{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Strange bedfellows do roaring business as conflicts are kept alive and well - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
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Strange bedfellows do roaring business as conflicts are kept alive and well - Comment
The law of unintended consequences is, of course, not to be found in any statute books, but is nonetheless always effective.
It operates on the premise that what we do today with a specific intent may produce tomorrow what we did not intend and sometimes have disastrous effects on us and our interests.
It is happening all the time, and yet all the time we do not seem to get it. One of the most celebrated cases involved a certain gentleman by the name of Osama Bin Laden, who set himself the task of taking on the Soviet when they invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
The Americans were naturally interested in helping anyone who would stand up to the Soviets, not because Uncle Sam was that keen on democracy, but because anyone giving the Big Bear a bloodied nose was good.
For some Yanks, it was even some kind of sport. A Texan cowboy in Congress, Charlie Wilson, took to flying into the dusty hills accompanied by bikini-clad sex bombs he called his secretaries to deliver military assistance to the mujahedeen.
The latter, though wide-eyed and mouthing a few curses on the devil, did not mind the exposed fleshpots as long as they brought in guns and bullets as well. How could the Yanks have predicted that their actions in those ragged and dusty hills would lead to 9/11?
One could go back into history. When the Seven Sisters, with the help of Kermit (not the frog) Roosevelt plotted in 1953 the coup that removed premier Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran and reinstated the Shah who was in exile, could they have foreseen the rise to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979? Hardly.
Africans shipped abroad as slaves
What about those African slaves who were shipped to the Americas, and who came back as Cubans to fight on the side of the MPLA in Angola in 1975, and who speeded up the independence of Namibia and the end of apartheid in South Africa? What crystal ball could have foretold that?
Maybe one could have guessed that the toppling of Saddam Hussein would enhance Iran's hand in Iraq, and maybe that would have made George W less enthusiastic about removing that thug, but who says this other Texan cowboy wasted time on thinking?
But after the removal of Saddam and the rise to power of the Shia sect in Iraq, wouldn't one have thought that Teheran would urge the Iraqi government, over which it had unprecedented power, to be more inclusive and not to goad the disenchanted Sunni minority into rebellion?
Well, rebellion came, and it came in the most brutal fashion, even by the standards of that zone. Now, in the strangest of beds we find the strangest of bedfellows: Americans working hand-in glove with Iranians, Syrians and Iraqis to halt the advance of Islamic State. Who could have predicted that?
In all this, what is unchanging is that the West, and especially the US, will not leave the Middle East alone for a number of reasons, chief among which is the oil.
The Americans will do everything possible, including toppling governments and fomenting conflict, just to secure this crucial interest.
And whatever the unpredictability of the law of unintended consequences, we can be sure that the American military machine will have work to do and money to make.
It was US President Dwight Eisenhower — not some communist — who first used the term military-industrial complex to describe what he saw as the buddy-buddy relationship between the American government and its defence industry.
As long as there is conflict somewhere in the world, American defence industries will keep rolling. As long as those conflicts are in zones where vital American interests are "threatened."
American boots will be put to the ground. Congressmen live on pork barrels and pork is delivered by the military industries in congressional districts, where the lads and lasses are employed who deliver the vote when it's voting time.
Now, that's predictable, and the consequences are intended. Keep stoking the fires of conflict and the industries will keep running.
Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: ulimwengu@jenerali.com
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