p22 The New Praetorians

Justice at the Tip of our Tongue; Yet Another Plea for Peace; The Praetorian Blackwater Guards

By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 28, 3 Ayyam-i-Ha, 164 BE

When Abdu'l-Baha left for America there was a war going on not unlike the situation in Iraq today. Instead of America attacking Iraq, it was Italy that broke international laws by attacking a sovereign nation, in this case Turkey. This military conflict was a precursor to the huge conflagration now known as the First World War. Like present-day America, the Italians soon found that they had bitten off more than they could chew and soon were bogged down in a bloody, pointless and seemingly endless quagmire. Unlike today, though, the West unitedly sided with the aggressor in the war in Tripoly, not because Italy was in the right but because it was a white European power. Italy was "us" and Turkey was "them."

On at least one occasion Abdu'l-Baha and His entourage were refused hotel accommodation, not for the racial reasons one might expect from Jim Crow America, but because their foreign-looking dress was mistaken for Turkish native costume. The fever of war had spread hysteria even to the shores of America. It was ironic that these Persian Baha'is, the greatest victims of Turkish tyranny (the worst of the Armenian genocide was yet to come), were discriminated against because they were mistaken for Turks! I just noticed that Abdu'l-Baha did not mince words about who was to blame for this war. He said,

"Consider what is taking place in Tripoli owing to Italy's disregard for law..." (Mahmud's Diary, 95)

If you break the law you lose, even if no normative punishment is in the offing. Crime does not pay. The whole world is the loser, no matter if you are Europe's weakest power (Italy) or the world's greatest superpower (the United States). It is axiomatic: neither criminality nor war could happen if we all recognized what it means to be human and renounced the territorial instincts of the beast. Abdu'l-Baha held that,

"The most important of all intentions is to spread the love of God, to establish harmony and oneness among the people. This is what distinguishes man from animals." (Mahmud's Diary, 17)

A specter of artificially generated fear persuaded Americans that attacking Iraq was somehow in their defensive interest. The media went on endlessly afterwards about how it was all a lie, how the people had been swindled by -- somebody counted -- over two thousand mentions by White House officials of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

I had to bite my tongue.

I got the most insightful war commentary of all just by strolling down the isles of our local public library. There, for all to see was a book by Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld or some other member of Bush II's unelected "cabinet" at the time called, "Why we should invade Iraq." It had been written in the early 1990's out of frustration with the first Bush's stopping at the Iraq border after the first Gulf War. As soon as that author entered his high unelected position alarm bells should have been going off.

"Hmm, a guy who wrote a book called `Why we should invade Iraq' is now in a leadership position. I wonder, what are the chances that we might someday, I don't know, invade Iraq?"

I tell you, there has not been such a surprise in political circles since Stalin was caught with his pants down by the author of Mein Kampf, a detailed plan to gain "breathing space" by an attack on Russia. Yet you still see the press stewing about the lies to the American people that allowed this war to get the get go.

No, I think the root of it all is fear. Fear dominated American life long before 9-11. Fear is the natural, unavoidable result of the over-concentration of wealth. As Baha'u'llah puts it in the opening paragraph of His Will and Testament, the Kitab-i-Ahd,

"By God! In earthly riches fear is hidden and peril is concealed. Consider ye and call to mind that which the All-Merciful hath revealed in the Qur'an: 'Woe betide every slanderer and defamer, him that layeth up riches and counteth them.' [Qur'an 104:1-2] Fleeting are the riches of the world; all that perisheth and changeth is not, and hath never been, worthy of attention, except to a recognized measure." (Tablets, 219)

Hoarding, yes, that is the financial side. As the Greek saying put it, steel always trumps gold -- that is, if you have arms you can take all the wealth in the world away from its owners. Which is why over-concentration of funds leads to inherent instability. The richer you get the more you have to spend on arms and armies to defend the hoard. And now that the wealthy insiders who own Haliburton and the new mercenary forces are ensconced in Iraq, what are the chances that there will ever be a smooth pullout? These people have invested their fortunes in continuing conflict, and as Jesus said, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword."

But the Qu'ran quote in the Ahd mentions another factor: slander and defamation. These involve lying, don't they? I think they do. But they also involve the reverse of what Abdu'l-Baha says above distinguishes us from animals, the habit of spreading love, harmony and oneness.

If there were no gossip, backbiting or defamation, and if we used that time and energy to do the "most important intention," spreading the love of God, there could be no war, regional or otherwise. How could there be? The only way to fool people in a democracy into the mass murder that is war is by lies and cycles of lies. Thousands and thousands of lies, and not only by higher ups but by you and me. A commitment to peace demands a far deeper bond of love than the conscious mind can fathom. It demands an open, concentrated campaign to assert our humanity by transcending beastliness.

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(later, after my daily table tennis practice session) As you can see from the above, I am heavily influenced by what I listen to as I practice ping pong. Baha’is are not supposed to breathe a word of politics, but I have been forced to listen to a PBS podcast on American politics over the past few days, and it is hard not to respond. Normally I avoid the American media because its obsessive navel gazing brings down an iron curtain on political discussion; anything that happened before Jefferson or any matter that rests outside direct American interests is blocked out completely and might as well not exist. When that happens my oxygen supply is cut off and I soon begin to suffocate. I am a citizen of the world and I long for a world media, concerned with the interests of the entire human race.

The reason I am settling for second choice was that I was happily listening to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire when I reached a part that did not download. Then my cursed iMac failed permanently to connect to our network, or the Internet, so I have been delayed in downloading the rest of Gibbon’s audio-book from Audible.

Anyway, my forced choice of entertainment makes me understand why fear is so predominant south of the border. Today’s podcast is about Blackwater and the rampant privatization of military and other functions that various branches of government used to perform. I was listening to that rather frightening story of the end of the nation-state when suddenly it reminded me of something. What was it? Oh yes, the fifth chapter of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, the part starting “The Public Sale of the Empire to Didius Julianus by the Praetorian Guards.” Believe it or not, exactly the same thing happened as the peak of the Roman Empire. The tyrant had to have some muscle to protect his person, so he hired these picked troops, paid them far more than ordinary Roman soldiers and installed them right next to his palace. Gradually, their power increased, and they well knew it. Finally the Emperor answered to them; not to the people or the senate or the laws, but to his hired guns, or spears, or whatever.

According to Gibbon, the “Praetorian bands (and their) … licentious fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire.” Their story is amazing, they dominated everything, and the richest and most powerful in Rome had to obey their slightest whim, since, as I quoted above, iron trumps gold. As you read your daily newspaper keep an eye out for a repeat performance in Washington. It got so bad in Rome that after the guards had assassinated one emperor for not paying them enough out of public funds, they actually auctioned off the position of emperor to the highest bidder. Corruption and money politics indeed is already getting so bad (here in Canada too) that I am sure there will come a point when a free and open auction of the presidency will seem like an improvement to many over what passes for democracy.

I found it interesting that the investigative reporter who was writing a book about Blackwater happened to be in New Orleans during the flooding and heard the name mentioned by a cop. He asked the officer where he could find them, and he said they were everywhere, just follow your nose. He ran across both Blackwater and Israeli mercenaries guarding the possessions of the rich. Once that happens in Washington, when you can find a Blackwater guard by following your nose there, watch out. What I call “gun-to-my-head democracy” will transform into a “gun-to-my-head auction. Gibbon says it far better than I ever could:

“Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Praetorian guards as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the Praetorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and best established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which, since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim, on the accession of every new emperor.” (Decline, p. 57)