000 Iraqi children. According to a recent study by Brown University, the War on Terror that followed killed 4.5 million more people.

Between WW2, the Cold War, the Korean War, Vietnam, its clandestine actions in Central America, both Iraq wars and the War on Terror, America has been in a nearly perpetual state of conflict for the past 80 years. As the history of the AR-15 shows, there is a direct correlation between these conflicts and the mass shootings it is experiencing now. Even the rifle’s current popularity is based on marketing campaigns that borrowed imagery from the War on Terror. Instead of blaming violent video games, movies, TV shows, or mental health issues which are merely symptoms of the rot engulfing its culture, it is time to recognize that America’s gun violence is the result of being in a nearly continuous state of war for the better part of a century. Just as Pakistan and Afghanistan developed a Kalashnikov culture in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of the latter, America’s AR-15 subculture is a by-product of its many wars.  

These historical and cultural factors have also been shaped by institutional economic interests. Those wondering why so many of America’s leaders refuse to do anything about gun violence need only follow the money. Its domestic arms industry generates $80 billion in economic activity and nearly 400,000 jobs. By themselves, the 20 million AR-15 style rifles already in circulation represent billions in economic activity. Ten percent of America’s manufacturing base is devoted to war. It is the world’s biggest military spender and arms dealer by a wide margin. It has allocated $816 billion for defense spending in 2023 which employs nearly 4 million people. Its arms sales in 2020 added $285 billion in exports. The F-35 fighter program, by itself, will cost America $1.7 trillion. By some estimates, it has spent $16 trillion on its military over just the past 20 years. When its various segments are combined, America’s arms industry is worth well over a trillion dollars a year. Just as its commercial interests have incentivized it to pursue violent military policies around the world, they have also led to the creation of a flourishing domestic arms industry. One many of its politicians are loath to interfere with no matter how many mass shootings their constituents must endure.

Those who justify America’s policies by pointing to the jobs and money generated from making weapons are chasing fool’s gold. Much of America’s $32 trillion debt was accumulated paying for its military. Building weapons may generate economic activity but when the end-product is a tank or rifle, there is no value added. There is no economic multiplier effect. All the resources used to build weapons are ultimately sunk costs wasted on violence that only leads to death and despair.

As part of a series of articles about the AR-15, The Washington Post published an editorial arguing the rifle should be banned. But over the years, it has published several op-eds arguing America should substantially increase its already massive military spending. Like most American media outlets, it has no issue with America’s aggressive military posture, its unequivocal support for Apartheid Israel, or arms sales to violent regimes around the world. And that vividly highlights the disconnect. Many Americans are desperate to put an end to domestic gun violence but still see no problem with the destructive role their military and weapons sales play throughout the world. But as the AR-15 shows, the two are linked. Addressing one without first addressing the other is therefore impossible.

Unfortunately, just as Malcolm X’s comments did so long ago, the ideas expressed here are more likely to cause outrage and indignation for being too “woke” or “anti-American” instead of the sort of introspection that can lead to meaningful change. In America, those who passionately argue for gun control laws are expelled from their legislative bodies while those same bodies respond to mass shootings by passing laws to protect gun manufacturers from liability. Most of its Supreme Court’s justices claim to follow a philosophy of judicial interpretation grounded in textual analysis and originalism but completely ignore the first clause of the second amendment when analyzing it. Logic and objectivity are no longer valued in America.

Those who agree with the historically and legally dubious argument that the 2nd amendment enshrines an individual right to bear arms inexplicably use their beliefs as a basis for opposing attempts to regulate, vet, and ensure proper training for those who seek to exercise this right. At a minimum, someone attempting to purchase a machine gun should be required to undergo a psychological and competency evaluation as part of the robust permitting process that should govern who can own such items. Given the 2nd amendment’s prefatory language regarding “a well-regulated militia,” requiring these individuals to join the national guard of their respective states would not be unreasonable either. But gun rights advocates passionately oppose attempts to regulate the sale and use of these weapons.

Similarly, convincing Americans they do not need to spend nearly a trillion dollars a year on their military given their nation’s natural geographic defenses has proven impossible. America’s obsession with war and violence is destroying and impoverishing it at the same time, but no one is willing to address these issues in a meaningful way.

Since Americans are no longer capable of having rational discussions about complicated issues, they will not resolve them anytime soon. In the absence of logic, its leaders will continue to prioritize jobs and money over safety or common sense. Ibn Khaldun would probably have said America is in the “senile” stage of its evolution. According to Khaldun, senility was the last, inevitable part of the process of a nation’s fall. Once it sets in, it is irreversible. Having entered its senile stage, America will never voluntarily dismantle its weapons factories, no matter how many of its citizens are slaughtered to feed their machines.

As America tears itself apart, the Muslim world must beware. The commercial interests that drive its military spending will incentivize it to continue attacking Muslim nations or arming those like Israel or India engaged in military confrontations with them. Its history of violence in the Muslim world and the refusal of its leaders to protect even their own citizens both show the same thing: America’s leaders have no regard whatsoever for the sanctity of life, Muslim or otherwise. Which means they will never stray from the militaristic path they have chosen. It is impossible to predict the contours or timing of America’s fall. The Ottomans survived for centuries during their senility. But one thing is certain, the degree to which it has armed itself and the rest of the world will come back to haunt us all.  Which means a lot more chickens will be coming home to roost.

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While Gaza burns, the Muslim world can only watch

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized1 Comment on While Gaza burns, the Muslim world can only watch

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on October 20, 2023.

As the next round in the war between Israel and Hamas unfolds, a story that began with such a shocking twist has taken a very familiar turn. Israel has spent the past week bombing Gaza and Palestinian casualties are mounting by the minute. Israeli infantry and armor are massing for what promises to be a devastating invasion. America has sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to join the fray and its aircraft have already delivered munitions that will surely be used to murder more innocent Palestinians. The West has rallied behind Israel while threatening any within the Muslim world who might dare to interfere.

Many have already noted the similarities between these events and 9/11, mostly to justify Israel’s pending assault. But few have considered all the implications of this comparison. The War on Terror was an unmitigated disaster for America and genocidally devastating for the Muslim world. 4.5 million dead, millions more displaced, entire nations plunged into chaos all to see the Taliban stronger than ever. America suffered thousands of dead, tens of thousands more maimed for the rest of their lives, trillions in debt, and Trump. Both are still dealing with the fallout.

Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon is equally instructive. Thousands of women and children were murdered while its forces suffered significant casualties during the course of their 18-year quagmire. And just as the War on Terror led to the rise of ISIS and its many offshoots, all Israel gained was a new, more potent adversary called Hezbollah.

Despite having the benefit of these cautionary tales, Israel is about to follow a similar path while America gleefully cheers it on. Thousands of women and children are going to suffer violent deaths as they are ripped apart by American and Israeli artillery shells, missiles, and bullets over the next few weeks and months. Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and possibly even Iran will burn too. All in the name of fighting evil, or so they’ll claim.

Israel’s desire to hunt Hamas down is understandable, but the simple fact is the only way to do that is to murder thousands of women and children. As Jonah Goldberg argued when castigating those who tried to defend Hamas’ actions, “no amount of context justifies killing babies.” Unfortunately, Mr. Golberg does not appear to apply his own logic to Israel’s actions. Like most Western commentators, he seems to think dropping thousands of pounds of explosives on Gaza’s densely packed neighborhoods and the babies they hold is justified within the context of Hamas’ attack. Even America’s supposedly left-wing, liberal President is out for blood as his administration angrily labeled those few members of Congress who dared to speak for sanity “repugnant.” Netanyahu will use Biden’s greenlight and the Western world’s unequivocal backing to unleash hell. And no one within the Muslim world will be able to stop it from happening.

Except Hamas. By surrendering. We all know this is unlikely to happen, nevertheless, it is still worthwhile to make a short plea in favor of this course of action. Though it is too early to gauge the long-term consequences of its attack, at a minimum it shows Israel’s attempts to marginalize and ignore the Palestinians via the Abraham Accords will never lead to real peace. They also prove that locking people in ghettos and enforcing a military blockade against them for 16 years will have terrible consequences. Hamas has achieved all it could have hoped for on the battlefield by highlighting these simple truths. The next step is to turn these battlefield gains into political gains and the only way to do that is to surrender and recognize Israel’s right to exist as a prelude to peace. Most importantly, doing so is also the only way to prevent the slaughter Israel is preparing.

In fact, the author suggested years ago that all Palestinians “surrender” by laying down their arms and waving white flags as they adopt widespread acts of civil disobedience and non-violent protest to demand equal rights within an undivided Israel. Given what’s about to transpire, the need to do so has never been more urgent. It should be obvious by now that terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. Terrorism is the weapon of the stupid. Terrorism just gives the men with the tanks, howitzers, and strike fighters an excuse to open fire. Non-violence is the only effective weapon the weak have.

For those who might take issue with the term terrorism, Hamas’s attack, though partially directed towards military targets, was primarily geared towards attacking civilians. Since terrorism is best defined as using violence against civilians to achieve a political purpose, these attacks most certainly qualify and must be condemned as such. That such actions are met with joy in some corners of the Muslim world only reinforces the arguments made below regarding its weakness. That anyone would celebrate the murder of a child, even tangentially, is abhorrent. There is no doubt Israel is a brutal apartheid state, and that Palestinians are within their rights to fight for their freedom. But intentionally targeting women and children is disgusting and should never be cheered. The fact that Western nations frequently drop thousand-pound bombs on targets they know to be full of women and children while describing these fatalities as mere “collateral damage” does not excuse similar barbarism on the part of Muslims.

Part of the reason I developed such unabashedly pro-Palestinian sympathies was precisely because of my belief that the IDF attacked and murdered children. I will never forget the video of Mohammad Al-Durrah murdered while sheltering behind his father. My heart broke for Mohammad Dief when I read that the IDF murdered his infant son, three-year-old daughter and wife in 2014. I can only imagine how enduring that kind of pain might impact someone. To see Hamas gunmen do the same has been sickening. One would think they would know better after suffering similarly brutal treatment at the hands of Israel’s military over the years. That burying their own innocent loved ones would have made them cherish all innocents that much more. But the sad fact is those who are abused tend to become abusers. The Nazis brutalized Jews who used those experiences to justify brutalizing Palestinians who responded by brutalizing Jews, and the cycle continues as Israel bombs apartments in Gaza. The only way out of this morass is to break the cycle, not repeat it. Which is why surrender and non-violent resistance are the only real options.

Since my advice has gone unheeded thus far and will likely get ignored again, it will also be necessary to consider the wider ramifications of the situation in Palestine for the Muslim world.  

What is happening in Palestine is a direct result of the same weakness that has consumed Muslim nations for centuries. This weakness was first made evident when Napoleon seized Egypt while the once mighty Ottoman Empire was forced to impotently look on in 1798. It was seen at work again when America conquered and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan at the beginning of this century. Once again, most of the Muslim world could do nothing but sit back and watch.

To understand the roots of this weakness, one must begin with the Muslim world’s governments. Centuries of rule by dictators has left most Muslim nations with repressive and non-responsive governments that stifle expression, innovation and growth. Most are run by people who secure their power through violence, not the consent of the governed. Their primary goal is to cling to power at all costs and enrich themselves, not help their societies prosper. This has made Muslim nations hopelessly weak and technologically backwards.

