Bin Laden The Vindicator

Linh Dinh

Since September 11, 2001, Bin Laden had been mostly an absence. His few video or audio tapes were highly suspect, and speculations about his death had often surfaced. On July 11, 2002, Amir Taheri wrote in the New York Times, "Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan ["] With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival?"

But save for one doubtful video, Bin Laden never took credit for 9/11. In fact, he repeatedly denied any responsibility for those mass murders. On September 28, 2001, he was interviewed by the Karachi Ummat, an Urdu language newspaper. The US Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a component of the CIA, translated:

["] I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks nor I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people. Such a practice is forbidden ever in the course of a battle. It is the United States, which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children, and common people of other faiths, particularly the followers of Islam. All that is going on in Palestine for the last 11 months is sufficient to call the wrath of God upon the United States and Israel. There is also a warning for those Muslim countries, which witnessed all these as a silent spectator. What had earlier been done to the innocent people of Iraq, Chechnya, and Bosnia? Only one conclusion could be derived from the indifference of the United States and the West to these acts of terror and the patronage of the tyrants by these powers that America is an anti-Islamic power and it is patronizing the anti-Islamic forces. Its friendship with the Muslim countries is just a show, rather deceit. By enticing or intimidating these countries, the United States is forcing them to play a role of its choice. Put a glance all around and you will see that the slaves of the United States are either rulers or enemies [of Muslims]. The US has no friends, nor it wants to keep one because the prerequisite of friendship is to come to the level of the friend or consider him at par with you. America does not want to see anyone equal to it. It expects slavery from others. Therefore, other countries are either its slaves or subordinates ["] Whoever committed the act of 11 September are not the friends of the American people. I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed ["] The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system, but are dissenting against it. Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or ideology could survive ["] Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year. This [funding issue] was not a big problem till the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of these agencies has been in danger. They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usama and Taliban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush administration approved a budget of $40 billion. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance. Now they will spend the money for their expansion and for increasing their importance. I will give you an example. Drug smugglers from all over the world are in contact with the US secret agencies. These agencies do not want to eradicate narcotics cultivation and trafficking because their importance will be diminished. The people in the US Drug Enforcement Department are encouraging drug trade so that they could show performance and get millions of dollars worth of budget. General Noriega was made a drug baron by the CIA and, in need, he was made a scapegoat. In the same way, whether it is President Bush or any other US President, they cannot bring Israel to justice for its human rights abuses or to hold it accountable for such crimes. What is this? Is it not that there exists a government within the government in the United Sates? That secret government must be asked as to who made the attacks ["]

Judge for yourself. Does this sound like the raving of some mad man with an ego the size of Mount Everest? He sounds quite composed, actually, and far more lucid, perceptive and concise than all American politicians and most intellectuals. In any case, this interview was the last substantial utterance from Bin Laden. After this, he more or less disappeared.

Though neither seen nor heard, he was often evoked to justify the crimes America was committing against others, and even her own citizens. Bin Laden vindicated whatever our leaders chose to do. But ten years is a long time to throw this shadow against our walls. This bearded man had become a bit of a joke, frankly. On a cartoon show, the folks of South Park, Colorado even asked Bin Laden to help them kill an invading horde from New Jersey.

On May 2, 2011, our government decided, finally, to kill off the Bin Laden apparition. Since the United States had supposedly been after him since 1998, you would think they'd hang on to their man a bit longer after they got him, if they got him, but within hours of finding her public enemy number one, America got rid of Bin Laden!

Hey, if you can't show me something, maybe you don't have it, especially since you are a chronic liar and in the cloak and dagger business. For most English-language trials since the disappearance of William Harrison in 1660, there has been the principle of no corpse, no murder, but here you actually have an open admission of murder, widely broadcast, but no corpse, which is tantamount to destruction of evidence, whatever it was.

So the CIA is basically saying to us, The dog ate my cadaver. Frankly, this farce was so crudely put together, the explanation so ridiculous, that our overlords must think most of us are morons, brainwashed as we are by cradle-to-grave propaganda delivered via print or pixels. I hate to think they might be right.

In a much-mocked photograph, Bush is shown in an Army jacket, his hands holding a tray with a picture-perfect turkey, garlanded by grapes. He is surrounded by American troops, most of whom are not looking at him. This is meant to convey that the photo was spontaneous, casual, and not posed. It is authentic.

In another photograph, this one declared an instant classic, iconic and paradigm shifting by our mainstream media, Obama is shown in the Situation Room of the White House, surrounded by his top security advisors. They are watching something. Of the thirteen faces, none is looking at the camera. Again, this is to convey that the photo was natural and spontaneous. Obama is shown in a casual jacket, Biden in shirt sleeves, details that indicate they are at work, and not posing for a propaganda photo, god forbid. This image is so authentic, in fact, that it borders on the illicit. This was a secret session, after all. That’s why all of the laptop monitors have been blackened out, and the photo in front of Hillary Clinton has been blurred. We should be thankful, then, for this courtesy peep at a scene we shouldn’t even have access to. The spontaneity is also reinforced by an unfamiliar face at the back, peeking in. She is younger and shorter than the rest, truly a little person among heavyweights, nearly all of whom are men, by the way, yet only the most cynical would conclude that this small woman was added to double the female representation in the room. A really tall and large woman would not do. Like that worm in the British royal wedding photo, this tiny woman provides just enough intrigue without distracting.

As we all know, Bush served up a plastic turkey, so the turkey propaganda photo was itself a turkey, but a much bigger turkey is the Situation Room image. Releasing it, the White House explained that Obama and company were watching the raid and execution of Bin Laden in real time, with the snuff film made possible by a camera mounted on the helmet of a Navy Seal. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any head during a firefight is not likely to be stationary, not long enough, in any case, to broadcast steadily and clearly to the folks back home, not unless it wants to be a dead head, that is.

“Hey, Seal with the camera, run up that stairs and fix your gaze on Geronimo, will you? Remember to stand still and don’t duck, so our Commander in Chief will have a vivid stream of images, OK?”

Soon after, the White House explained that there was no live feed of the crucial moment, after all, that the camera actually didn’t work for 25 of the 38-minute raid, so there was absolutely no video footage of Bin Laden, but why this sudden reversal? Can’t these people work out their lies before they broadcast them to us?

The White House had to backtrack because it had painted itself into a corner. It had already refused to produce photos of a dead Bin Laden. He had been shot above the eye, it said, shattering his skull, so such a gory image would inflame Muslim sentiments. “We don’t want to spike the football,” Obama explained. But if we can’t see a dead Bin Laden, how about a photo of him alive? If a helmet mounted camera could deliver a live feed to the Situation Room, surely it can produce at least one image of Bin Laden with his head still intact, and in that house? But this, too, was out of the question, incredibly enough.

