The Civil War Is At Home

Francesco Hayez The Death of the Doge Marin Faliero 1867

Dr. D’s swift response to my essay yesterday, Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself. On the mechanisms by which empires fall. They’re always similar and familiar.

Dr. D: Wonderfully said. Since no one will report, here’s what happened to that airstrike. The one where we declare a victory and go home (or try to).

They targeted 10 sites, yet after the Pentagon said it was a perfect mission, they only reported on 4. Who were the other 6?

Duwali airbase – 4 missiles fired, 4 shot down
Dumayr airbase – 12 missiles fired, 12 shot down
Baley airbase – 18 missiles fired, 18 shot down
Shayrat airbase – 12 missiles fired, 12 shot down
Marj Ruhayyil airbase – 18 missiles fired, 18 shot down
Damascus international airport – 4 missiles fired, 4 shot down

Sounds like an amazing ad for Russian military hardware and Russian alliances, and an amazing warning to warhawks in the Pentagon to check themselves.

And hold on: wouldn’t bombing a major chemical weapons manufacturing facility lead to a cloud of nerve and/or other gas killing every civilian within 20 miles? I.e. the entire capital city? Or did they know that there was nothing there already which is why they were confident it could not lead to an incident that would be recorded as the worst chemical attack of all time? You know, chemically attacking 1.7 million Syrians to save 10 Syrians from chemical attacks?

Yet this illegal, reckless, and (intentionally?) futile attack is NOT ENOUGH for CNN, MSNBC and their ilk. Denouncing Trump for bombing Syria, they also denounced him for NOT bombing Syria. Adequately. Or fully mobilizing the entire U.S. military for a ground invasion.

Or whatever, as weasel-faced chicken hawks, they wouldn’t openly say what they wanted, only that Trump openly bombing a nation outside the U.N. without a declaration of war as they themselves demanded, was pointless and weak. Which is why they also wanted it, in side-by-side front page articles? Or like Veruca Salt they want a pony AND an oompa loompa?

This IS weak, and like the late Soviet Union, it IS divided, no one IS in charge, clearly, as we see: the FBI, Justice, Pentagon, CIA, all make it a point of honor to openly, proudly disobey direct orders from their boss, and with him their real employer, the American people who elected him. And which they worked tirelessly to election tamper and deny and/or remove him.

And that’s perfectly okay with everybody. Is that normal for everyone in a business, a platoon, to directly countermand all direct orders? It is these days, and not just with Trump. Once you throw off the Logos, every man does what is right in his own eyes, they are not restrained by petty law and custom, by order and precedent, for they will be as the most high.

This is as true down at Taco Bell as in Federal Court, in the Justice Department, true in police departments, schools, hospitals, and even public lavatories. Order, rules, are whatever some official wants them to be during the 5 minutes they meet you. An hour later, the rules, your punishment, even their description of reality itself is all different. Railroad one guy: it’s legal, commendable! Railroad the next guy? It’s draconian, the death penalty.

Look at someone wrong? Have an opinion? Lose your life, liberty, property, reputation and career. A Celebrity? Poor dear: no matter how many felonies, how many killed, or how often wrong, it never matters. Not just saying that, the number of police acquitted for killing unarmed citizens exceeds Parkland by leagues. And this licence is given not just to judges and investigators but by the people themselves.

We have an Emperor Nero or early Robespierre government. There is no logic in them. No Logos. When you expel Logos actively, joyfully, you get the anti-Logos: pure random chaos, disorder, violence, and death. No one can work with anyone, trust anyone, restrain anyone, work together, or plan. You get the Reign of Terror and the purges of the Lion’s Mouths under the Council of Ten.

This was well engineered to bring down the U.S. in a repeat of the Russian Revolution of 1918, and it’s going relatively well. When the people themselves have no order, it’s hard enough to hold the people. But when the government doesn’t either, and fights itself while lying, there’s less hope than ever.

Because while government can be reformed, it takes generations of work to re-instill the Logos, rules, law, customs, order, consequences, back into the people. Sometimes it seems nothing can purge them of these delusions of theft and power but fire.

But one way or the other, we’re in it now. The Civil War is at home. Syria is just an example of our domestic war. Remember the L.A. Times reporting the CIA-imbedded resistance openly shooting the Pentagon-imbedded Kurds? Two agencies killing each other with bullets? That went on every day before and since, politically, socially, economically, and now militarily.

The airstrike in Syria — real or fake — is that war. A war of order and law vs unrestrained will-to-power. And that battle of Logos and anti-Logos is worldwide.