Due to these repressive political systems, they feature mostly unproductive economies, underdeveloped industrial bases, and awful schools. As a result, even “powerful” Muslim nations must import their most sophisticated arms. As Machiavelli noted centuries ago, dependence on outside powers for military support is a fatal weakness that hobbles rulers, rendering them more servant than ruler. But Muslim have been so bad at creating governments, schools, and private companies that can generate the capabilities required to field modern militaries, they have been forced to create such dependencies. The result: there are no Muslim nations that can protect the Palestinians, just like there were none who could lift Gaza’s siege these past 16 years. None of them have the strength to overtly defy the West. Or China, or even Russia. Muslims have yet to learn how to reconcile ancient beliefs with modern circumstances and the results speak for themselves in Gaza, Kashmir, Chechnya, the camps China has built for the Uighurs, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and far too many other places. 

Given the number of massacres the Muslim world has endured these past few centuries, the one that’s about to take place in Gaza will probably not spark any changes either. Muslim elites have accumulated too much power and refuse to share it. Which begs the question, what will it take? How many more atrocities must we watch before Muslims finally wake up? Sadly, no one has the answer to these questions.

Which is a pity because the solutions are obvious. Japan’s feudal elite figured it out with relative ease. South Korea took a more circuitous route but has also managed to modernize itself in record time. As these examples show, Muslim states must institute deep rooted reforms to create democratic governments based on the rule of law that invest in education and protect freedom of expression in all its forms so they can unleash the creative and economic potential of their people. They must also force their elites to play by the same set of rules as everyone else. Allowing the average citizen to thrive is the only way to generate the resources needed to build a military that is not dependent on an outside patron for support.

Aside from taking the steps needed to strengthen themselves individually, Muslim nations must also create organizations comparable to the EU and NATO that can bind them together for their mutual prosperity and protection. Doing so will require connecting to each other in as many ways as possible. Overlapping commercial, cultural, and political interests and linked infrastructure used to facilitate the large-scale movement of goods, people and ideas are the key to strong alliances.

The development of such an alliance, would not only stabilize and strengthen a large chunk of the Muslim world but also presents a path to achieving real peace with Israel. EU style integration predicated on justice for the Palestinians, not military competition, has always been the only logical path to regional stability and peace. Sadly, it will likely take a war on par with the devastation of WW2 before such ideas come to fruition.

Those Muslims who view events in Palestine as irrelevant to their lives or scoff at pan-Islamic sentiments should listen to some of Israel’s more ardent supporters. Presidential hopeful Niki Haley justified her support for Israel by arguing “God has blessed” it. Mike Pompeo, the former head of America’s CIA, argued Israel is not an “occupying nation” due to its “Biblical claim.” Make no mistake, there is a civilizational dynamic to this conflict. What’s happening in the Holy Land traces its roots to medieval disputes and religious affinity. It’s the latest round in the long running war between Islam and the West. One that has seen Western armies repeatedly invade and brutalize Muslim societies. Rather than skirt around this issue, Muslims need to start having honest conversations about the Western world’s pattern of attacking and trying to subjugate them and what they will need to do to protect themselves from further aggression.

The complete lack of empathy displayed by most Westerners for the plight of the Palestinians and their refusal to acknowledge Israel was created through violent conquest and ethnic cleansing show how little regard they have for the violence they have inflicted over the centuries. Which, as the coming weeks will show, means they are perfectly capable of committing such violence again. Aside from a few protests and penning impassioned essays highlighting the hypocrisy of those who grieve for dead children by murdering even more children, Muslims are still too weak to do anything but passively watch these horrors unfold, showing how little has changed over the centuries. Without serious, deep-rooted reforms, this will not be the last massacre we are forced to watch.

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America is at it again

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorizedLeave a Comment on America is at it again

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on August 16, 2023.

There have been whispers lately that the Biden Administration is trying to broker a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. In exchange for abandoning the Palestinians, America’s “values-based” President is rumored to be offering his military’s most advanced weapons while the Saudis are reputed to be angling for help building a “civilian” nuclear program and a defense pact. President Biden will surely claim this program is not intended to build nuclear weapons, but it is hard to conceive of any other reason a nation endowed with Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves would covet such technology. These developments provide yet another glimpse into the hypocritical and destructive role America has played in the region while proving its leaders have learned nothing after decades of committing similar blunders.

By trying to expand the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia, America is trying to foster a peace between dictators that ignores the underlying cause of conflict between Israel and the Muslim world, namely, the violent oppression of the Palestinians. The simple fact is these deals will never bring real peace to the region for the same reason Israel’s treaties with Egypt and Jordan failed to do so. Without a political agreement that protects the rights of the Palestinians, most Muslims will justifiably remain hostile towards Israel, preventing the establishment of the sort of deep-rooted ties that can lead to genuine peace. Despite the rhetoric about adequate compensation, there can be no doubt: this deal is meant to further marginalize and isolate the Palestinians, not help them.

At best, these accords may sweep the region’s problems under the rug for a time. But the most likely scenario is they will only make its problems worse by exacerbating its underlying issues. The primary significance of these accords is not that they will achieve a sustainable peace but how they prove once more that America has never been an honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians. In their desperation to help Israel consolidate its de facto annexation of the West Bank, America’s leaders are willing to arm the Arab world’s despots with their most sophisticated weapons.

Saudi Arabia, for example, is governed by a violent monarchical dictatorship. Its war in Yemen has already killed 377,000 people. The Saudi royal family has built a repressive police state to enforce its rule and frequently murders or imprisons those who do nothing more than criticize it. It is not the sort of country America should be selling weapons to, particularly if those weapons create mushroom clouds. Despite these red flags, America has been Saudi Arabia’s primary arms dealer for decades. This deal, however, would take their relationship to a level reserved only for NATO allies. Strengthening Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship to such a degree not only betrays American values but will have a destabilizing and destructive impact on the region in many ways. It is an excellent example of the short-sighted and hypocritical thinking that has always characterized its approach to the region.

But nothing epitomizes American hypocrisy like its support for Israel. Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel is an apartheid state, the majority of America’s political establishment refuses to admit it. Instead, they prefer to ignore the conclusions of venerable organizations like Humans Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem that have all condemned Israel as a state in which the political and legal system is explicitly designed to empower Jews while violently disenfranchising and marginalizing Palestinians. Though the exact mechanisms may differ from the South African version, Israel’s political economy is designed with the same ends in mind. It is an apartheid state in every meaningful way, just like America was during the Jim Crow era. One that has established violent military control over millions of Palestinians while dispossessing them of their land and rights.

America has been its unabashed supporter and enabler since nearly the beginning. Its leaders laud Israeli “democracy” and send it almost 4 billion dollars a year to ensure its military superiority while ignoring the fact that being a healthy democracy and violent military occupier are mutually exclusive. Sort of like being progressive and supporting apartheid. These glaring inconsistencies aside, American politicians overwhelmingly declare their affection for Israel while vehemently denying its racist nature.

There will always be people who are incapable of admitting the truth about Israel just like there are still people in America who think it is appropriate to teach children slavery provided valuable job skills for black people. But the truth is obvious to anyone capable of putting their tribal instincts aside. What should be equally obvious is that apartheid in all its manifestations and variations is evil. America’s support for Israeli apartheid is especially repugnant given its own ugly history. One would think both Americans and Israelis would have learned by now that political systems designed to empower one group over another based purely on race, religion, or ethnicity are inherently immoral. Sadly, one would be mistaken.

President Biden may pretend to be an ally, but he is an apartheid denier who sees no contradiction between his claims to support equality in America and his willingness to ignore Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. To his credit, he is not the worst of the bunch. Politicians like Richie Torres, Ron DeSantis and Niki Haley are not just apartheid deniers, but enthusiastic apartheid lovers who seem to take a perverse joy in the repression meted out to the Palestinians.

America’s support for Israeli apartheid and Arab autocracy vividly highlight why it has been such a destructive force in the region. Instead of supporting democracy and defending human rights, America’s policies strengthen the foundational causes of the region’s instability by supporting its authoritarian rulers. Its attempts to bring Israel and Saudi Arabia together are the culmination of a decades-long effort to “stabilize” the region by trampling on the values it claims to stand for.

The best thing America can do for the Middle East is leave it alone. Its sanctions against Iraq killed 576,000 children. According to Brown University, the War on Terror that followed claimed approximately 4.5 million more innocent souls. America has done enough. But despite its genocidal record, its leaders and people still implicitly believe America is exceptional and justified in its hegemonic pursuits. That George Bush is a war criminal is beyond their ability to comprehend.

Conversely, the best thing Saudi Arabia can do is end its neo-colonial relationship with America and learn to stand on its own. The Sauds are desperate for America’s help because, despite turning their nation into the world’s fifth biggest military spender, their armed forces are incompetent. Without the American mercenaries and arms dealers who run its day-to-day operations and supply its weapons, Saudi Arabia’s military would cease to function. This incompetence is a direct result of its repressive political and social systems. The refusal of Saudi leaders to meaningfully empower their people has prevented them from building a military capable of protecting their nation without the help of a foreign patron.

As Machiavelli noted centuries ago, this is the path to servitude, not power. In their desperation to hold on to power at all costs, Saudi leaders ignore the lessons of history and common sense. But this is a depressingly familiar story in the Muslim world, one that epitomizes the dysfunction that has gripped nearly all of it for too long. Despite centuries of conquest and instability, the Muslim world’s rulers refuse to change their ways or admit the obvious truth that creating democratic political systems is the first step to developing adequate military and technological capabilities in the modern age. As a result, they must sell themselves to the West (or Russia, or China or a combination thereof) to maintain their power.  

Nowhere is this more evident than the degree to which Muslim nations have abandoned the Palestinians in exchange for American support for their dictatorships. Collectively using the carrot of normalization could have convinced Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. But the region’s dictators have opted to negotiate individual deals, wasting the only leverage they have left while showing, yet again, how inept they are at doing anything other than cling to power.

Which means the Palestinians will need to stand up for themselves. The best way to do that is to learn from people who have been in similar predicaments. Gandhi, Mandela, and King taught the world how to fight injustice using non-violent, mass civil disobedience. Given their inability to secure their freedom through force of arms, the Palestinians would do well to remember this history. Armed struggle plays directly into the hands of the considerably more powerful IDF whereas adopting non-violent methods of civil disobedience on a massive scale would constitute the sort of indirect approach that would make Liddell Hart proud.

Between Gaza, Israel proper, and the West Bank, the Palestinians constitute a majority of the population between the river and the sea. A one state solution in which they are treated as equals has long been their surest path to freedom. If Israel truly is the democracy its supporters claim it is, they should have no problem fairly sharing power with the Palestinians according to transparent and equitable democratic principles. Of course, these demographic realities are exactly the reason most Israelis refuse to do so, even though their sprawling settlements have made a two-state solution impossible. Instead of creating a truly democratic society, they argue Israel must remain Jewish. In doing so, they are choosing apartheid without having the courage to admit it while simultaneously denying the realities that come with their choice to build their nation in the heart of the Arab world. Nevertheless, as the author already suggested years ago, peacefully forcing Israelis to decide if they would rather live in a Jewish state or a democratic one represents the Palestinians’ last, best option considering the lengths America is willing to go to convince the world to forget about them.

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How a more powerful US-backed India spells trouble for Pakistan

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized1 Comment on How a more powerful US-backed India spells trouble for Pakistan

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on July 3, 2023.

Understanding the world and where it’s heading requires understanding how seemingly unrelated pieces of information fit together. For example, at first glance a tourism summit, an agreement to build jet engines, and a map in a new parliament building may not seem connected. But these three data points highlight trends that should worry those charged with leading and protecting Pakistan.