With webcams, surveillance cameras, Google street view and the ubiquitous camera phones, it seems that the entire world is always photographed, or ready to be photographed these days, that anyone at any moment can be captured by that voracious shutter, then uploaded onto a screen. There are cameras hidden inside pens, books, boom boxes, clocks, air purifiers and smoke detectors. You can probably google any name, a grade school chum, your first lover, long lost cat, dead grandma, bless her soul, and find photos of them online, uploaded by the Pentagon, or maybe God himself.

The public has also come to expect a photo, as evidence or trophy, after any political assassination or execution. Just think of the strung up Mussolini, bloody Ngo Dinh Diem inside an armored car, a shirtless Che Guevara or the bandaged head of Leon Trotsky.

We are drowning in photographs, most of which we can do without, yet the one image that everyone wants to see this week, of a Bin Laden dead or alive during the raid, is not available. Instead, we are treated to a wealth of irrelevant information. We are told that there was “a hero dog” involved; that Obama and company had turkey pita wraps, cold shrimp, potato chips and soda, bought from Costco, the cheapo outlet—how nice, this common man touch—in the Situation Room; that Obama has met to congratulate his commandos, all highly intelligent and responsible family men between the ages of 30 and 40. Whatever.

The Bin Laden photos would not matter if there was a corpse, but that too, has gone missing, so without a cadaver or even the flimsy evidence of a photoshopped photograph, what is there to this sensational murder, really? Nothing but words from the CIA and the White House. Though they lied to us about Jessica Lynch’s “rescue” and Pat Tillman’s murder, we are to believe them this time because they have suddenly decided to speak the truth. Honestly.

Though the important questions are not being asked, the official lessons are being pounded into our heads. According to governmental bobbleheads and embedded media pundits, this virtual assassination is a vindication of America and her (evil) ways. The end justifies the means, you see, so waterboarding, extra-rendition and all the rest have been and are necessary.

Ari Fleischer, former Bush mouthpiece, attributed Bin Laden's supposed assassination to "a strong foundation of anti-terrorist efforts including the predator strikes in northern Pakistan, indefinite detention, Guantanamo where we had interrogation techniques that led to the courier ["] all that is what Barack Obama continued that George Bush started. This is a day for all of us to just be proud of what our country has accomplished."

Obama also dished up some righteousness, "Tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place."

An additional lesson was provided by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. With Bin Laden gone, he said to CNN, it was time to eradicate Bin Ladenism, which he defined as using violence to affect political changes. An apologist for the ultra violent state of Israel and America's invasion of Iraq, Friedman did not seem to care that it is the US that leads the world in violence for political and economic ends. Even before 9/11, the Taliban made repeated overtures to hand Bin Laden over to the US, but America would have none of it. Our intention, then as now, was to bomb, bomb and bomb!

Like a great clean up batter, dead man Bin Laden brought everyone safely home. Bush could round the bases at last, could find closure and high five Obama at home plate. We're all on the same team, see? Even Colin Powell could be defrosted long enough to gush over our Navy Seals.

Assigned to this phony assignment, our Navy Seals nevertheless messed up and left a huge, mangled chunk of a helicopter on a brick wall. How many Navy Seals died in that crash? From a botched mission that didn't involve Bin Laden at all, the US has fashioned a chest-thumping fairy tale to celebrate its supposed greatness. Further, if Bin Laden was such a feared leader of a terrorist organization, why was he shot on sight? For intelligence purpose alone, wouldn't it be imperative to catch the old man alive? Long suffering from kidney failure, Bin Laden couldn't have survived until 2011 anyway, but to point this out is to incur the blood curling wrath of not just flag-waving, rah-rah Americans, but even progressive commentators, such is the level of brainwashing in this country.

On August 6, 2011, 22 Navy Seals from the Bin Laden hit team were killed when they were shot out of the sky, supposedly by the Taliban. All 38 people onboard that Chinook died, 30 of them Americans. Not before or since had the Taliban killed so many Americans with one shot, and there's also the question of why so many "heroes" from the Bin Laden fuss were so conveniently packed so as to be silenced like that? Liars and criminals, our grinnning leaders kill their own soldiers then pin medals on the cadavers.

To prove his US birth, Obama showed us an electronic file then, jokingly, a cartoon excerpt, but to prove Bin Laden's death, Obama's handlers have given us nothing but a cartoon narrative suitable only for dimwitted children. The bloody crooks hustling us must be incredulous, if not laughing uproariously, at what they can get away with in this nation of suckers.

The Arab Boat

Ramzy Baroud

In a western capital far away from Gaza and Cairo, I recently shared a pot of tea with an “Egyptian refugee”.

The term is familiar to me, but never have I encountered an Egyptian who refers to himself as such. He stated it as a matter of fact by saying: “As an Egyptian refugee ..” and carried on to talk about the political turmoil in his country.

It made me shudder as I tried to conjure up a possible estimation of Arabs who have been made refugees in recent years. But where does one start the estimation if we are to set aside the Palestinian Nakba in 1948? Or forget the successive waves of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians that followed, and disregard the various exoduses of Lebanese civilians as a result of Israeli invasions and civil war?

Iraq can be the start – the country that served as a foundation of everything Arab. Their culture, history and civilization, which extends to the very beginning of human civilization, ushered in the new Arab exodus.

The American promise to bomb it “back to the stone age” was worse than expected. Millions of Iraqis became refugees after the US-led war, a situation that was exasperated in the mid-2000s with the invasion-provoked civil war.

Last year alone over two million Iraqis were displaced, most of them internally as a result of the so-called Islamic State’s violent takeover of numerous territories in northern and western Iraq.

A recent report by the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) finally placed the crises in Syria, Iraq, Libya, etc, in a larger context, accentuating the collective Arab tragedy. “These are the worst figures for forced displacement in a generation, signaling our complete failure to protect innocent civilians,” according to Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the organization behind IDMC.

War and conflicts have resulted in the displacement of 38 million people, of whom 11 million were displaced last year alone. This number is constantly fortified by new refugees, while the total number of people who flee their homes every single day averages 30,000, a third of those are Arabs who flee their own countries.

Yes, 10,000 Arabs are made refugees every day, according to IDMC. Many of them are internally displaced people (IDPs), others are refugees in other countries, and thousands take their chances by sailing in small boats across the Mediterranean. Thousands die trying.

“I am a Syrian refugee from the Palestinian al-Yarmouk camp in Damascus,” wrote Ali Sandeed in the British Guardian newspaper. “When I was small, my grandmother used to tell us how she felt when she was forced to flee to Syria from her home in Palestine in 1948, and how she hoped that her children and grandchildren would never have to experience what it feels like to be a refugee. But we did. I was born a Palestinian refugee, and almost three years ago I became a refugee once more, when my family and I had to flee the Syrian war to Lebanon.”

