As Iraq descends into Hell

As Iraq hurtles into the abyss, a smoking remnant of its former self, the fog actually clears away;  whoever it was that “created” Iraq(and Syria) had no clue about “ historical culture”, i.e. the really, really  bad dislike the Shia and Sunni’s have for each other.    Apparently “an Arab isn’t an Arab”.  It’s as clear as the blood in the sand that Iraq may someday face partition, if anything, just to stop the bloodshed.

And that will pretty much sum up anything I will probably ever say of the Middle East in this blog again. 

But it will not keep me from yet again bringing up what every and anyone that’s ever been to China should know, and thanks to the above, be reminded of: 

If China were to have one tenth the chaos of the Mideast, many, many people would die.  Economically speaking, global stock markets would all be crashing.   There’s a good reason China is so stringent about foreign currency flows:  it’s called capital flight.   (No, it hasn’t stopped the connected from somehow getting their money out.)

If China was to implode like Iraq(or Syria) who knows how much chaos that place would have?

Could you imagine a China awash in guns?   In a country that has no concept of constructive criticism,  or even simple mature debate, where people have a habit of harboring grudges for decades, in a society that has little if any respect for rules, half the population would kill one another in an instant.

Despite the innumerable failings of the CCP, and the very much “above the law” mentality of its officials, at the end of the day….I don’t give a shit.

Putting up with China’s “failings” is a price I’m willing to pay as long as the country never implodes.  When it comes to China and human rights?  I take the long view.  The very long view. 

Once again, from Libya, to Syria, (here we go again), Iraq….to the probably future implosion of Afghanistan, History has taught us nothing if not that populations(as opposed to nations) with no history of democracy have the power of their own ruthless leaders’ over them decapitated at one’s own risk.

Maybe in 50 years the chaos of the above territories will really be a footnote on a page somewhere.  But not today, and not tomorrow.

I don’t wish to ever see the USA liberate another tyrannical government again.  Fuck it.  Let them eat cake.    

Democracy?  Freedom?  Human Rights?   

To quote that great American Thinker, Chris Rock,

"Slow down".

Do we cringe our faces in disgust when we see the things China does and gets away with?  Of course.  But when you work with countries that have very unappetizing ways of doing things, it is truly working with the devil.  And only the Devil can control his own Demons.

Jimmy Carter once berated Deng Xiaoping about his unwillingness to allow his people to emigrate to other countries, to which Deng replied, “if I opened the doors,  5 million would come here tomorrow”. 

China really, really casts a shadow over Western ideals of democracy and self determination.   After all, no Man has the right to limit another Man’s ability to speak his mind….right?    Only God can limit a Man’s ability to speak freely.  Or write what he wishes to say…or assemble to protest whatever is on his mind.

But Thomas Paine never visited China, and John Locke never met a Chinese.  All their books should have in parentheses after each title …(“China Excluded”).

But what of India?  

(Ahhh….India!   India and China deserve their own post, and that is coming up very soon.)

Only Hobbes got China right in Leviathan, when he wrote in favor of a strong leadership, or else life would be “nasty, brutish and short”.   That describes China with Democracy in a nutshell.

When we talk of our “distaste” of how China does things….nodding our disapproval at a distance of how China “gets away” with blatant violations of international decency, be careful of what we wish.   China still doesn’t have many friends, and it won’t be winning any popularity contests anytime soon, but the government doesn’t line people up against a wall and shoot them either. 

Nor does it have lawless gangs of AK-47 wielding Shanghainese patrolling Nanjing Lu looking to gun down Cantonese.

(Yes, China is nearly all HAN, but that’s not the point.  Regionalism in China is alive and well.  )

Yes, the air is bad, and we probably don’t want to know where our meat came from, and I always wonder what’s really in my yogurt.   But at the end of the day these are small inconveniences one can muster through if it means I can wake up the next day with a still “intact” China.