India’s G20 tourism summit in Kashmir last month was meant to show the world that the disputed territory was peaceful and prosperous. Despite the heavy presence of Indian soldiers and drastic security measures that strongly suggested otherwise, most of the world seemed to accept India’s Orwellian narrative. Aside from a few of Pakistan’s close allies, the G20’s members were happy to help India whitewash its brutal military occupation of the Himalayan state. One that has claimed the lives of roughly 100,000 Kashmiris who desired nothing more than the right to govern themselves as free people instead of living as second class subjects under a hostile regime.

Next, we have the various military and technological cooperation agreements signed between India and America during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to celebrate the growing strategic partnership between both nations. The deal to build jet engines was one of many designed to drastically improve India’s military capabilities while connecting it to America’s defense industry.

Finally, we have India’s new parliament building which prominently displays a map of an “undivided India” depicting Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan as part of a unified India. When its neighbors voiced their concerns, India’s leaders insisted the map was only meant as an homage to an ancient Indian empire. But India’s Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Pralhad Joshi, did not partake in such gaslighting. Via twitter, he succinctly explained the map shows India’s resolve to pursue an extremist right-wing agenda predicated on uniting the Subcontinent into a single nation, presumably one governed from New Delhi called “Akhand Bharat.”

In their own way, each of these data points reinforces one unmistakable truth. Pakistan is in trouble. The tourism summit proves the world will turn a blind eye to India’s horrific human rights abuses in Kashmir as well as its increasingly heavy-handed approach to the region. While the military agreements highlight America’s intent to actively help India commit new abuses by turning it into a formidable military power. The map is a frightening indication of how India intends to use its new power. It is a stark reminder of the right-wing lunacy that has fueled the BJP’s rise to power and how these developments might destabilize the entire region.

To understand how, one need only look to the Middle East. Just as its unequivocal support empowered Israel to attack and subjugate the Arabs, America’s support for India could have the same impact on the Subcontinent. Its blind insistence that Israel is a healthy democracy even though it is clearly a violent apartheid state shows it will employ the same gaslighting to shield India if it pursues similar policies.

These are not the only data points that should worry Pakistan. The summit and military agreements are merely a reflection of India’s growing clout on the world stage since it implemented a series of economic reforms in the 90’s. Due to these reforms, India will soon have the world’s third biggest economy. Its increased wealth has translated to more power and significantly larger military budgets.

Similarly, the map of an “undivided India” is not the only example of India’s rightward lurch. The BJP’s attacks on free speech and the marginalization of India’s minorities, particularly its Muslims have already been well documented. Perhaps the biggest indication of India’s growing fanaticism is the fact that the guy pegged to replace Modi, Yogi Adityanath, is a right-wing thug masquerading as a Hindu priest.

Unfortunately, there is so much data pointing to danger for Pakistan that it is difficult to sift through it all or even know which data set to prioritize. Whether from the growing power of its neighbor to the east, its stagnant and inefficient economy, dysfunctional political system, deteriorating internal security situation, exploding population, or climate change, Pakistan faces a myriad of threats that are only getting more challenging by the day. Each is potentially existential in nature.

Thankfully, the solution to all these problems is the same. Pakistan’s government must finally start providing the public services needed to nurture the economic and technological development that can allow it to prosper and protect itself in an increasingly unhinged world. The future belongs to those nations capable of building advanced semiconductors, quantum computers, A.I. powered software, and similar goods. Building a scientific and industrial base that can lead to these abilities will require deep rooted reforms designed to empower and educate its people, improve its finances, and establish the rule of law.

Instead of implementing these desperately needed reforms, its leaders have opted to use China as a crutch. However, creating a neo-colonial dependency on China will only provide the illusion of modernization without any of the substance. As India’s example so poignantly illustrates, Pakistan will never prosper until it creates a democratic political system that can unleash the energy of its people. Until that happens, the threats to its freedom and prosperity will only grow.

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America’s decline will bring chaos the Muslim world is unprepared for

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized1 Comment on America’s decline will bring chaos the Muslim world is unprepared for

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on June 15, 2023


Several years ago, when its national debt was just $20 trillion, I wrote an essay arguing America’s weak finances would lead it to withdraw its military from the Muslim world, creating a vacuum China would fill. The underlying premise of my argument was that America’s growing debt would force its leaders to trim military spending and the Muslim world, not being vital to its core interests, would be the first to witness the beginning of the end of the Pax Americana. A retrenchment necessitated by being in a nearly continuous state of either hot, cold, or asymmetrical war for most of the past 80 years.

America’s military presence in the region is still going strong today. It maintains a permanent naval presence in the Gulf and has troops scattered throughout the region. However, its attempts to build an anti-Iranian military coalition between Israel and the Arab world as an eventual substitute for its own forces and the recent rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia brokered by China suggests I was on the right track. Both developments support the argument that its role in the region is diminishing and portend trends that will only accelerate with time. As such, I am still confident in my thesis. But I was wrong about one crucial assumption.

I implicitly believed America’s leaders would react rationally. That they would see the massive pile of debt their wasteful spending and imperial wars of conquest have led to and develop a rational plan to fix the situation. I was wrong.

As evidence, I offer the recent deal reached between the Biden Administration and the Republican led Congress to raise America’s debt ceiling to accommodate a sum that has now grown to $31.4 trillion. There are two aspects of this deal that vividly highlight just how irrational and detached from reality America’s policy elite have become. The first, it cut funding for America’s tax collection and enforcement agency, the IRS. Second, it did not cut military spending. Instead, it increased military outlays by 1%.

Of the government agencies and departments most vital to a nation’s prosperity and security, none is more important than those that collect tax revenue. Not even the military. As Pakistan’s dysfunctional government and economy shows, without a well-funded and efficient tax collection and enforcement agency nothing else works. Paying for the public services like roads, competent law enforcement and regulatory agencies, or schools that glue a nation together and nurture economic activity becomes impossible. Also, as a matter of common sense, when the government has accrued $31.4 trillion in debt, it should be trying to increase revenue and collections.

But America’s conservative faction fought hard to claw back some of the funding that President Biden wisely allocated to the IRS. In doing so they did not just contradict their stated desire to improve America’s finances, they helped illustrate just how irrational its leaders have become.

By itself, the attack on the IRS staged by America’s right was unsettling enough. But what was far more upsetting was how little discussion there was about the root cause of America’s debt by either of its political factions.

Over the past 20 years, America has spent $16 trillion on its military and that is a conservative estimate that does not account for certain intelligence activities like those provided by the CIA or the cost of its nuclear arsenal, parts of which gets budgeted under the Department of Energy for accounting purposes. It also excludes the cost of caring for its veterans and the national security functions performed by the Department of Homeland Security. For those keeping track, the conservative estimate is over half its debt.

Due to this spending, America is the most dominant military power in the world by a wide margin. It fields a massive arsenal of the most advanced tanks, fighters, drones, submarines, and aircraft carriers. Despite having already spent trillions to build this impressive force and having important geographic advantages that protect it from invasion, there was no meaningful discussion about cutting military spending. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that so many of the professionals paid to discuss these issues work for defense contractors? One can only guess. Thankfully, understanding why is not important. What is important is recognizing the fact that military spending is America’s holy grail. One that neither party will ever meaningfully threaten, no matter how bleak its finances.

Some may argue that events in Ukraine and the Pacific justify America’s refusal to scale back its military. But these arguments do not fare well under closer scrutiny. Aside from the fact that Europe should be defending itself, the bear we were all raised to fear has proven less ferocious than previously imagined. Russia and Western Europe will never be friends and Europe’s nations will always need to prepare accordingly, but the idea that Russia presents a threat to America is ludicrous.

America’s fixation with containing China is equally illogical. Again, as a preliminary matter, protecting Asia is not America’s responsibility. That burden must ultimately fall to Asia’s nations. China’s behavior, particularly its treatment of the poor Uighurs, has been abhorrent, there is no denying that. But it has never threatened America’s commercial or national security interests. America’s obsession with countering China has more to do with its own hegemonic ambitions than anything else and reinforces the argument that its leaders are no longer acting rationally.

The key takeaway: America’s finances will only worsen as it continues to fund a military designed to dominate the world rather than protect the homeland. Instead of taking the steps necessary to reign in spending, America’s leaders seem determined to do the same thing they did in Afghanistan; pretend like nothing is wrong until everything implodes in the blink of an eye.

The only real question is when, but no one can truly answer that. America is a large, wealthy country, making it hard to predict how far down this path it can go before reality rears its ugly head. If I were a betting man, I would wager the inflection point will correlate to the interest payments on its debt. Once this number reaches a certain level, America will be printing money to pay the interest on the money it has already borrowed and printed. It’s hard to predict the exact fallout but debasing a nation’s currency to pay its debts has never ended well for the many governments throughout history that have followed this path.

The rest of the world needs to prepare accordingly. Even in a weakened financial position, America’s massive military industrial infrastructure will still allow it to wreak havoc in many ways. Much like the demise of the Soviet Union flooded the world with its weapons, America’s decline will incentivize it to expand its role as the world’s merchant of death. Many of its weapons will end up in Israel, India, and Greece.

The leaders of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey should take note. As I argued in a companion piece to the essay about America’s looming military withdrawal, these nations must come together to create new political, economic and military organizations for their mutual defense and prosperity. The key to doing so: creating institutional mechanisms to support trade and joint infrastructure development within the framework of a free trade zone like the one Europe built in the aftermath of WW2. Projects like the long-delayed Peace Pipeline between Iran and Pakistan would serve as the perfect building blocks to increase trade and connectivity.

Unfortunately, the Muslim world’s leaders are even more irrational and illogical than America’s. Despite centuries of conquest and instability, Muslim elites refuse to make the sort of changes that would allow them to prosper either individually or collectively. Pakistan, for example, seems intent on creating the same toxic and ineffective neo-colonial dynamic with China that has repeatedly failed Muslim societies since the Ottomans first tried the same tactic with Germany. Iran’s leaders are still obsessing over how Iranian women dress. One could write volumes about the irrational policies favored by Afghanistan’s rulers.

Like most of the Muslim world, all three suffer under the weight of authoritarian and non-responsive political and social systems that stifle change or serious attempts at reform. Consequently, they are highly unlikely to take the steps necessary to protect themselves from the chaos and upheaval that always accompanies major shifts in the world’s geopolitical sands. That is a pity, because America’s loosening grip on the region also means the time to do so has never been better.

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Why do some nations conquer, while others get conquered?

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorizedLeave a Comment on Why do some nations conquer, while others get conquered?

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on April 24, 2023.

Even though it was nearly twenty-five years ago, I still vividly remember what it was like to step aboard the USS George Washington for the first time. For those who are not familiar, the G.W. is one of ten Nimitz class aircraft carriers in America’s navy. It is a massive warship made from 60,000 tons of steel that is over 330 meters long and functions as a floating airbase. When fully loaded with its complement of 90 aircraft, it displaces nearly 97,000 tons.

Building one takes 2,500 hundred workers about five years and costs $5 billion, but that is a relative bargain compared to the new Ford class of carriers which cost $4.7 billion in research and development on top of the $12.8 billion price tag to build. These ships are miracles of engineering that highlight America’s industrial might, wealth, and determination to remain the world’s dominant military power.