“’I thought the boat was my only chance,” was the title of the article where Sandeed described his journey to Europe via boat.

Many of Yarmouk’s refugees are refugees or descendants of Palestinian refugees who once lived in northern Palestine – in Haifa, Akka and Saffad. Reading his testimony immediately summoned the chaotic scenes as the refugees fled the Zionist invasion of Haifa in 1948.

Thanks to Palestinian and Israel’s new historians like Ilan Pappe, we know so much about what has taken place when the tens of thousands of people attempted to escape for their lives using small fishing boats:

“Men stepped on their friends and women on their own children. The boats in the port were soon filled with living cargo. The overcrowding in them was horrible. Many turned over and sank with all their passengers.” (Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, p. 96)

The brutality and sense of despair embodied in that scene is repeated every single day in various manifestations throughout Arab countries: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and so on. If the destination of these refugees were illustrations via small arrows, the arrows would be pointing in many different directions. They would overlap and they would, at times, oppose one another: innocent people from all walks of life, sects, and religions dashing around in complete panic along with their children and carrying whatever they could salvage.

The Palestinian Nakba (the catastrophe of war, displacement and dispossession of 1948) has now become the Arab Nakba. Palestinian refugees know too well what their Arab brethren are going through: the massacres, the unredeemable loss, the despair, and the sinking boats.

One recalls a question that persisted in the minds of many when the so-called Arab Spring first began in early 2011: “Are Arab revolutions good for Palestine?”

It was impossible to answer. Not enough variables were in place for any intelligent assessment, or an educated guess even. The assumption was: if Arab revolutions culminate into truly democratic outcomes, then, naturally, it would be good for the Palestinians. This assumption followed the simple logic that historically Arab masses – particularly in poorer Arab countries – perceived Palestine as the central and most common struggle that unified Arab identity and nationalism for generations.

But not only democracy never prevailed (with the Tunisian exception) but many millions of Arabs joined millions of Palestinians in their perpetual exile.

What does that mean?

My Egyptian friend, who declared himself a “refugee,” told me: “I am optimistic.”

“I am too,” I replied, with neither one of us feeling a bit surprised by the seemingly curious statements.

The source of optimism is twofold: Firstly, Arabs have finally broken the fear barrier, a prerequisite essential for any popular movement that opts for fundamental change. Secondly, now most Arabs are equally sharing the burden of war, revolution, destitution and exile.

That is far from being a “good thing,” but it certainly accentuates the element of urgency in the collective Arab fate.

“We are in this together,” I told my Egyptian friend. Indeed, it is as if all Arabs are riding on a single, overcrowded dinghy and we must all make it to the other side safely. Sinking in not an option.

Syrian War Set to Re-Explode

Shamus Cooke

The Syrian war stalemate appears to be over. The regional powers surrounding Syria — especially Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Jordan — have re-ignited their war against the Syrian government. After over 200,000 dead and millions of refugees, the U.S. allies in the region recently re-committed to deepening the war, with incalculable consequences.

The new war pact was made between Obama’s regional darlings, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who agreed to step up deeper military cooperation and establish a joint command in the occupied Syrian region of Idlib.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are now openly backing Islamic extremists under the newly rebranded “Conquest Army.” The on-the-ground leadership of this “new” coalition consists of Jabhat al-Nusra — the “official” al-Qaeda affiliate — and Ahrar al-Sham, whose leader previously stated that his group was the “real al-Qaeda.”

The Huffington Post reports:

“The Turkish-Saudi agreement has led to a new joint command center in the northeastern Syrian province of Idlib. There, a coalition of groups — including Nusra and other Islamist brigades such as Ahrar al-Sham that Washington views as extremist — are progressively eroding Assad’s front. The rebel coalition also includes more moderate elements of the Free Syrian Army that have received U.S. support in the past.”

The article admits that the Free Syrian Army — that Obama previously labeled as “moderates” and gave cash and guns to — has been swallowed up by the extremist groups.

This dynamic has the potential to re-engulf the region in violence; deep Saudi pocketbooks combined with reports of looming Turkish ground forces are a catastrophe in the making.

Interestingly, the Saudi-Turkish alliance barely raised eyebrows in the U.S. media. President Obama didn’t think to comment on the subject, let alone condemn it.

The media was focused on an odd narrative of Obama reportedly being “concerned” about the alliance, but “disengaged” from what two of his close allies were doing in a region that the U.S. has micromanaged for decades.

It seems especially odd for the media to accept that Obama has a “hands off” approach in Syria when at the same time the media is reporting about a new U.S. program training Syrian rebels in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

It’s inconceivable that Obama would coordinate deeply with Turkey to set up a Syrian rebel training camp on Turkish soil, while at the same time be “disengaged” from the Turkish-Saudi war coalition in Syria.

One possible motive behind the fake narrative of “non-cooperation” between Obama and his Turkish-Saudi allies is that the U.S. is supposed to be fighting a “war on terrorism.”

So when Turkey and Saudi Arabia announce that they’re closely coordinating with terrorists in Syria — like al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham — Obama needs an alibi to avoid being caught at the crime scene. He’s not an accomplice, simply “disengaged.”

This is likely the reason why Obama has insisted that his new “moderate” rebels being trained in Turkey will fight ISIS, not the Syrian government. But this claim too is ridiculous.

Is Obama really going to throw a couple hundred newly-trained “moderate” Syrian rebels at ISIS while his Turkish-Saudi allies focus all their fire on the Syrian Government? The question answers itself.

The media has made mention of this obvious conundrum, but never bothers to follow up, leaving Obama’s lame narrative unchallenged. For example, the LA Times reports:

“The White House wants the [U.S. trained rebel] proxy force to target Islamic State militants, while many of the Syrian rebels — and the four host nations [where Syrian rebels are being trained] — want to focus on ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad.”

The article simply shrugs its shoulders at the irreconcilable. The article also fails to mention that Obama’s “new” training camps aren’t new at all; he’s been arming and training Syrian rebels since at least 2012, the only difference being that the “new” training camps are supposedly meant to target ISIS, compared to the training camps that were openly used to target the Syrian government.

Here’s the LA Times in 2013:

“The covert U.S. training [of Syrian rebels] at bases in Jordan and Turkey began months before President Obama approved plans to begin directly arming the opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders.”

This is media amnesia at its worse. Recent events can’t be understood if the media doesn’t place events in context. In practice this “forgetfulness” provides political cover to the Obama administration, shielding his longstanding direct role in the Syrian war, allowing him to pretend to a “passive,” “hands off” approach.

