The Daily Grasshopper

I'm writing this in what used to be my grandmother's dining room in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. These days, the room is cluttered with newspapers, unpaid bills, and empty coffee cups - the detritus of the Daily Grasshopper's evolution from a once-a-day essay I'd send to family and friends to what I fear it has now become - a full-time job. But for decades, this room was where my father's mother would gather us for family get-togethers, proudly serving us turkey and ham and potatoes from her fine china and quietly enjoying the company of her children and grandchildren. She came from Ireland as a young girl and raised a family and made a home here in America. I believe she is the source of just about every decent instinct I have.

Brighton is still an Irish neighborhood, at least the part of Oak Square that I'm living in. And I don't mean Irish-American, though there are still plenty of them, too. I mean people from Ireland. The local convenience store has an aisle full of products from Ireland, and the racks are full of newspapers from the "Ould Sod." Each morning, as I pick up my newspapers, I'm surrounded by young men, most wearing workmen's clothes, speaking in brogues as they buy their morning tea or coffee. "How's the crack?" I overheard one say to another this morning, using the Irish saying for "having a good time." Turning to the rack of papers, I saw the "Irish Echo," and its front page headline "War and Peace." There was a smaller headline about the trial of three IRA members in Colombia, a case I've been following. I decided to pay the $1.50 for the Irish weekly.

I'm glad I did. For a while now, I've been making the case that the war this country is about to start in the Middle East is not about "liberating the Iraqi people" or "eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction" or "salvaging the credibility of the United Nations" or even "fighting the War on Terror." This war is about who controls the world's second largest known petroleum reserves. It is a war of empire. I don't know how many people I've managed to convince of this, but I will gladly sit down with anyone to debate the facts.

And I'm not alone. I want to share with you some of an editorial that runs in the Irish Echo this week. When I sent out my message a while back about how proud I was to be Irish, after Sinn Fein and the Irish Green Party had taken a strong stand against U.S. planes at Shannon, I got an e-mail from a reader thanking me, saying, "you guys were the original anti-imperialists." I recently had a long conversation with an old friend (second generation Irish-American) about the failure of the Irish in America to speak out against the kinds of abuses our ancestors had endured for so long. We've been allowed to move up the economic ladder here in the U.S. - but this progress has exacted its price. Reveling in our new-found privilege, many of us closed our eyes to the crimes of the empire, an empire whose seat has shifted across the Atlantic and, in my opinion, is now our own. Here's part of the editorial, by Terry Golway:

"Irish Americans bear witness to the failures and pitfalls of one of the world's most-successful empires. The folk memories of the Irish are, or ought to be, filled with a thousand and one reasons why America ought to think twice before embracing the notion of empire.

Enthusiasts for the new American empire are among the loudest voices advocating war with Iraq, which sends a troublesome message to the rest of the world. Some of the political talk shows these days feature imperious commentators yammering on and on about what kind of friendly government America will 'install' in Iraq, which sounds downright imperialistic and not in keeping with America's past advocacy of self-determination."

The title of the editorial is "Imperial impulse incompatible with republican institutions." If you want to read the entire thing, you can probably find it here later today (they haven't updated the website yet):

http://www.irishecho.com/

I'm puzzled by Irish-Americans who look at Tony Blair's relentless cheerleading for this war and fail to see it for what it truly is. Even the British people have turned their back on this crusade, but Blair and his followers seem determined to wage one last epic battle before the sun finally sets on the British Empire. Since the end of World War II, Britain has resigned itself to a role as "junior partner" to the U.S. But we are without question the heirs to their global project, and nowhere is that more clear than in the region where we are amassing troops.

Ever since Winston Churchill, in stocking feet, redrew the map of the Middle East on a tablecloth at the Cairo Conference of 1921, a ruler in one hand and a tumbler of Scotch in the other, the U.S. and Britain have worked tirelessly to maintain control over the region. The historical record is full of incidents where U.S. and British officials have conspired behind the scenes to protect "our interests" in the region. The threat of international communism was often invoked as a pretext to such intervention. Rarely was it done with much justification. More often, our intelligence agencies, or occasionally, our armed forces, worked to head off attempts by nationalist forces in the Arab world to take control of the region's resources - the oil.

And so it goes. The papers today are reporting that U.S. and British warplanes fired on a "mobile ground-to-ground missile launcher" yesterday. This is a "major change in targeting for allied sorties," according to the article in today's Boston Globe. U.S./U.K. sorties have been patrolling the "no-fly" zones since the end of the first Gulf War, but have only been firing on surface-to-air missiles. Here's part of the report:

"Previously, planes patrolling the zones had mainly targeted elements of the Iraqi air defense network such as anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, radar sites, or communications facilities that help integrate the parts of the system. Occasionally, the planes have attacked anti-ship missiles, but the targeting of missiles meant to strike land targets was new, according to military officials and other specialists.

US Central Command, which monitors the southern no-fly zone, said the strike was prompted by Iraq's moving the mobile launcher below the 32d Parallel, which, a command spokesman said, was in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that ''prohibits the Iraqis from introducing military enhancements in southern Iraq.''

A Pentagon official identified the weapon destroyed as a truck-borne Ababil-100 surface-to-surface missile launcher and said it has a range of approximately 110 miles.

The strike comes as US forces have continued to flow into the region and the overall tempo of strikes has risen, according to military analysts.

"It's certainly interesting that now that everything has fallen into place that's what they've started to strike," said Francois Boo, an associate analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank in Virginia."

Yes, Mr. Boo. It certainly is "interesting."

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/043/nation/Airstrike_reflects_shift_in_targets+.shtml

So, it looks like the empire, worried about getting reined in by world opinion and frantic about the possibility of peace breaking out any day, is trying to instigate a shooting war by provoking a "hot" incident - one that will further inflame the citizenry, and make moot any concerns about international law. It's so transparent it almost makes you want to laugh. But then you realize what the consequences will be.

And one more thing about the "no-fly" zones. They weren't part of the disarmament deal. They were imposed unilaterally by - guess who? - the United States and Britain after the war. They're illegal, at least according to international law.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/flyindex.htm

The Irish Echo reports that a group of Irish people will be marching in New York on Saturday. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to be part of the protest. Until today, I was operating on the assumption that I'd be marching with my fellow Green Party members. I've changed my mind. I'm going to 52nd Street and Second, to join John McDonagh and the rest:

"We are encouraging veterans to wear a part of their uniform," he continued. McDonagh is a veteran also, having served in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany from 1973-75.

"Our banner will read, 'We will serve neither Bush nor Mobil,'" McDonagh added, "after the 1916 banner that said we will serve niether King nor Kaiser."

McDonagh said he expected "maybe 50 to 100 people" under that banner.

Well, John, you can add one more to that estimate. And, technically speaking, that would be ExxonMobil, as the years of de-regulation have spurred so much "competition" that we're now seeing "cartelization" and monopolies unlike anything Rockefeller could have dreamed of. But resistance to a world dominated by the likes of ExxonMobil is growing. And many Irish are again playing the role that their ancestors played - and that our history demands of us: facing down the empire.