I would often stand on the GW’s monstrous 4.5-acre (36 kanals) flight deck and marvel at the resources that went into designing, building, and deploying it. Once built, carriers are manned by a crew of 5,000 sailors and airmen and cost another $1.18 billion a year. Which means that simply operating and maintaining these ten ships costs more than Pakistan’s entire annual military budget. And that does not even account for the cost of their aircraft or the cruisers, destroyers, and fast attack submarines that escort them whenever they deploy which brings the total cost to $21 billion a year.

These ships allow America to control the world’s oceans and the 40% of its population that lives within reach of them. They represent a huge investment in its military, but they are just one part of the military power that America has built and sustained since WW2.

Serving aboard America’s gigantic warships was a surreal experience, one that fed an obsession with trying to understand the factors that allowed it to build such a powerful military. But this was merely part of a larger obsession – trying to understand why the Muslim world has been so militarily weak for so long as evidenced by the repeated pattern of conquests it has been subjected to over the past few centuries. Solving the riddle of America’s power therefore holds the key to helping Muslims prevent more violence like the sort that has consumed Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and far too many other places.

America’s military is the result of several factors working together. It is a large country, well endowed with fertile land and abundant natural resources. Its borders are protected by the Canadian Shield to its north and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Some might argue that geography, by itself, is enough to explain America’s power. But a comparison with Russia and Israel suggests otherwise.

Russia has also been blessed geographically, though not to the same extent as America. Its western and southern borders have always been vulnerable to attack and its lands are not nearly as fertile. But it is still a large nation, with lots of natural resources and protected on its northern and eastern borders. It also fields a powerful military, but one that pales in comparison to America’s. Russia’s military is large and moderately well-equipped but mostly used to secure its “near abroad.”

America’s military, on the other hand, extends its reach to the entire world. The easiest way to illustrate this point is to compare the number of carriers deployed by each nation. Between its Ford, Nimitz, America, and Wasp classes, America currently deploys a total of twenty-one aircraft carriers of various shapes and sizes. Russia, even during the height of its Soviet era power, struggled to deploy seven such vessels, most of which were incapable of launching fixed wing aircraft or deploying far from its shores. Of these seven, only one remains in service and it is currently in drydock. When it comes to projecting military power, the ultimate tool is the aircraft carrier. Russia’s inability to build more than a fraction of the carrier fleet built by America is one of many examples that highlight the limits of its power.

On the other end of the geographic spectrum is Israel, a tiny nation bereft of natural resources. Despite its diminutive stature, Israel fields the most powerful military in the Middle East and was able to establish its dominance over the Arabs long before America became its ardent supporter. Israel may not have aircraft carriers, but it does have a sophisticated nuclear triad, advanced tanks and fighter jets, and cutting-edge electronic warfare, signals intelligence, and missile defense capabilities. It also has a proven track record of dominating its enemies on the battlefield.

These examples are important because they show that geography, by itself, does not provide an entirely satisfying explanation. If geography were the only determinant of military power, America and Russia would field roughly equal forces and Israel would have ceased to exist long ago. Geography has certainly played a part in allowing Russia and America to build their large militaries, but the contrasts between them and Israel’s example show it is not the most important factor in explaining why. Instead, we must look to the type of political institutions that govern these nations.

Russia has a long history of being ruled by authoritarian and absolutist political institutions and their negative impact largely explains its relatively weak military abilities. America, on the other hand, features an inclusive, democratic system. Israel does too, for its Jewish citizens, at least. These are the keys to their military power.

Combined, the seminal works Why Nations Fail and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers show how democracy leads to military power. In the latter, Prof. Kennedy explains that modern wars will typically be won by the side with the greater industrial and technological capabilities. According to Kennedy, military power is based on factors ranging from “geography and national morale to generalship and tactical competence” but primarily rests upon “adequate supplies of wealth, which in turn derive from a flourishing productive base, from healthy finances, and from superior technology.”  In Why Nations Fail, the authors show how democratic systems lead to the wealth, industrial capabilities, and technology highlighted by Kennedy.

As Saudi Arabia’s military incompetence shows, by itself, wealth is not enough. It is the ability to design, build, maintain, repair, and use the weapons required to wage modern war that matters. Paying for them is just one step of many in the convoluted process required to master and incorporate them into an effective military force.

The most fundamental step in that process is creating democratic political systems. To be clear, democracy is about far more than elections. It is about devising a political system that uses institutional mechanisms to create pluralistic power structures and ensure governments are responsive to the needs of their people. Voting is just one of several methods used to achieve this. A true democracy establishes the rule of law and the primacy of the individual by creating independent and efficient courts that settle disputes fairly and protect the lives and property of citizens against government excess and each other. They also feature competent law enforcement, administrative, and regulatory agencies, and ensure freedom of speech and association. In doing so, they create an environment conducive to strong economic growth and technological development which can then be used to create strong militaries.

Aside from generating the wealth and technology needed to build powerful weapons, democracies also provide significant advantages with respect to training the soldiers who will use them, which impacts the other factors listed by Kennedy relating to generalship and tactical competence. Wealth and strong free speech guarantees are vital ingredients needed to build vibrant schools that can educate future soldiers and give them the critical thinking skills necessary to thrive in combat. Once they enter military service, these soldiers will typically find themselves promoted based on their professional abilities and merit rather than their perceived loyalty to a particular regime due the ability of democracies to create apolitical militaries.

Taken together, these factors allow democracies to design and build sophisticated weapons, buy lots of them, and staff their militaries with professional and highly trained soldiers, sailors, and airmen who can use them with lethal effect. By inference, these ideas also show why the Muslim world’s lack of democracy has made its nations so weak and vulnerable to conquest. As a result, those who wish to understand the roots of the Muslim world’s weakness must focus on the prevalence of authoritarian and absolutist political systems throughout it and the ways these have stunted its economic and intellectual development, making it impossible to build militaries capable of protecting them from conquest.

At first glance, China’s military modernization would seem to contradict these arguments. However, its well documented issues developing adequate jet engines or advanced semiconductors as well as the intellectual property theft that has fueled much of its progress indicates its authoritarian system has also limited its technological development. In fact, its economy is already showing weaknesses that are directly attributable to its repressive political system as illustrated by its ghost cities, capital flight, and the efforts to control or silence many of its prominent entrepreneurs and their companies. Just as the Soviet Union did during the 1960’s, authoritarian systems may generate growth for a time, but in addition to negatively impacting technological innovation, they are inherently unstable and will inevitably retrench or collapse in on themselves.

Though it still suffers from certain authoritarian tendencies, Turkey’s example also supports these arguments. It has the most extensive experience with democracy in the Muslim world and is, consequently, one of its most advanced and powerful states.

Despite the obvious benefits and the data provided by the different examples offered above, most Muslim states have not embraced democracy due to their unique historical experiences, the entrenched power of their military elites, and the toxic influence of their social institutions. This has led some to argue that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But as argued here in more detail, the history of the Rashidun era shows that not only are democracy and Islam compatible, but that democracy is the form of government closest to the Islamic ideal.

In addition to being the most logical way to strengthen individual Muslim states, creating democratic political systems is also the only way to overcome their geographic weaknesses. The Muslim world is divided into over 50 nations, none of which can compete with the Great Powers alone. As such, Muslims must come together the same way Europe did after WW2 to create new political and economic entities that can allow them to work together to prosper and protect each other through free trade and security alliances. Europe’s democratic political systems were a key factor in allowing it to unite and creating similar systems will be necessary if Muslims ever wish to do the same.

The Muslim world’s authoritarian political systems have prevented such unity because they typically rely on patronage networks glued together by corruption and nepotism. These have made it impossible to build the sort of neutral courts and administrative agencies that can meaningfully connect Muslim states by creating fair and transparent ways for them to trade with each other on a large scale. This has, in turn, made it impossible to build the sort of relationships that can lead to a security alliance.  

Pan-Islamic sentiments may seem antiquated in the age of the nation-state, but the inescapable truth is that humanity’s history is a violent one and most of our conflicts have a tribal dimension. As Sam Huntington explains in his work The Clash of Civilizations, the world can be broadly divided into civilizational groups that share historical and cultural commonalities. According to Huntington, the Islamic and Western worlds constitute two such civilizations. These tribal dynamics explain why the West unequivocally backs Israel’s violence against the Arabs as it desperately tries to stop Iran from acquiring the same weapons it helped Israel develop. They also help explain Hindu India’s conflict with Muslim Pakistan. Even Europe’s rejection of Turkey is best understood in reference to their civilizational differences.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is intra-civilizational. But it has taken on inter-civilizational dimensions as Western nations side with Ukraine in their bid to box in their civilizational rival in Slavic Russia. There are certainly other contributing factors such as geo-politics and resource competition driving these conflicts but there is no denying their tribal nature.

The key to understanding these conflicts, and who ultimately wins them, is understanding how all the variables referenced throughout this discussion work together and shape each other. To do so properly, one must first recognize the primacy of political systems in shaping and impacting them all. As such, Muslim nations must build genuinely democratic and inclusive political systems if they ever hope to end the cycle of violence that has consumed so many of them. Doing so is the only way to overcome the many political, social, economic, technological, tactical, and geographic factors that have made it so weak for so long. Until that happens, Muslim nations will remain among the ranks of the conquered.

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When it comes to the Iraq War, neither America nor the Muslim world learned a thing

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized3 Comments on When it comes to the Iraq War, neither America nor the Muslim world learned a thing

This article was first published here by the Friday Times on March 21, 2023

The twentieth anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq led to many pieces discussing the legacy of the war and the lessons it offers. Writing for the Intercept, Peter Maass was one of the few commentators to discuss the horrendous cost to Iraq’s people and the indifference of most Americans to the suffering inflicted by their military as he noted how so few of these commentaries even bothered to mention the death toll from the war. The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post all ran human interest pieces that focused on the devastation unleashed against Iraq’s people.

But most chose to ignore this aspect of the war. Though they readily admitted it was “disastrous” or a “tragedy,” they seemed to view it as such primarily because of the negative impact on America. Writing for Foreign Affairs Magazine, Hal Brands described the war as an “American tragedy” that was “born of honorable motives and genuine concerns” while he lamented that “critiques of the war have become so hyperbolic that it can be difficult to keep the damage in perspective.” The President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas, echoed these sentiments as he spent most of his time rationalizing America’s decision to launch what he euphemistically refers to as a “war of choice.”

Let’s get one thing straight about this war. There was no legitimate reason to invade Iraq. War is only ever justified as a means of self-defense or coming to the defense of innocents in extreme situations. Despite having plenty of justification, Iraq never attacked America and it had nothing to do with 9/11. As Mr. Haas so helpfully points out, Ukraine’s war against Russia is a war of necessity born of the need to protect itself from a violent invader. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is another “war of choice.” Despite his attempts to deflect, Mr. Haas’s use of the same phrase to describe both wars is apt because both were illegal and unjust wars of aggression.

As Mr. Brands points out, “no one knows for sure” how many Iraqis were killed as a result of America’s choices, though he estimates between “100,000 and 400,000” died. Mr. Maass, adds that, “millions” were “injured, forced out of their homes, and traumatized for the rest of their lives.” Some estimates place the death toll as high as 2.4 million. Whatever the number, it is too high, and it is abhorrent that anyone would try to whitewash or rationalize the mass murder of anywhere from 100,000 – 2.4 million men, women, and children.