When it was reported in 2012 that the Obama administration was funneling weapons to the Syrian rebels, the few media outlets that mentioned the story didn’t bother to do any follow up. It simply fell into the media memory hole. After the weapons funneling report came out, Obama incredulously stated that he was only supplying “non lethal” support to the rebels, and the media printed his words unchallenged.

Consequently, there was no public discussion about the consequences of the U.S. partaking in a multi-nation proxy war against Syria, a country that borders war ravaged Iraq.

In 2013 when Obama announced that he would be bombing the Syrian government in response to a supposed gas attack, the U.S. media asked for no evidence of the allegation, and strove to buttress Obama’s argument for aggression.

And when Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh wrote an article exposing Obama’s lies over the aborted bombing mission, the article didn’t see the light of day in the U.S. media. Critically thoughtful voices were not welcome. They remain unwelcome.

In 2015 direct U.S. military intervention in Syria remains a real possibility. All the conditions that led to Obama’s decision to bomb Syria in 2013 remain in place.

In fact, a U.S. intervention is even more likely now that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are fighting openly against the Syrian government, since the Saudi-Turkish alliance might find itself in a key battle that demands the special assistance that only the U.S. air force can offer.

Unsurprisingly, there has been renewed discussion of a U.S. enforced “no fly zone” in Syria. ISIS doesn’t have an air force, so a no fly zone would be undeniably aimed at the Syrian government to destroy its air force. The new debate over a “no fly zone” is happening at the same time as a barrage of new allegations of “chemical weapons” use are being made against the Syrian government.

If a no fly zone is eventually declared by the Obama Administration it will be promoted as a “humanitarian intervention, that strives to create a “humanitarian corridor” to “protect civilians” — the same rhetoric that was used for a massive U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign in Libya that destroyed the country and continues to create a massive refugee crisis.

As the Syrian war creates fresh atrocities the Obama administration will be pressured to openly support his Saudi-Turkish allies, just as he came out into the open in 2013 when he nearly bombed the Syrian government.

History is repeating itself. But this time the stakes are higher: the region has already been destabilized with the wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and the regional conflicts have sharpened between U.S. allies on one hand, and Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia on the other.

Such a volatile dynamic demands a media willing to explain the significance of these events. The truth is that Obama has been a proxy war president that has torn apart the Middle East as badly as his predecessor did, and if the U.S. public remains uninformed about developing events, an even larger regional war is inevitable.

US Economy Collapses Again

Jack Rasmus

Data released last week by the U.S. government showed the U.S. economy came to a near halt in the first three months of 2015, falling to nearly zero – i.e. a mere 0.2 percent annual growth rate for the January-March quarter. The collapse was the fourth time that the U.S. economy in the past four years either came to a virtual halt or actually declined. Four times in four years it has stalled out. So what’s going on?

In 2011, the U.S. economy collapsed to 0.1 percent in terms of annual growth rate. At the end of 2012, to a mere 0.2 percent initial decline. In early 2014, it actually declined by -2.2 percent.

And now in 2015, it is essentially flat once again at 0.2 percent. The numbers are actually even worse, if one discounts the redefinitions of GDP that were made by the US in 2013, counting new categories as contributing to growth, like R&D spending, that for decades were not considered contributors to growth – in effect creating economic growth by statistical manipulation. Those highly questionable 2013 definitional additions to growth added around US$500 billion a year to U.S. growth estimates, or about 0.3 percent of U.S. GDP. Back those redefinitions out, and the U.S. experienced negative GDP four times in the last four years. We get -0.2 percent in 2011, 0 percent in 2012, -2.5 percent in 2014 and -0.1 percent earlier this year.

It is therefore arguable that the U.S. has also experienced at least one mild ‘double dip’ recession, and perhaps two, since 2010.

All the four U.S. economic relapses occurred following preceding month gains in growth sufficient to generate claims by politicians and pundits alike that the U.S. economy had finally ‘turned the corner’ and was now on a path of sustained economic recovery. Yet every time such claims were made, reality contradicted their predictions within a few months, and the economy collapsed again, creating a scenario not of sustained economic recovery but of a ‘stop-go’ trajectory.

The consequence of this ‘stop-go’ recovery is that the U.S. economy since 2009 – the official end of the last recession – has experienced the weakest recovery from recession in the last fifty years, just about half the normal post-recession recovery. And this ‘half normal’ recovery since 2009 occurs after an annual growth averaging only 1.7 percent during the years 2001-2010 in the U.S. Something new is happening to the U.S. economy since 2000. What is it?

Recessions in the U.S. have occurred on average every 7 years. It’s now year five since the last one officially ended in June 2009. What happens if the current weak recovery reaches its end at around 7 years, i.e. in mid-2016 a year from now? Will the next recession prove even worse, perhaps much worse, occurring as it will on a base recovery half of normal?

Unfortunately, such questions aren’t asked by most mainstream economists, and certainly not by politicians and business media pundits.

Stop-Go On A Steady Slowing Global Economy

The problem of weak, stop-go, recovery in the U.S. today is further exacerbated by a global economy that continues to slow even more rapidly and, in case after case, slip increasingly into recessions or stagnate at best.

Signs of weakness and stress in the global economy are everywhere and growing. Despite massive money injections by its central bank in 2013, and again in 2014, Japan’s economy has fallen in 2015, a fourth time, into recession.

After having experienced two recessions since 2009, Europe’s economy is also trending toward stagnation once more after it too, like Japan, just introduced a US$60 billion a month central bank money injection this past winter. Despite daily hype in the business press, unemployment in the Eurozone is still officially at 11.4 percent, and in countries like Spain and Greece, still at 24 percent. Yet we hear Spain is now the ‘poster-boy’ of the Eurozone, having returned to robust growth. Growth for whom? Certainly not the 24 percent still jobless, a rate that hasn’t changed in years. Euro businesses in Spain are doing better, having imposed severe ‘labor market reforms’ on workers there, in order to drive down wages to help reduce costs and boost Spanish exports. Meanwhile, Italy remains the economic black sheep of the Eurozone, still in recession for years now, while France officially records no growth, but is likely in recession as well. Elites in both Italy and France hope to copy Spain’s ‘labor market reforms’ (read: cut wages, pensions, and make it easier to layoff full time workers). In order to boost its growth, Italy is considering, or may have already decided, to redefine its way to growth by including the services of prostitutes and drug dealers as part of its GDP. Were the USA to do the same redefinition, it would no doubt mean a record boost to GDP.

Across the Eurozone, the greater economy of its 18 countries still hasn’t reached levels it had in 2007, before the onset of the last recession. Unlike the U.S.’s ‘stop-go’, Europe has been ‘stop-go-stop’.

