L'état est la police et l'armée

''These war invalids are getting to be a positive plague''
--George Grosz, 1920

The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize
the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration
may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice,
is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant
--Edward Gibbon

Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death
--Otto von Bismarck

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Charlie Rose recently hosted three young Iraqi journalists on his late night PBS program. All were eloquent, well-educated, and of course, expatriates, discussing the usual problems. But one comment struck me in particular:

''The Iraqi Army and Police are the country.''

So Iraq seems to be on track with the Prussian state and later Nazi Germany, both of which could be defined as being Army and police states. In fact, it is safe to say the State existed only for the benefit and welfare of the Army and police.

Priorities used to be otherwise in the People's Democratic Republic of America, before it's soul was eviscerated by the military, police and corporate interests. In the good old days, when Nazism, fascism and imperialism were the enemies. Now we embrace this militarism of the state with gusto and blind patriotism. Thank you Benito; thank you, Generalissimo Alberto Gonzales.

A brief tour of American history--my version, not Rush's--reveals the earliest colonial complaints vs. George III regarded illegal search and seizure and the quartering of British troops in colonial homes. We did not like either.

And what is the basis of the new Surge strategy in Iraq? Yep--extensive search and seizure and billeting of troops in indigenous neighborhoods. If the colonists repudiated this with a revolution, then why should we expect any less from our hosts? It was wrong in 1775, and it is still wrong.

The U.S. Army was formed on June 14, 1776 by a Congressional proclamation. This means our government was formed, and the military was an outgrowth of that fact.

Our military was formed to fight external threats to our fledgling government. The Army existed as an expression of the political will of the elected Congress to separate from the governance of Great Britain.

What is U.S. policy in Iraq? Dissolve the government and Army following a preemptive invasion, then immediately form a new Army and police even before a political will or consensus emerged. Once again, the military and police become the basis of a nation, a nation rooted in Islamic law and tradition.

This we call islamofascism, and the U.S. is the generative force behind it.