Even the argument that Iraq was believed to possess WMDs fails miserably. America has no right to attack a country for trying to develop the same exact weapons it possesses. Particularly when it is the biggest proliferator of weapons, both conventional and unconventional, in the world. America helped Apartheid South Africa build nuclear weapons. It has turned a blind eye to Apartheid Israel’s nuclear weapons and sells weapons to dictators all over the world. Arguing that Saddam Hussein’s brutality went beyond the pale while ignoring Ariel Sharon’s war crimes, or helping Saudi Arabia commit its own in Yemen shows how hypocritical and non-sensical these arguments have always been. But discussing these obvious truths is a waste of time. As the pieces referenced above indicate, most American’s simply do not care about the double standards and hypocrisy of their actions.

Mr. Haas even tried to exonerate those responsible for unleashing this mayhem by arguing they had no ill intent. Another weak argument that ignores the fact that there are some instances where intent is irrelevant. Culpability must sometimes be based purely on the consequences of one’s actions. Most would probably agree that mass murder falls into this category. Whether George Bush and his cohorts intended to deceive is of no consequence. What does matter is that their decisions led to the murder of a lot of innocent civilians. By any sane legal standard, their actions were criminal, and they must all be held legally accountable. Aside from Mr. Maass, not one of the commentators reflecting on this war was willing to suggest as much. Which further proves that America learned absolutely nothing from this war. As Stephen Wertheim eloquently puts it, “the flawed logic that produced the war is alive and well.”

Since America failed to absorb the correct lessons, the victims of this war, and by extension, those who may find themselves in America’s crosshairs next must work that much harder to learn their own lessons.

Doing so requires examining more than just the war in Iraq, which is not the only part of the world that has been subject to such violence. In fact, the 55th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam passed just three days before the anniversary that prompted this piece and the 56th anniversary of Israel’s conquest and continuing occupation of the West Bank is just around the corner.

In addition to contemplating the import of all these anniversaries as well as countless others that we simply do not have the space or time to reference, the victims of America’s various attempts to spread freedom and democracy must also weigh the ramifications of its contradictory actions in support of Ukraine and Israel. And they must do so while they consider the refusal of its leaders to spend less than $800 billion on its military or limit its arms shipments to violent regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc.

Thankfully, the lessons gleaned from the cumulative weight of these data points are relatively simple.  First, Iraq will not be the last unprovoked war America or one of its allies starts. That is because we do not live in a “rules based” international system. We live in a world where might equals right and powerful nations can commit mass murder with impunity (unless America decides they should be held accountable). Those nations that do not wish to suffer like Iraq (or Palestine, or Vietnam, etc.) must therefore give serious thought to creating the sort of political, social, and economic institutions that can lead to developing the industrial, technological, and military capabilities needed to protect themselves.

Both China and Japan learned these lessons after their violent interactions with the West. The Muslim world has struggled to do so. Just like America, it has refused to learn the correct lessons from Iraq or the countless other conquests and slaughters that have marred its history over the past several centuries. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper discussed the impact and aftermath of the war as did Al Jazeera. But neither thought to question the systemic issues that made Iraq, a microcosm of the Muslim world, so vulnerable to conquest or consider ways to prevent such violence from ever happening again.

Muslims refuse to admit that the violence perpetrated against them is a direct result of their own weakness. Societies are never conquered by outsiders until they have sufficiently rotted from within. The authoritarian political and social institutions that have strangled Muslim societies for centuries have stunted its technological and economic development, making it impossible to develop adequate military abilities. Until they wholeheartedly implement serious political, legal, educational, and economic reforms to free themselves from the shackles of dictatorship, Muslim nations will continue to suffer from the same pattern of conquest and violence.

Muslim states must also look to each other for their security needs since none of them can compete with the Great Powers on their own. The only way out of this morass is to embrace the type of unity and collective security architecture built by Europe in the aftermath of WW2. Europe’s unity is, in turn, laid upon a foundation of free trade, which means Muslims must begin the process of learning to work together by linking themselves through trade and infrastructure. These ideas may sound outlandish. Some have even compared them to the quest for nuclear fusion. But the most fundamental lesson of the Iraq war is that without serious changes that address the roots of its weakness, the Muslim world will continue to suffer similar tragedies.  

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The war in Gaza has put Western and Muslim hypocrisy on full display

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorizedLeave a Comment on The war in Gaza has put Western and Muslim hypocrisy on full display

Between all the propaganda and gaslighting, wars inevitably reveal the ugly truth about a society. The war in Gaza has been no different. We are now five weeks into Israel’s counterattack on Hamas. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has responded to the murder of over 1,400 Israelis by killing 11,078 Palestinians, 4,506 of whom were children. Israel’s military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, all but admitted these killings were intentional when he stated the IDF’s focus is on inflicting “damage and not on accuracy.” When confronted about the IDF’s habit of dropping bombs on targets it knows are full of civilians in relation to a strike that murdered an estimated 50 innocent people, his fellow IDF spokesperson, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, unapologetically shrugged these deaths off as “the tragedy of war.” These statements are merely confirmation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise that he would respond to Oct. 7th in a way that reverberates “for generations.” A promise made good when 42 members of the Saqallah family were killed by an Israeli airstrike. Three generations, ranging in age from 3 months to 77 years old, were murdered as they were taking shelter in their home.

Given these statements of intent and the indiscriminate devastation being visited upon Gaza, it is painfully obvious Israel is following the Dahiya Doctrine first articulated by former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot during Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah by intentionally murdering Palestinian civilians. At the least, it is guilty of acting with reckless disregard to the fact that its missile and artillery strikes are killing thousands of women and children. In either case, the IDF is committing a massacre.

One can only wonder where those who were so horrified by Hamas’ killing of women and children are now. After all, as Jonah Goldberg pointed out to those who tried to justify Hamas’ brutality by framing it as legitimate resistance to Israel’s 17-year siege of Gaza, “no amount of context justifies killing babies.” Inexplicably, Mr. Goldberg was too busy dissecting the history and significance of the term “settler colonial” with mind numbing detail to offer any outrage over Gaza’s dead babies.

But Mr. Goldberg is hardly the only American who does not care when Palestinian babies are murdered. When asked about the rising death toll in Gaza, President Biden dismissed them out of hand, preferring to question the accuracy of the figures instead of addressing the underlying issue.  His apathy, like Mr. Goldberg’s, is yet more proof that most Americans simply do not care when Palestinian children are murdered.

To their credit, at least Messrs. Goldberg and Biden are not blood thirsty sociopaths like Senator Lindsey Graham, Congressman Brian Mast, or Florida state representative Michelle Salzman. Graham does not believe there should be any limits on the number of women and children Israel should be allowed to murder in its quest to rid the world of Hamas’ evil, child killing members. Mast argued there are “no innocent Palestinian civilians.” While Salzman believes Israel should murder “all” Palestinians. 

Of course, none of this is surprising. Anyone who has not been in a coma these past thirty years already knows about America’s pattern of killing Arabs and Muslims and the mix of ambivalence and racist demonization that accompanies it. Its sanctions against Iraq killed an estimated 576,000 children. The War on Terror killed another 4.5 million people. Its direct support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen added 377,000 more. The great majority of Americans did not care then, and they do not care now. To expect them to suddenly show interest in dead Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim babies at this point would be insane. 

The Western world’s blatant and overwhelming hypocrisy is certainly condemnable but adequately addressing this topic would take volumes while accomplishing very little. Instead of raging against these glaring double standards, I will simply point out that evil always leads to more evil. Even if it’s a delayed harvest, you reap what you sow, and America has sown death and despair throughout the globe.

As I explain here in more detail, these chickens are already coming home to roost. There is a direct correlation between the genocidal violence America has unleashed or enabled around the world and the mass shootings that are now a depressingly routine part of American life. These are a biproduct of being in a nearly continuous state of conflict for most of the past eighty years. They will continue to haunt Americans in their schools, restaurants, shopping centers, movie theaters, etc. until their country ends its militaristic policies and dismantles the weapons factories built to further them. 

Aside from enabling one lone wolf shooter after another, America’s hegemonic pursuits are also slowly draining a foundational part of its power – its wealth. No empire in history has been able to maintain an aggressive military posture for an extended period of time without eventually imploding. Much of America’s nearly 34 trillion dollar debt can be attributed to its military spending. The interest payments on this debt now stand at 659 billion a year and could climb to two trillion by the end of the decade. Eventually, the financial house of cards built to pay for its imperial ambitions will collapse, impoverishing millions in the process.

America’s obsession with global dominance is slowly destroying and bankrupting it. But since most Americans simply do not want to have this conversation, I’m not going to waste more time on the matter. I have already done my best to warn America that it is on the path to self-destruction several times.

Instead of wasting time trying to dissuade America from its genocidal policies, I prefer to focus on the party that bears the most responsibility for the slaughter in Gaza – the Muslim world. Societies are never conquered by outsiders until they have sufficiently rotted from within. Those who cheered the massacre of women and children on Oct. 7th and those who have been tearing down posters of these innocents are all a reflection of this rot. Much like the subject of Western hypocrisy, adequately addressing the roots of the dysfunction that has gripped Muslim societies these past many centuries would take volumes, and then some. The Muslim world is a mess, and it has been a mess for a long time.

Gaza’s woes are just an extreme example of the weakness and instability that is typical of most Muslim societies. Nearly the entire Muslim world features authoritarian and absolutist governments that preside over unproductive economies and stagnant intellectual climates. This has made it incredibly weak and prone to conquest. The massacre happening in Gaza right now is but the latest in a long line dating back to Napoleon, the Czars, and even the Reconquista.

Despite this history of conquest and instability, Muslim leaders refuse to implement the sort of reforms that could help them to finally modernize and stabilize their nations. Instead, they furiously cling to power, refusing to change. In the same way America’s leaders can only offer thoughts and prayers or make impotent demands for legislation they know will never pass after massacres like the one in Maine, the Muslim world’s leaders can only hold meetings and issue scathing press releases as they watch Gaza’s children die. They may pretend to care about the Palestinians, but their refusal to change their ways, the repression they inflict on their own people and their refusal to speak against China’s crimes against its Muslim populations suggests their concern is mostly for show or politics. Due to their inaction and hypocrisy, Muslims are too weak to challenge America’s fleet as it stands watch over another slaughter.

Both the need for reform and the solutions have been obvious for a long time. As explained here, secular democracy has always been the ideal form of Islamic government. Adopting inclusive, democratic forms of government based on the rule of law would significantly improve the Muslim world’s military abilities while paving the way for the sort of regional integration and mutual security arrangements that could finally stabilize it. But aside from a few flawed experiments like those in Turkey and Indonesia, most of the Muslim world’s nations refuse to adopt this model.

I have repeatedly tried to warn the Muslim world’s rulers they are on a dangerous path. I warned that “Israelis just elected a government that will murder thousands of Palestinians” when they first voted Netanyahu and his Kahanists allies to power. I even begged the Palestinians to surrender years ago because it was obvious they had lost the armed struggle for their own state.

As the slaughter happening right now shows, they should have listened. As such, I must renew my call for Hamas and the Palestinians to surrender. Given the IDF’s refusal to distinguish between Hamas and the women and children who live among them, it would be prudent for all Palestinians to wave white flags of surrender. Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel would do well to follow suite in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Gaza. Peaceful, non-violent resistance is the only sane path left for them.

Unfortunately, my advice and warnings have gone unheeded so far. Which is a pity, because fires of the sort burning in Gaza tend to spread. Israel’s invasion of Gaza, even if it removes Hamas from power, will not lead to peace or even calm without a just political agreement with the Palestinians and dismantling the apartheid apparatus that has been built to subjugate them. Since Israel’s government is run by men incapable of making such an agreement, a repetition and expansion of the cycle of violence is almost certain.  The Muslim world’s rulers would do well to prepare for the chaos that is coming.