Even beyond the Eurozone, in the broader Euro area the picture is not much better. After a brief, artificial real estate boom fueled by foreign investment, the UK is now growing again at a mere 0.3 percent rate. And then there’s China, where economic growth continues to slow, despite multiple fiscal and monetary stimulus programs introduced the past two years to try to boost the economy further. And the global slowdown applies not just the largest economies. Emerging market economies in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere that are especially dependent on commodities production and exports have been descending one by one into recession, or at best stagnating.

Yet despite this growing global economic weakness, and the U.S. economy’s repeated annual economic relapses and ‘half normal’ recovery rate, we are still being told that the U.S. economy is sound and that it will lead the rest of the world economy toward sustained economic growth this year and next.

It’s the Weather!

We’re told the declines in U.S. growth the last two years – January to March 2015 and before that 2014 – have been due to ‘bad weather’. And that this coming summer 2015 the U.S. economy will ‘snap back’ again, as it did last summer 2014.

But is economic forecast by weather metaphor really the cause of the recent U.S. slowdown? Not really. Even economists themselves admit that, at the very most, only 0.5 percent of last quarter GDP decline can be attributed to weather. If the fourth quarter 2014 U.S. GDP was 2.2 percent, in other words, then only -0.5 percent of the drop was due to weather. So what about the other -1.5 percent drop from the fourth to the first quarter 2015?

A closer look shows that at least -1.25 percent of that -1.5 percent was due to the sharp decline in U.S. exports. That decline was due largely to the US dollar’s sharp rise in value compared to other currencies since last fall. A rising dollar makes U.S. exports more expensive. U.S. exporters lose out to European, Japanese and Chinese competitors. Since U.S. exports are largely manufactured goods, that means U.S. manufacturing slows – which it has. And that in turn means U.S. growth slows.

The reason for the dollar’s rise is threefold. First, the U.S. central bank’s repeated signaling of intent to raise U.S. interest rates this year. Second, the collapse of world oil prices that also drive up the dollar. Third, the massive money injections by Europe and Japan central banks in the form of ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) programs that are designed to drive down the value of the Euro and the Yen in order to achieve a competitive advantage for their region’s exports at the expense of U.S. exporters.

What’s going on globally today is rolling ‘competitive devaluations’ of currencies by means of massive central bank monetary injections. In ways this is somewhat like the 1930s depression. Then countries devalued their currencies by legal declaration, as they tried to boost their economies by stealing exports from competitors. The problem with that strategy is that all could do it, and they did. So no one gained in the end and the global economy and trade sank further. Today’s new form of competitive devaluation is no different. It signals the major capitalist regions of the world – i.e. north America, Europe, Japan, and now even China – are beginning to fight over a slower growing global economic pie. The devaluations are just assuming a different form. Not legal declaration but monetary injection by central banks.

In early 2014 Japan introduced its QE and central bank injection. It gained a temporary trade advantage. But then Europe did the same. Japan lost its advantage, which Europe gained. The U.S. lost the most in terms of exports, since its dollar rose for two reasons – Japan and Europe currencies falling and talk of U.S. interest rate hikes as well.

But most recently, the U.S. central bank has signaled that interest rates may not rise this year. Oops. There goes the Euro and Yen losing its advantage once more and their economies slipping again. This see-saw, back and forth, fighting over a shrinking trade pie only reveals a new instability growing in the global economy. Europe in particular will soon be hammered by a potential Greek debt default, a continually imploding Ukrainian economy it has committed to bail out at US$40 billion so far, and now the U.S. indicating it won’t raise rates. Watch Japan, which will likely again devalue still further to offset U.S. and Europe measures. Meanwhile, as China continues to slow, it could eventually reduce the Yuan to boost its exports as well.

What this global scenario means is that the U.S. economy significantly weakened in the first quarter 2015 due not to weather, but because of loss of global exports due to the reasons noted. But trade competition and currency wars are not the only explanation for the near collapse of the U.S. economy last quarter.

Collapse of Oil Prices and U.S. Economic Slowdown

Another major development in 2014 in the U.S., that disappeared by early 2015, was the Oil/Shale Gas boom. After having surged to record levels in the first half of 2014, contributing largely to the summer 2014 U.S. 5 percent GDP rise, after mid-year the global price of oil collapsed. By end of year 2014 the collapse was in full swing. Investment in this sector fell by nearly half, regional construction activity in the Dakota-Texas area also fell abruptly, as did the mining activity as oil/gas wells were shut down, and as railroad and trucking transport activity declined. A major contributor to 2014 economic growth in the U.S. thus fell through by early 2015. What’s significant, moreover, is that it won’t come back in 2015. So the ‘recovery’ in the summer of 2014 won’t have this contributing factor behind it in 2015.

One-Time Consumer Spending on Health Care

Another temporary factor that contributed to the summer 2014 surge in U.S. growth, that has also since disappeared, is first time consumer household spending on healthcare services. Last summer was the first full year of sign-ups by 10 million households to Obama’s ‘Affordable Care’ Insurance Program. Spending on new insurance premiums, and on healthcare services by millions of new customers for the first time, together served to give U.S. GDP last summer 2014 another major boost. But those sign-ups have leveled off. Most of those who wanted to sign up have done so. Future growth in health insurance and health care services has therefore leveled off.

So like the shale/oil gas surge and the export-trade advantage, the health care spending surge contribution to U.S. economic growth is most likely temporary as well.

Why the US Economy Will Continue A ‘Stop-Go’ Trajectory

There are three fundamental causes why the U.S. economy will continue on its 5 year long, stop-go recovery trajectory until the next recession in 2016 or after.

First, there is insufficient wage and income growth for the approximate 100 million wage earning households that constitute the bulk of consumer spending in the U.S., which accounts for roughly 70 percent of the US economy annually. In turn, the reason for the lack of wage and income growth by these households is the lack of full time, decent paying jobs creation in the US. Jobs that are being created are low pay, no benefit jobs. Part time and temp jobs. Service jobs, and few manufacturing or construction jobs. Working class consumption is also compressed by inability to earn interest on basic savings accounts. Then there’s household debt, for past education borrowing, for auto purchases, and credit cards, which also takes a toll on spending.

Second, there’s the lack of investment spending by business. Large, multinational corporations in particular continue to prefer to invest outside the U.S. rather than in it. When not investing abroad, they prefer to ‘spend’ their record profits on stock buybacks and dividend payouts to shareholders. More than US$5 trillion worth since 2009. Another trillion dollars projected in 2015 alone as well. Then there’s their growing investing in financial asset markets and securities, which now constitute about 25 percent of all multinational corporate investing. And what they don’t invest in financial assets, invest abroad, or spend in buybacks and dividends, they just hoard as cash on their balance sheets, reportedly now in excess of US$1.7 trillion in their offshore subsidiaries. None of these alternatives and diversions result in real investment that create real decent paying jobs, at decent pay and benefits. Hence, consumption by the 100 million households stagnates or lags—except for more debt based spending perhaps.