Having done my best to highlight the rank hypocrisy of both the Western and Muslim worlds, I must now express my profound shame as I watch my country enable yet another massacre of defenseless women and children while the Muslim world impotently looks on. I am ashamed to be an American. But I am even more ashamed of myself and my fellow Muslims. There are nearly 1.9 billion Muslims in the world and not one of us has the power to stop this evil. Our leaders and governments may bear most of the fault, but even if it’s a distorted view, they are still a reflection of the people and societies they rule over. Every single one of us bears responsibility for what is happening to Gaza. One can only wonder how many more massacres we will watch before we make the desperately needed changes to our societies that can finally give us the strength to stop them.

What America and Israel are doing is evil. Murdering more children will never lead to peace. There is no justification for what is being done to the people of Gaza. America is not the arsenal of democracy, as some like to pretend. It is the arsenal of dictators and apartheid and the world’s preeminent merchant of death. That much is obvious. But none of this would be happening if Muslims were not so unbelievably weak.  

Since our governments do not have the strength to take action, every one of us must speak out to stop this madness. The IDF beat back Hamas’ attack and captured many of its fighters while the rest retreated. The battle Hamas started on Oct. 7th is over. Israel’s military has re-established control of Gaza’s border, removing the threat of more attacks. What is happening now is not self-defense but revenge and collective punishment. Completely destroying Hamas, if it is even possible, would require destroying the entire Gaza strip and murdering tens or possibly even hundreds of thousands of women and children.

Those who remain silent are just as complicit as those depraved souls who rationalize these crimes by conflating Hamas with the Palestinian people or making disingenuous and grossly inaccurate comparisons with the Nazis. Unless Hamas has 100 panzer divisions along with a fleet of powerful aircraft and ships in its tunnels, the comparison is misguided, at best.  Its primary purpose is to help Israel’s leaders deflect calls to pursue a diplomatic solution. Israelis may find the idea of negotiating with Hamas repugnant and, given the thousands of children murdered these past few weeks, Hamas’ leaders probably feel the same way. Regardless, the only way to salvage anything worthwhile from this war is to use it as a path to real peace but that requires dialogue, not dropping thousands of pounds of explosives on residential areas. Otherwise, the cycle will only repeat itself with greater intensity.

Sadly, we live in a world where even our “liberal” leaders prefer war over peace. President Biden could have tried for a Camp David moment. Instead, he responded to a massacre by green lighting another massacre. Yet one more horrible decision from a man who chose Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill, supported the Iraq War, denied Israel was an apartheid state and considered giving Saudi Arabia nuclear technology in a misguided attempt to seek peace by marginalizing the Palestinians. Hopefully, the President’s actions will cost him the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania during the next election, sparing the world from more of his awful decisions.

As a brown man in America, I have learned to be very careful when I share my thoughts. Particularly since there are people who think speaking up for children makes me a terrorist sympathizer or that calling Israel what it is – an apartheid state – makes me an antisemite. Despite these risks, I have no choice but to say something when children are murdered by American made bombs funded by my taxes.

I realize most Americans will never read these thoughts and those few who do will either vilify me or follow President Biden’s lead and dismiss them out of hand. Nevertheless, I will continue to remind everyone that men who hurt children are evil. Children are off-limits. Whether their parents are terrorists or settler colonialists is irrelevant. The ease with which so many rationalize or ignore the slaughter of children is disgusting and shameful. It may seem pointless but the only thing we can do is continue to speak for peace and sanity and answer hate with love. Be the change, as a wise person once advised. Violence is never the answer.

These events have also forced Muslims in the West to confront our place here yet again. There are millions of us who have grown up here, across multiple generations. We have in many ways become embedded into Western society and culture. But our increased numbers and influence did not matter. The leaders we voted for betrayed us and the alternative is even scarier. What are we to do?

I can only speak for myself, and I have decided to vote with my feet and leave. I do not counsel this lightly, particularly since the Muslim world is not a very attractive place either. In an ideal world, we could take the skills and capital we have acquired during our stay in the West and return to our homelands to stimulate a much needed renaissance. But the Muslim world is a repressive place and many of us would quickly run afoul of its stifling rules. The same blasphemy laws, political repression, and corrupt, backwards economies that make it so weak would make for a tough transition and risky investment.

But at some point, we may not have a choice. There are 20 million AR15 style assault rifles floating around America. When it finally collapses under the weight of its massive spending and debts, things are going to get ugly. If another war in the Middle East hastens these trends, Muslims will suffer for it. There is a dark side to Western civilization that is often ignored. Westerners have a history of committing brutal violence against those they consider inferior or find suspicious and those suspicions are often rooted in racial and religious bigotry. The Inquisition, the era of violent colonial conquests, the Holocaust, the reign of the KKK in the American south and South Africa’s and Israel’s embrace of apartheid are just a few examples of this history. To expect that Muslims will continue to prosper and remain safe given this pattern and America’s current trajectory is simply not realistic. As much as we have all grown to love our homes in the West, we must face the fact that we are not wanted and may not always be safe here. There will always be elements who view us as outsiders and these same elements own a lot of those AR 15s. Escape, especially when it is properly planned for, may be the best option. The real dilemma is figuring out the destination.

The author is a US Navy veteran and lawyer who usually writes about ways to modernize the Muslim world on his blog, www.mirrorsfortheprince.com

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On population growth

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorizedLeave a Comment on On population growth

In my quest to understand the roots of the Muslim world’s weakness and instability, I examined its explosive population growth during the modern era. That research gave rise to these thoughts which run counter to mainstream thinking on the relationship between demographics and economics. Most economists and politicians favor policies that promote population growth on the basis that this drives economic growth. At first glance, there is some merit to this approach, but a deeper examination indicates it only leads to fool’s gold.

Let’s start by relying on common sense grounded in a few obvious, but often overlooked, facts. The first being that certain resources, like aluminum, gold, cobalt, and oil are finite. One day, whether it’s fifty or five hundred years from now, we will run out of them. The exact date they run out will depend on the rate at which we consume them. Consumption rates are, in turn, a function of population size since this drives demand.

In addition to depleting resources that will eventually run out, growing populations also increase demand for the most finite resource of all: land, particularly arable land. Population growth causes the price of land to climb as demand increases but supply remains constant. This directly impacts the cost of shelter, a basic necessity, and key determinant of the cost of living. Keeping these facts in mind to frame the discussion, let’s throw out some numbers and examples.

The population of Pakistan in 1951 was 34 million. It now sits at over 227 million, representing an increase of 6.7 times. During this time, its economy grew from $3 billion to $383 billion, a factor of over 127. On the surface, these numbers seem to justify the mainstream approach; however, raw numbers can be misleading. Despite growing significantly faster than its population, Pakistan’s economy has been unable to provide a decent standard of living for most of its people. For example, it has the second highest infant mortality rate in the world and extremely high rates of malnutrition. A substantial number of Pakistanis remain stuck in poverty and have yet to receive any socio-economic benefits from its rapid development. This makes sense when one considers that due to its exploding population, its per capita GDP only grew by a factor of 19 during this time.

Egypt has experienced similar growth rates. Its population recently passed 100 million though it was only 12 million in 1914[1]. That’s over 8 times as many people sharing the same space and vying for the same riverside property on the Nile in just four generations. That also means Egypt is consuming 8 times more water and other resources than it once did. Not coincidentally, Egypt’s socio-economic performance, though better than Pakistan’s, is still poor.

France, on the other hand, has seen its population grow from 40 million in 1947 to only 65 million today. As a result, its per capita GDP grew nearly 34 times during the much shorter timeframe from 1960 to today.  These differences help to explain why France performs relatively well based on various socio-economic indicators and boasts a high standard of living. Its people are well-fed, educated and have access to both jobs and decent healthcare.

Due to its differing immigration policies, Japan’s population growth has been even slower than France’s. People often point to it as an example of the horrors of low population growth. And to be fair, it does create issues that mostly boil down to not having enough young people around to take care of the elderly and do all the menial but necessary jobs they can no longer perform. Aside from these issues, Japan is a pretty great place to live. At least that’s what most socio-economic indices that measure these things say. Like France, it still has a well-developed economy, plenty of jobs, great schools, and a high standard of living for most of its citizens. What it does not have is the explosive growth in GDP that seems to make everyone so happy, hence the hand wringing. 

Similarly, the news that China’s population is declining has been labeled a crisis as its population is projected to fall to less than 800 million by the year 2100. These demographic changes will certainly create problems but only because its entire economic model is predicated on using its surplus labor to make cheap consumer products for the world. While they were implementing economic policies that relied on abundant, cheap labor, China’s leaders used an authoritarian one child policy to drastically and unnaturally alter the composition of the average Chinese family. It is the combination of these social and economic policies that have created China’s current predicament. But this should not detract from the arguments made herein since these problems are largely self-inflicted.

The mainstream view is that growing populations like Pakistan’s are a good thing while shrinking ones like Japan’s or China’s are not, since more people means more demand for clothes, shelter, cell phones, cars, schools, etc. as well as abundant labor. Providing these goods and services therefore leads to economic activity, jobs, capital formation and what Ibn Khaldun called the “business of civilization[2].” As a result, population growth is seen as a win-win by politicians who get to tell their constituents GDP grew by X percent and businesses that benefit from the increased supply of labor and demand for their goods/services. This dynamic has driven human civilization and technological development for thousands of years.

But the world is changing, which means we must change with it. Populations are much, much bigger than they have ever been and most people live much longer than they ever have. Our world is already home to over 8 billion people. Policies that incentivize unchecked population growth are a product of antiquated conceptions of demographics and life expectancy that ignore the simple fact that when human populations are measured in billions, the consumption rate of certain resources will deplete them much faster.

And they will be depleted in the pursuit of what is best described as “churn” to make all the products people consume, instead of improving productivity, innovation, per capita growth, or quality of life. Aside from depleting resources, this approach also forces people to live on a hamster wheel since this cycle of growth and consumption merely increases the cost of living over the long run. This type of consumerism prioritizes short term gains while ignoring the long-term cost and changing realities. Instead of mindlessly incentivizing people to make babies, we need to think about how to generate qualitative growth capable of giving the billions who already live among us a decent standard of living.

Part of the reason most disagree with these ideas is that we have been raised in capitalist systems that view growth as an end to itself. Before I went to law school, I spent a year in software sales. Every quarter we would sell a record number of databases only to be told that our goal for the next quarter was to beat that mark by a certain percentage. It was a constant drive for more. Without this “churn” our consumer-based economy falls apart. But, as with everything in life, there must be limits. Even when it comes to the pursuit of profits. The constant need for more will leave our descendants with nothing while tethering us to our hamster wheels in perpetuity.

Aside from inspiring these thoughts, this research also helped show that exploding populations are not, by themselves, a root cause of the Muslim world’s weakness. That distinction goes to the authoritarian and absolutists political and social institutions that have strangled it for centuries. But they have certainly contributed to its problems, and these have yet to fully manifest themselves. That will happen in the coming decades as hundreds of millions of under or un-educated youth come of age with little prospect of gainful employment, draconian social and political restrictions on how they can express themselves, and few productive outlets to channel their energy. A mix of variables that will make Muslim societies even more unstable in the coming years. The Muslim world provides an extreme example of the perils of unchecked population growth particularly when coupled with incompetent leadership, but even the world’s wealthy societies should reconsider their policies.