Third, there’s no sustained recovery on the near horizon because the U.S. government has clearly decided on growing only defense spending. The new Republican Party dominated U.S. Congress insists on cutting social programs further, including long time once sacrosanct programs like Medicare for seniors. In the first quarter U.S. GDP numbers, spending by State and Local governments slowed noticeably, as did US federal spending on non-defense products and projects.

Instead of sustained growth, the scenario is ‘stop-go’, as this or that temporary factor occur to boost U.S. GDP and growth temporarily, followed by other temporary developments that in turn subsequently drag U.S. GDP back to zero or negative growth. Add further to this scenario the Eurozone’s continuing economic instability, the UK’s new stagnant growth, Japan’s descent into yet another recession, China’s deepening struggle to maintain 7 percent growth that is almost certain to fall below that level soon, oil and commodity producing emerging markets that are already in recession, and an historic weak recovery already in its 5th year of an average 7 year cycle—then what remains is a likely further long term, stop-go US economy as the global economy continues to slow as well.

The Coming Dissolution of Great Britain

Patrick Cockburn

I have spent most of my working life writing about countries where communal or nationalist differences determine and, on occasion, convulse the political landscape. My first experience of this was at Queen’s University Belfast, where I was writing a PhD on the Irish Home Rulers in Ulster pre-Irish independence, during the worst years of the troubles in Northern Ireland between 1972 and 1975. I moved on to Lebanon at the beginning of the civil war, and later reported on the Soviet Union before and after it broke up. I first went to Iraq in 1977 and over the following decades have watched it torn apart by communal conflicts stoked by foreign intervention.

Knowing these countries has given me a strong sense of the fragility of nation states when confronted by strongly rooted local nationalisms. The glue holding together nations is always a mixture of myth and self-interest which tends to become ossified and discredited over time. At the height of British imperial power in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Scots were part of a British super-nationality that acted as the ruling caste of the empire. Working class solidarity within an industrial economy fostered a sense of British identity, as did loyalty to national institutions, industries, utilities and infrastructure, from the army and the navy to the shipyards and the railway system.

The triumph of the Scottish Nationalist Party on Thursday and the annihilation of all other parties in Scotland has led to lamentations on left and right over the likely passing of Great Britain as a unitary state. There are panicky whiffs in the air as people who had scarcely noticed there was such a thing as the union between England and Scotland come to realise that it may soon be dissolved and wonder what the future will hold. It is ironic to recall that a decade ago British officials talked glibly about “nation building” in Afghanistan and Iraq, without a thought about the staying power of their own nation.

It was fairly clear at the time that these foreign “nation builders” in Baghdad and Kabul, who spoke in such patronising tones to Iraqis and Afghans about creating a functional national state, had very little idea what they were talking about.

Over the past year it has become evident that British political leaders are equally at sea when dealing with nationalists and nationalism on their home turf. They veered between over-reacting and under-reacting to the rise of the Scottish nationalists. The left in Britain has never been very happy dealing with nationalism of any sort, seeing it at times as covert racism or at best a divergence from economic and social
issues. This helps explain why Miliband, Balls and other leading Labour figures seemed so baffled and incoherent during the Scottish referendum. When they did act it was generally to line up with the Conservatives as unionists and justify damaging allegations by the nationalists that they were “Red Tories”.

In reacting to Scottish nationalism the right, in the shape of Conservatives, had a more coherent policy, although it often reminded one of the denunciations of Irish Home Rulers. The Conservative Party exploited British voters’ hostility to home rule in the decades before 1914, suggesting that the reliance of Gladstone and Asquith on the votes of Irish MPs was illegitimate and unpatriotic. Cartoons in Tory papers showed clod-hopping Irish peasants manipulating like so many puppets Liberal leaders greedy for power.

As a tactic, this demonisation of Irish nationalists still seems to strongly influence a sizeable number of English voters when applied to Scottish nationalists a century later. Indeed its political effectiveness has evidently surprised the Conservatives themselves – assuming it was the main explanation for their late surge in the polls. Nigel Farage’s jibe that English taxpayers’ money was being tossed over Hadrian’s Wall was just the sort of rhetoric used during the various Irish Home Rule crises.

Labour ended up being squeezed twice: once by surging Scottish nationalism overwhelming their strongholds in Scotland, and then by newly awakened English nationalism stirred up by the Conservatives in England. Ed Miliband seemed to accept too easily the premise that the SNP had somehow earned pariah status, and any that reliance on their support for a future |Labour government had to be ruled out. The argument sounded weird and wholly unconvincing, and Labour always looked as if it was running scared, never counter-attacking by saying that Tory rabble-rousing against the Scots was itself weakening the union of the two countries.

The problem with using the English nationalist genie against the Scots is that it may be difficult to put back in the bottle. Some of the rhetoric of the campaign will be forgotten, but not all. Big post-election concessions are on offer. David Cameron says that “in Scotland, our plan is to create the strongest devolved government anywhere in the world”, while also offering “fairness” to England. This may work to a degree, but Scottish nationalism has acquired momentum over the past year that will be difficult to stop. The annihilation of all other political parties in Scotland by the SNP means that opposition to separatism will find it difficult to take an organised shape and gain a public platform.

The SNP in power in Edinburgh may fail to implement its policies or be unable to pay for them, but it can blame everything on London.

I spent the first days of last week in Catalonia and am about to go to Iraqi Kurdistan. Both are regions where separatism determines politics. There are some analogies between the political situation of these three countries but one vast difference. The emotional power of Catalan and Kurdish nationalism is strengthened by memories of recent massacres and political oppression by the central state, in a way that is simply not true of Scotland for many centuries. Scottish politics does not have any of the bitterness and hatred of Northern Ireland.

What is striking about the coming dissolution, be it partial or total, of the British state is the lack of resistance to this from its political establishment. It is but one more element in the decline of British power in the world over the past decade. A striking feature of the election was the degree to which it was solely focused on domestic issues. Britain’s failure to achieve its military or political aims in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was scarcely mentioned. Likewise, Cameron’s intervention as part of a Nato coalition to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011 only briefly surfaced when Miliband said that more should have done to plan for the aftermath of the invasion (although he wisely did not say what this should have been).

Whatever the degree to which Scotland achieves Home Rule, the new political alignment means that Britain will be more than ever absorbed in its domestic affairs.