In my lifetime, America’s population has nearly doubled from 180 million when I was in elementary school to 330 million now that my kids are the ones in grade school. That means there are nearly twice as many Americans competing for resources and land as there were when I was a child. It is not hard to see the correlation between the political and social unrest America has experienced these past few years and its population growth.

This growth led to greater demand for land, which increased the cost of living, resulting in demands for higher wages. It was the cost of labor that motivated America’s companies to dismantle their factories and ship them overseas. These changes fundamentally re-shaped America’s economy in ways that marginalized large swaths of its population, leading to much of its recent instability.

In the name of short-term growth, America incentivized larger families and immigration and certainly benefited as a result. I am, after all, a product of those immigration policies. But using consumption fueled by population increases as a foundation for economic growth is an inherently flawed model. It is both unsustainable and irresponsible.

America’s population is expected to grow to 438 million by 2050. Unlike a lot of countries, it has room to grow, so this is not an urgent issue. But at some point it will get to 570 million and so on and so on. Eventually, there will simply not be enough to go around.

As a result, we must consider ways to encourage smaller families and slower growth regardless of the impact on Nike or Apple share prices. Some, like Thanos, share my view but prefer more violent methods to tackle the issue. Instead of genocide or banishing people to an alternate dimension in a state of quasi-consciousness, I suggest using public policy. Not of the authoritarian Chinese variety, but of the sort that might incentivize certain behavior. For example, government policies should encourage people to stay in school or learn a trade since this tends to cause people to have children later in life, which usually leads to smaller families and slower growth rates. They can use their education and skills to build the robots and technology we will need to compensate for the lack of cheap labor[3].  

Immigration policy should be designed to meet America’s labor needs but can no longer accommodate large scale inflows. Since those inflows have most recently come from America’s southern neighbors, America should re-locate its factories from China to these countries. This policy recommends itself both as atonement for its war crimes in Central America and as a means of building a more reliable supply chain over the long run that may help to stem the flow of immigrants. By my count, that’s three birds.

Last, we must consider the instability that climate change is likely to bring. No one really knows how these changes will impact us, but the early results are scary. Entire rivers and lakes are drying up in the Western U.S. California has been experiencing a record drought for years. Without its agricultural output, food is going to get very expensive. The point is, we are entering a period of uncertainty. We should be conserving resources and trying to limit the number of mouths to feed until we see how things are going to shake out.

Unfortunately, no one is going to listen to this advice since it addresses problems that are not yet fully apparent and contradicts conventional wisdom. By the time anyone realizes I’m right, it will be too late. As a dear friend once said, “it is better to proact than react.” These words were offered in that spirit.

[1] Hourani at 293-94; 333-34

[2] Khaldun at 238

[3] Those countries, like Pakistan or Egypt, that face a more pressing situation should take even more aggressive measures like offering young men large sums of money to undergo vasectomies or using the tax code to encourage smaller families.

In defense of nuclear fusion

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized2 Comments on In defense of nuclear fusion

I once asked a relative to review an article I wrote about how the Muslim world should react to America’s looming military withdrawal. It is available here, if you are interested. He compared my proposal for an alliance between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey to the quest to develop nuclear fusion as a way of wryly highlighting the lofty and implausible nature of my argument. At first, I interpreted this statement negatively because I thought it meant my ideas were unattainable. I have since realized the comparison was a compliment, even if it was not intended as one.

Nuclear fusion may be a daydream today, but it has the capacity to fundamentally change how we harness and use energy. Similarly, the development of a new Muslim political entity comprised of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey (P.A.I.T.) is also a daydream that, if realized, could fundamentally alter the political and economic dynamics of the entire world by finally stabilizing one of its least stable regions. One that happens to connect India, Africa, China, Russia, and Europe. Geography dictates that an unstable Muslim world has the capacity to sow chaos throughout all these regions whereas a stable one has the capacity to serve as a bridge between them. Trying to develop nuclear fusion may seem like an impractical and difficult goal but given the potential payoff, it is well worth the effort.

Obviously, a complex project like building an entirely new entity out of four countries that must overcome substantial ethnic, linguistic, and doctrinal differences while they reform their governments and economies before they can even begin construction will face many difficulties. But the inescapable truth is that the Muslim world has been suffering from an existential crisis for centuries. The only way to resolve the many issues facing it will be by taking bold steps that can finally allow it to genuinely modernize.

Unfortunately, most of the Muslim world’s rulers have refused to implement substantive reforms that could lead to meaningful change. As such, the best way to start the process is by taking incremental steps towards realizing them focused on increasing trade and tourism. That way, the elites of the Muslim world can see the benefits of having access to each other’s markets. Hopefully, that will create a reinforcing loop that leads to further integration and trade in the same way that a customs union for coal paved the way for European integration. The goal would be for such incremental progress to eventually lead to a fully developed and integrated alliance comparable to the EU and NATO.

Ultimately, the elites of the Muslim world must make the choice to reform their countries or face a constant cycle of conquest or rebellion. Given the frequency with which the Muslim world’s despotic governments keep failing, one would think its leaders might be receptive to ideas that can finally help stabilize their nations.

There was a time when the Muslim world was blessed with rulers who had the wisdom and strength to create some of the world’s most powerful empires. The days of empires have ended but the rulers of the Muslim world must still learn to think in grander terms and have loftier goals than merely enriching themselves or clinging to power. They must strive for nuclear fusion, not as some grandiose goal, but as a last desperate lifeline. One that offers them some glimmer of hope before the technological and economic gap between the Great Powers of the world and their nations become so wide it develops into a permanent condition. If Muslims ever want to see an end to the conflicts that have led to the death and displacement of countless millions over the past few centuries, they will need to fundamentally reform their societies as discussed here and hope they can develop nuclear fusion.

For those who are not convinced of the dangers, here is a short summary of some of the military calamities suffered by Muslims during the past few centuries:

1798: French forces conquer Egypt, an Ottoman province at the time. They are eventually forced to withdraw by the British since the Ottomans do not have the power to challenge Napoleon’s forces.

1830: France conquers and colonizes Algeria. It took the Algerian people around 130 years and countless ruined lives before they were able to re-gain their freedom. They are still suffering from the legacy of French colonial rule and exploitation.

1857: The Muslims and Hindus of the Subcontinent revolt against their British masters and are ruthlessly suppressed, allowing Britain to maintain control of the entire subcontinent for another 90 years. Despite being vastly outnumbered and relying on indigenous troops to form the bulk of their forces, the British crushed the rebellion. One of their favored tactics was strapping captured prisoners to cannons who were executed by having a cannonball shot through their chest at close range.

1890: To secure their conquest of Egypt, the British invade Sudan with an army of roughly 25,000, defeating a much larger force of 60,000 and maintaining control until the 1950s.

1922: In the aftermath of WWI, the British and French take control of several former Ottoman provinces within the Arab world. Dividing them as spoils of war which they controlled until the end of the colonial era.

1947: Jewish refugees defeat six different Arab armies, creating the state of Israel by conquering Palestine and dispossessing many of its people of their land.

1948: India essentially annexes Kashmir, making it the only Muslim majority state in the Union. Forces from Pakistan try to seize Kashmir too but are repelled. The majority of Kashmir remains under Indian control.

1956: Israel, France, and the U.K. seize the Suez Canal. The US forces them to withdraw so Egypt treats the episode as a victory even though its military forces were completely incapable of protecting their most vital economic asset. It was returned due to political pressure from the US, which only forced its allies to withdraw to prevent angering the Soviet Union. In other words, the Egyptian military was a non-factor.

1965: Pakistan starts its second war with India. It loses. Again.

1967: Israel starts a war with its Arab neighbors. It wins. Again. It also takes over the entire Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, the Gaza strip, all of Jerusalem, and the Golan heights. Aside from the Sinai, it still controls (either directly or indirectly) all the territory it conquered during those six days.

1971: India attacks Pakistan. Pakistan loses. Again. Pakistan is dismembered, leading to the creation of Bangladesh. 90,000 of its troops are captured and held in POW camps. In a repeat of 1857, Muslims from the Northwest of the Subcontinent slaughter Muslims from the Bengal and rely on racist tropes to justify their barbaric behavior towards their fellow Muslims.

1973: Egypt and Syria launch a coordinated attack against Israel, scoring a few small wins in the early stages but ultimately succumbing to Israel’s counterattack which highlights the complete inability of the Arab forces to engage in maneuver warfare or adjust their tactics without the benefit of a pre-planned script.

1979: The Soviet Union invades and occupies Afghanistan. The US and Pakistan arm Afghanistan’s mujaheddin forces who use guerilla tactics to defeat the Soviet forces. They withdraw in 1989, marking one of the few victories for Muslim military forces. A victory that only took 10 years and 2 million dead Afghan civilians to achieve.

1980: Iraq invades Iran, starting one of the longest conventional wars in modern history. Though their militaries are incompetent in different ways and for different reasons, neither side has the military power to achieve a decisive victory. Roughly 500,000 casualties and 9 years later the war ends.

1982: Israel invades Lebanon, occupying the south of the country. Israeli forces are eventually forced to withdraw in 2000 after a guerilla campaign by South Lebanon’s Shi’ites. Another Muslim victory but one that took 18 years to achieve and claimed thousands of innocent lives. Even today, Israel still occasionally launches airstrikes and artillery bombardments against Lebanon which has yet to develop the military abilities to prevent these attacks.

1987: The first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel begins. Palestinian youth fight for their freedom by throwing stones at Israeli tanks. They do not achieve any military victories but pave the way for peace talks a few years later.

1989: Kashmir’s Muslims, tired after years of political oppression and mismanagement from New Delhi, revolt. India responds by stationing between 500,000-900,000 security personnel in the territory to brutally put the revolt down relying heavily on extra-judicial murder, torture, and systematic rape. They succeed. Although the insurgency continues today, Kashmiris have yet to develop military capabilities that can secure their freedom despite sacrificing roughly 100,000 sons and daughters to the cause.

1991: Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. The U.S. responds by destroying and routing the Iraqi army, sustaining very few casualties in the process. Iraq’s defeat is so complete that it irrevocably changes the military dynamics of the entire region by showing the incompetence and weakness of what had been considered one of the most powerful Muslim militaries. In the aftermath of its victory, the US begins permanently stationing its forces in the Middle East. It also enforces a no-fly zone and embargo against Iraq that leads to the death of roughly 576,000 Iraqi children. 

1994: The war in Bosnia. Muslims are slaughtered by both Croats and Serbs. Various Muslim nations, with the support of the U.S., arm and train Bosnia’s Muslims who eventually ally themselves with the Croats to fight the Serbs to a stalemate. Thousands of Muslim women and children are raped and murdered before this happens.

1998: Kargil. Pakistan attacks India. It loses. Again. Bringing its record against India to an impressive 0-4.

2000: The second Intifada. After peace talks fail, the Palestinians revolt again but use brutal tactics that intentionally target Israeli civilians. Their tactics backfire because they turn the Israeli public against any peace deal. Israel’s security forces respond by crushing the insurgency so thoroughly that they end any hope for an independent Palestinian state.

2001: 9/11. Radical Islamists launch a surprise attack against the United States, killing roughly 3,000 Americans. The U.S. responds by conquering Afghanistan, relying on special forces troops backed by airstrikes. Its actions set off a chain of events that leads to a civil war in Pakistan that claimed the lives of roughly 80,000 Pakistanis. After nearly 20 years and over 40,000 dead Afghan civilians the Taliban force the US to withdraw, handing the Muslims yet another hollow victory.