America’s Hydra Problem in the Middle East

Inge Fryklund

In the Greek myth, Heracles battles the Hydra — a multi-headed reptilian monster that was terrorizing the Greek countryside.However, every time a head was cut off, two grew in its place, so cutting off one head at a time was an ineffective plan of attack. Heracles succeeded in slaying the Hydra only with the help of his nephew Iolaus, who quickly cauterized each severed stump so new heads could not regenerate.

The Hydra was invincible as long as a single head remained, and this Heracles succeeded in cutting off after the other heads were eliminated — finally dispatching the beast.

The Hydra myth is usually treated as just another Greek story of monsters and gods and heroes, suitable for dramatizing in comic books and movies, and often employed a metaphor for multi-faceted and multiplying threats. Indeed, the Hydra metaphor has often been used to describe the threat posed by Islamist extremists such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Variants of Islamist insurgency just keep popping up as fast as we think one has been dealt with.

It may be worth considering the myth in greater detail. Perhaps it was a Greek way of expressing, in very graphic form, a truism: For some evils, a direct approach that seeks to decapitate the threat only results in the multiplication of that threat. This myth could well have been a Greek political allegory told as a cautionary tale.

Striking Without Asking

Our current approach to the Islamic State and the greater Middle East tracks the Greeks’ pre-Heracles whack-a-mole approach to the Hydra.

We attack one manifestation of violence at a time, without a thought about the likely consequences of our own violence. We’re surprised when the threat morphs, metastasizes, or appears in a new place. We note that the terrorists are resilient or adaptive or flexible, but do not ask why or whether our own actions contributed to their resilience. Describing the problem as “hydra-headed” conveys puzzlement and frustration, but it’s merely descriptive — there’s no further analysis.

Even our language fits the Hydra myth pattern. We seek to “decapitate” the leadership of terrorist organizations. Take out Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the problem will be solved. However, cutting off these heads has made no appreciable dent in the threat posed by the groups they led. When a movement arises out of frustration and grievance, emergent leadership is more likely a consequence of the movement than a cause of it.

The term “counter-terrorism” itself evokes a classic Hydra strategy. As President Obama stated last September, “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [the Islamic State] through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”

That is, we expect to prevail by attacking the attacker, rather than figuring out why the threat keeps multiplying, or why Islamist insurgencies have enjoyed at least passive support from populations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and throughout the Middle East.

Unintended Consequences

The Hydra myth also symbolizes the dangers of taking action without considering predictable collateral consequences. Again, our language is suggestive.

We take pride in our “surgical” strikes, for example. Following a medical analogy, we pretend we can excise the tumor or repair the heart valve with precision, not affecting surrounding tissue — like lopping off a Hydra head. Implicitly, we assume that the “removal” of a drone strike target has no effect on the human environment in which the alleged insurgent was embedded. “Hey! No collateral damage,” we cry. “We didn’t kill any civilians.”

These strikes do, in fact, kill plenty of civilians. But more to the point, enraging and humiliating them can be similarly detrimental. Every time we kick in a door in search of insurgents, or attack a convoy or wedding party with drones, the typical result is the creation of more angry and disaffected people ready to take revenge. A “surgical strike” is a Hydra tactic.

Right now we see the Hydra strategy playing out most visibly in the Middle East, but this approach has long been a staple of American foreign policy around the world.

This is the same mentality so well described by historian Stephen Kinzer in The Brothers, which chronicles the tale of Allen and John Foster Dulles blithely deposing foreign governments. The former CIA director and secretary of state, respectively, believed we could just swoop in and remove Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, former Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, et al. and thereby eliminate whatever we perceived the problem to be (usually Communism).

There was no thought of collateral consequences — which of course invariably came back to haunt us later. It was a long fuse, for example, but Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution was undoubtedly set in motion by the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953. The fuse, of course, was much shorter when we removed Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam in Iraq without considering what might come next.

Cauterizing the Wound 

For a more productive strategy, it may be useful to analyze the myth more deeply. “Cauterization” was key to Heracles’ ultimate success because it stopped the generation of more heads. What might “cauterization” mean in the political context?

It seems unlikely that the Greeks were advocating a scorched earth policy of annihilating the source of regeneration. That sounds too much like the original “cut the head off” tactic. More likely, the lesson is to think more broadly about how to make regeneration impossible or unlikely.

How might the dynamic be changed so that terrorists do not gain traction? This is a very different question from “how do we attack and eliminate today’s batch of terrorists?”

A first step is identifying what’s different in the circumstances between societies that give rise to or host terrorists and those that do not. Not all places seem to be equally vulnerable.

It seems highly unlikely that a full-blown terrorist insurgency would ever gain much traction in the United States, for instance.

Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building 20 years ago this April, did not attract followers or catalyze a broad-based movement. September 11 didn’t turn many Americans against their government either.

There is no popular sense in the United States that large-scale political violence is either acceptable or necessary. Whatever discontent the American population might have with (for example) congressional gridlock or budget sequesters, there is no feeling that things are so bad and people so helpless to effect change by other means that they would tolerate or passively support terrorists. Leaders (we don’t call them rulers) are elected, even if imperfectly, and the population always has the “throw the bums out” option for the next election.

What’s different in the countries that are susceptible to extremism and violence? It isn’t too hard to see a common pattern.

Rulers (not democratically elected leaders) serve their own interests while oppressing a population that is without power to effect change. Too often, these autocrats are supported by the United States in the interests of regional “stability” or keeping the oil flowing.

Think of Egypt under Mubarak, Iraq under Saddam, Libya under Gaddafi, or Saudi Arabia under the Saud family. The list could go on. As Sarah Chayes points out in her recent book Thieves of State, a common thread in countries with insurgencies is governmental corruption and rent-seeking by elites to extract resources from the population rather than serve them. In each case, the population has had no means of effecting peaceful change.

Accommodations with Strongmen

Recent upheavals have unfortunately mostly resulted in capture of the state by new elites and strongmen — Tunisia may be the exception, but even there it’s been a rocky road.

We’re surprised at the continuing cycles of violence in Iraq (the Hydra popping up again), yet have been oblivious to the disaffection engendered by the Sunni-Shi’a dynamic. The Shi’a majority that took power in Iraq after the United States deposed the minority government led by Saddam Hussein promptly marginalized and persecuted the minority Sunnis. Many Sunnis, in turn, embraced al-Qaeda as the only source of aid and local support in 2006-07, and have at least passively supported the subsequent rise of the Islamic State. Why did we think the Sunnis would acquiesce to Iraq’s increasingly sectarian government instead of looking for support wherever they could find it?

We’re also puzzled when national armies in Iraq and Afghanistan show limited enthusiasm for fighting and dying in service to a classic Hydra strategy on behalf of a corrupt and unaccountable regime.

In both countries, U.S. authorities complain about military incompetence and cite a need for training. The question we should be asking is why the central government doesn’t have the loyalty of its citizens. These continuing waves of violence in Afghanistan and the Middle East were entirely predictable (like Heracles knowing that cutting one head would result in the generation of two), yet we never seem to connect the dots.

At the very least, we should stop playing into the elites’ game by fighting anyone they designate as “terrorists” and supporting the elites’ retention of power.

We see this dynamic playing out in Egypt, where Washington has continued to support the military government that seized power in a coup, imprisoned the democratically elected president, and designated all Muslim Brotherhood adherents as terrorists. In Yemen, the United States supports a (Sunni) Saudi bombing campaign against (Shi’a) Houthis. Elsewhere we see it in Uzbekistan, where President Islam Karimov — famous for boiling opponents alive — has designated the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as terrorists, yet the Obama administration has sought special human rights waivers to continue supporting the regime.

In short, Washington policymakers buy in to the equation “regime opponent equals terrorist,” only to be surprised when suppressed dissent explodes. We need to understand that short-term accommodations with strongmen have long-term consequences, the Karzai family in Afghanistan being a case in point.

The Hydra’s Point of View

It’s worth noting that Heracles was unable to succeed alone; it took a helper who could cauterize the severed stump.

What might this mean in modern terms? Perhaps it means that while military force has its place in extreme contingencies, other resources are needed to turn the problem off at its source. Particularly when the underlying problem is corruption and lack of governmental accountability, a range of diplomatic, political, and development resources might be brought to bear.

Consider the story from the Hydra’s point of view. The myth does not explain what the Hydra was trying to accomplish; it might have been terror for its own sake, or control over the population for some other purpose. In any case, the Hydra had only one arrow in its quiver — to slash with its poisonous fangs. It had apparently not considered tools other than terror for controlling the local population — such as offering protection against competing monsters, or gaining the locals’ support by offering street repairs, trash collection, and better schools.

ISIS has styled itself a “state” and tried to recruit technocrats who can operate the administrative apparatus of a state, including trash collection, telecoms, and oil refineries. While this has not been as successful as advertised, the efforts suggest that this particular hydra is thinking outside the box about how to gain the adherence of a population. This in turn suggests that those seeking to oppose ISIS need to think about whether incumbent governments are satisfying their citizens, although services and benefits in the absence of accountability (as in Saudi Arabia) do not satisfy the population indefinitely.

It’s time to attend more carefully to what the Greeks sought to teach as we make decisions about Hydra-style outbreaks of violence in the Middle East and elsewhere. A proactive strategy — promoting governmental accountability to all citizens rather than supporting suppression and disenfranchisement and waiting for the inevitable violence to erupt — would likely result in dramatically fewer Hydra monsters to be dealt with.

Picturing Education on a Bell Curve

Kristin Y. Christman

Current controversy about standardized tests and the opt-out movement is fed by frustrated parents and teachers who feel tests are missing the point of education. But is frustration sky-high because it stems from something deeper? From decades of school requirements that miss the point of life?

For some children, the major problem isn’t testing, but the requirement to attend school full-time. The flack over testing is just the tip of an iceberg of fundamental questions about children’s rights, school’s place in society and the quality and meaning of our lives.

To thrive, children require sleep, shelter, nutrition, fresh air, nature, athletics, play, love, family, friends, stimulation, education, community, a sense of power and purpose, and freedom to pursue one’s passions.

No law intrusively mandates that children receive r amount of sleep, s of love, or t of play. But notice education requirements: Children must attend school u days per week, v hours per day, and learn w, x, and y by age z.

Unfortunately, if laws mandate the fulfillment of some children’s needs but not others, the mandated item tramples non-mandated items. The result: imbalance in life and education overload.

To be clear: Schools are not the enemy. Many schools have teachers and staff who can blow you away with their caring, empathy, intelligence and generosity. They put spark and inspiration in many children’s lives. And some kids prefer school to home. But education overload is reinforced by various mindsets throughout our culture, including the conviction that children, to be valuable, must spend most of their waking hours officially learning.

Our society is trained to complete, not question an assignment, leading to conformity to tunnel vision. When you’re a Department of Defense member, you don’t think: “Gee, we could prevent hostility if we non-violently resolved international problems.” No, you’re thinking: “Our job is to defend our country.”

Likewise, if you’re a Department of Education member, you don’t think, “Would children and schools benefit from more freedom and flexibility? Are schools

pointlessly oppressive? Do they grind families into the dust?”

Instead, you’re thinking, “Should children learn x, y, and z? Absolutely! To compete in a global economy against low-wage workers in U.S. companies abroad!” With good hearts but tunnel vision, department members focus solely on their mission.

But two problems arise. First, not all children want to be at school so long, and a democratic nation has to question the consequences of a structure imposed upon an entire society, without hearing the child’s voice, and without appreciating how variety in children’s personalities could benefit society if allowed to unfold.

Some kids love school the way it is, but for others, school ruins life by making them feel like automatons or hamsters on wheels. They crave to play outside, desperately wish to pursue interests independently, are exhausted from homework, can learn better with more time at home, are biologically sensitive to school smells and vibrations, or need nature, animals and family.

At worst, their spirits are enraged, caged, or crushed; they feel powerless or useless, cut off from an inner compass and drive, and cynical about a nation, Land of the Free.

For some, home schooling is an answer. But why should these children have to be isolated from schoolchildren? Is there no middle way?

The second problem is that learning, like fire without oxygen, can suffocate without freedom.

Einstein criticized society for robbing children of their voluntary passion to learn while pushing learning as a required responsibility. After all, he explained, even “a healthy beast of prey” could abhor eating if it were whipped “to force the beast to devour continuously.”

I’m sure Native Americans found it ridiculous when their children were kidnapped and forced into U.S. schools. Isn’t it likely our culture contains individuals whose spirits also require greater freedom? And who might contribute better to society if given that freedom?

How many would prefer four-day school weeks with small class sizes and the fifth day optional, or five-day school weeks with reduced hours and remaining hours optional?

Imagine: Children could go home to play with friends and family, pursue hobbies, finish homework, pursue outdoor adventures, or help others. Other children could stay at school, receive after-school supervision, participate in tutoring, extra classes, clubs, or intramural sports with staff.

Would happiness, enthusiasm, purpose, love, peace, intelligence, good health and future success increase or decrease?

Picture education on a bell curve: The horizontal X axis shows quantity of schooling; the vertical Y axis represents net benefits to society. On the left side of the curve, society is providing some education, benefits are rising, and children eagerly walk miles to school.

At the bell’s peak, school is operating at its maximum potential to benefit society.

But moving right, you get to education overload with excessive hours, unyielding structure, and life imbalanced. Benefits slide down the right side of the bell, until we plunge through the X axis into anxiety, depression, and apathy.

Where are we on that bell curve?