2003: As part of the War on Terror, the US also invades Iraq. Like the first Gulf War, Iraq’s military stands no chance. The US establishes control with lightning speed but gets bogged down in a guerilla war (largely of its own making). It is eventually able to defeat the insurgency and the government it created to replace Saddam (barely) survives today. An estimated 200,000 – 2.4 million Iraqis die.

2006: Israel responds to an incursion by Hezbollah by sending military forces into Southern Lebanon again and bombing much of its rebuilt infrastructure. The short conflict is mostly seen as a win for Hezbollah which manages to inflict relatively heavy casualties on the IDF; however, casualty figures for both sides show much heavier losses on the Lebanese side and highlight, once again, how vulnerable Lebanon is to Israel’s more powerful air forces.

2011: Syria erupts in civil war. Its government is only able to survive because of help from allies in Russia, Iran, and Lebanon but its territory devolves into anarchy. Millions are forced to flee Bashar Asad’s horrific violence, turning much of its population into refugees.

2017: Saudi Arabia and the UAE attack Yemen’s Houthis but must rely on logistical and intelligence support from the US even though the Houthis have no modern air defenses and limited access to heavy weapons. Despite this support and the huge disparity in resources between the belligerents, they prove incapable of defeating the Houthis who frequently target Saudi energy infrastructure. They do; however, manage to kill 400,000 Yemeni civilians.

This list, which only highlights some of the consequences of the Muslim world’s military incompetence and political instability shows exactly how little has changed over the past few centuries. The only “victories” took many years, millions of deaths, and immeasurable economic damage to achieve. The same weakness that allowed the French to conquer one of the Ottoman Empire’s richest provinces in 1798 continues to haunt Muslims today and led to the conquest of both Afghanistan and Iraq by US forces in 2001 and 2003. This weakness has cost the lives of countless millions over the centuries and will continue to do so until it is corrected. The Muslims of Palestine, Russia, and Kashmir all live under brutal military occupations with no end in sight.

Even China has begun forcing many of its Muslims to live in horrid detention camps where they are subject to systematic rape and sterilization while the Chinese Communist Party attempts to convince them to abandon their religious and cultural identifies. Despite these crimes, Muslim nations are so weak and uninterested in protecting each other they continue to trip over each other to do business with China. Many Pakistani leaders have even gone out of their way to argue their “iron brother” is guilty of no crimes against its Muslim populations. Part of the reason Muslim nations do not challenge China is they know they do not have the strength to do so.

Without serious reforms, the pattern of conquest and destruction that has gripped the Muslim world will continue. Unity, by itself, will not be enough. It is just one of many changes Muslims must implement if they ever hope to stabilize their societies.

Chief among them is the need to guarantee freedom of expression because without that creating a vibrant, prosperous society is impossible. The ability to express oneself freely is the key to unlocking the true potential of individuals and by extension, entire societies. Without strong free speech protections, societies fall into dictatorship because the ability of citizens to speak their minds is the ultimate check on a government’s power. It is also the key to nurturing intellectual curiosity of the sort required to build good schools and drive technological innovation. America’s founders guaranteed the right to free speech in the very first amendment of their constitution for a reason. Their understanding of its importance laid the foundation for its rise.

By contrast, the weakness of the Muslim world is a result of the prevalence of authoritarian political and cultural institutions that trample freedom of expression as part of their refusal to share power with or properly educate their people. Thankfully, the diagnosis reveals the cure.

If authoritarianism is the culprit, then liberalism and democracy are the remedies. Muslims must study the causes of the Western world’s dominance and apply those lessons to their own ends. Just as our ancestors once borrowed from the Chinese to create powerful armies and record powerful ideas, today’s Muslims must borrow from all the world’s communities and use their knowledge and experiences to better themselves.

Rather than fear change, Muslims must embrace it. That is the only way to evolve and, as nature teaches us, evolution is the key to survival. The inability of Muslims to evolve, if left unchecked, will inevitably lead to more conquest, enslavement, and death.

When I argue for the lofty goal of nuclear fusion it is, indeed, out of desperation. Desperation to see the slaughter of innocents stop and prevent looming disasters. Instead of arguing that such goals are too difficult to attain, I suggest it is time to think about ways to end the cycle of violence that has destroyed so many lives. If its history is any guide, the Muslim world is on a path to a dystopian future that will be characterized by intense violence and economic stagnation. I propose Muslims begin working towards a “Star Trek” future by seeking nuclear fusion rather than sit idly as their leaders march them towards slavery and destruction.

To that end, I have given the best advice I can, even though I knew it would be ignored. My primary audience has been the soldiers and thugs that rule much of the Muslim world. That is why I have presented most of my ideas in military or national security terms even though there are so many ways to address these issues that transcend war and politics. The best and most persuasive have to do with life and liberty. But that is not the language my audience speaks. Thus, I have tailored my message accordingly even though war is a wasteful and destructive activity. Civilizations only achieve greatness when they prioritize intellectual development and come together based on logic and justice. Men may worship war, but it is false god that only leads to ruin and damnation.

Yet, it is a topic we must all understand. I have studied the various military defeats suffered by the Muslim world to develop a coherent explanation for the weakness that has gripped so much of it. Thankfully, understanding what ails it is not terribly complicated.

The seminal work, Why Nations Fail, shows exactly how dictatorships lead to weak economic growth while stifling technological innovation. Aside from its discussions of Uzbekistan and Egypt, it does not spend a great deal of time on the Muslim world. However, it does not take much imagination to see the relevance. The great majority of the Muslim world has been living under a dictatorship of some form or another since the Umayyad Empire and this has severely stunted its political, social, and technological development.

In Armies of Sand, Ken Pollack explains why Arab armies have performed so poorly in battle. According to Mr. Pollack these defeats are largely attributable to cultural factors that have prevented Arab soldiers from mastering the intricacies of modern warfare. Though he limits his analysis to the Arabs, his conclusions are applicable to many non-Arab Muslim militaries too, just to a lesser degree.

Last, we have Prof. Kuru’s important work about authoritarianism in the Muslim world. Prof. Kuru provides the historical background and context for the observations made by Mr. Pollack and Messrs. Acemoglu and Robinson.

Combined, these works show why the Muslim world has been so weak for so long. I have done my best to explain how their ideas work together and apply them to the current geo-political environment. My goal was to raise the alarm and provide a brief discussion while working on more detailed explanations in my books.

But I have played the town crier long enough. And I am reasonably satisfied that I have presented my arguments as clearly as possible, using a variety of angles. As a result, I will be taking a hiatus from sharing my gloomy prognostications and analysis while I work on my books. The first, a fictional work called “How the assassination of Donald Rumsfeld led to the fall of the Milky Way” uses the garb of science fiction and fantasy to explain the same points raised throughout my blog. The second “Mirrors for the Prince: a commonsense explanation of how dictators are destroying the Muslim world and why democracy can save it” will provide a far more in-depth explanation of the ideas presented herein with stricter annotations and evidentiary support.

I am confident in my theories and analysis because they are based on a careful study of the available data and common sense. As such, when I argue that Muslim societies must develop democratic political institutions, it is not because I am repeating the mantra of a predetermined political viewpoint. It is because the evidence shows that democratic political institutions lead to creating wealthy and powerful societies. I have presented my analysis in a somewhat unorthodox style as an attempt to pay respect to Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli by updating their styles for modern sensibilities. My attempt to revive a long extinct literary genre was my way of paying homage to those who inspired me the most. Despite these quirks, those who read my ideas with an open mind, without letting their civilizational biases or ideological preferences get in the way will see that I have not only correctly assessed the Muslim world’s surest path to rehabilitation but given America some good advice too.

As discussed elsewhere, the parallels between the Muslim world and America are startling. Since America is my adopted tribe, I have done my best to dissuade it from its destructive policies. I have criticized its actions, not out of hatred but love and the belief that patriotism is best expressed through criticism, not blind allegiance. Some might come away thinking I hate America. Nothing could be further from the truth. If my family had emigrated to France, I would either be in jail or working a menial job. But we did not move to France. We moved to America, so I got to be a lawyer instead. Despite my affections, I vehemently disagree with its foreign policies. America has turned itself into a merchant of death and a hypocrite, forcing me to speak uncomfortable truths.

I will close by pointing out some of my predictions have already come true. I predicted that America was ripe for a right-wing coup about a year before Jan. 6th[1]. I also predicted the Afghan Republic’s dependence on US military support was a fatal weakness that would lead to “an entirely new government in Afghanistan that, at best, will have to share power with the Taliban in the near future” on Nov. 20, 2020, nearly a year before the Taliban took over. I can only hope that someone pays attention before my bleaker predictions come true.

I wanted to record these ideas and explain the theories behind them because I felt it was important to provide an intellectual foundation that could pave the way for change. My sincere hope is that these words will eventually lead to action based on reason and logic.

For my part, once I am done with my books, I am going to build a farm. One that features solar powered greenhouses growing healthy fruits, greens, and vegetables vertically using as little water as possible. I have always believed that a healthy agricultural sector driven by innovation and technology is the foundation upon which a strong economy must be built. My dream is to build this farm and the necessary infrastructure to support it in Pakistan as a way of nurturing both its technological capabilities and socioeconomic development. But investing in Pakistan is risky since it is run by jackals who use their power to steal and enrich themselves. Which means, it will take some time to realize these plans. I only mention them to illustrate how I intend to act on some of the ideas expressed in my essays.

I hope some of you will be inspired to come up with your own contributions and ideas. As Prof. Kuru explains, the marginalization of the Muslim world’s merchants by its soldiers has severely stunted its growth. As such, the best way for those of us with no political power to start rebuilding it is to revitalize its merchant class by swelling its ranks. History has shown that the development of a healthy merchant class is often the catalyst for the exact sort of political, social, and technological changes the Muslim world desperately needs. Perhaps that is the role destined for those of us who found refuge in the West? To return to and invest in our homelands using the skills and capital we have acquired while living among our conquerors. That would certainly be a fitting way to finally transition the Muslim world away from the neo-colonial era that has trapped it. It would also quiet my growing fear that our descendants will one day suffer the same fate as Spain’s Muslims.

For those of you who have stuck with me to the end: thank you. I hope I have provided some insights worthy of further consideration.

For those reading this in the future, wishing my contemporaries had followed my advice. All you can do is use these ideas to prevent similar mistakes. As Ibn Khaldun pointed out centuries ago, “the past resembles the future more than one drop of water another[2].” History is a guide for future generations. It is not to be lamented or worshipped but learned from. A knowledge of history combined with a bit of logic can go a long way towards avoiding future calamities. But one must take the time to study the past and train the mind to properly analyze and learn from it first.

[1] I didn’t get it all right though. I was talking about developments decades from now, or so I thought at the time. I also thought the military would be the culprit. Thank God it was just the Orange One. His incompetence and narcissism saved the day. I was half right but nailed the big picture analysis and none of those factors have changed. Things will only get worse as America’s white population shrinks. We will see more coup attempts both violent and non. I did not publish my predictions since I wrote them as part of a draft for the non-fiction book referenced above when the chapter explaining that outside interference is a symptom, not a root cause of the Muslim world’s weakness veered off course. Luckily, I have receipts.

[2] Khaldun, Ibn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1967) at 12.