I’ve been reading Deepak Chopra’s book, Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine, in which he talks about the body’s capacity for healing itself. It’s interesting how what he says about healing cancer rings true for healing nations.
Chopra describes cancer cells as engaging in “wild, antisocial behavior” which overwhelms vital organs, crowds out normal cells, and causes not only the death of the body they attack but their own death as well. According to Chopra, they are “doomed by their ungoverned appetite for self-expansion.” (p. 42)
This sounds to me a lot like what happens when countries like the U.S. interfere in countries like Iraq based on a desire for oil, cloaked in the claim of a desire for democracy. In the military’s efforts to rout the forces of Saddam Hussein‘s supporters, they kill innocent families in the process. Moreover, we are bankrupting ourselves in the process.
Chopra goes on to explain that when oncologists use anti-cancer drugs, they are essentially resorting to a “[crude] assault, a form of poisoning [which is] toxic to the entire body.” And, in some cases, while killing off some cancer cells, the process also destroys the patient’s natural immune system, leaving her more susceptible to other forms of cancer. In addition, in some cases, the treatment may merely destroy the weaker cancer cells “leaving the fittest to survive” and in the process “actually promote a more virulent disease than it cured.” (pp.42-43)
Similarly, our unilateral intervention in Iraq may have made some headway but in the process, we have destroyed parts of Iraq’s infrastructure and, by resorting to violence against innocent people, we have not only strengthened Al-Quaeda in other countries, but created enemies out of the very people who claimed to be “saving.”
Just as Chopra recommends supporting the body’s inner intelligence to heal itself, we need to find ways to support democracy that are in alignment with the needs and desires of the citizens of nations we purport to want to help heal.
As Chopra says:
“The vital issue is not how to win the war but how to keep peace in the first place.” (248)
……”Just as Chopra recommends supporting the body’s inner intelligence to heal itself, we need to find ways to support democracy that are in alignment with the needs and desires of the citizens of nations we purport to want to help heal.”
Have you been to a foreign country where its people have no conception of a better life; even in their dreams? Do we play “follow the leader” or do we take a proactive approach? Do we allow millions of people in the Congo to die because our so-called allies are against supporting these oppressed people? Difficult questions for sure, but if we created more enemies, then the world we live in isn’t worth very much, nor are those who question our motives.
Chopra is forgetting that before needs and desires, there must be basic physiological needs such as safety. Without that, there is nothing. A mother needs to feel that she and her children are safe before she can think about anything else. It’s a little superficial to just say, ” …..find ways to support democracy that are in alignment with the needs and desires of the citizens of nations we purport to want to help heal.” Does Chopra really think that the millions killed in the Congo really worried about US intervention without proper representation? Hardly!
Don’t criticize without offering solutions.
DJ,
It sounds like we may be talking about different things. I am talking about the way the U.S. went into Iraq on a cowboy-like mission – completely unilaterally – and based on falsified evidence of weapons of mass destruction and claims that Saddam Hussein was working in alliance with Al-Quaeda.
We never found weapons of mass destruction nor did we find links between Hussein and Al-Quaeda. Instead of working with other nations and/or helping forces within Iraq, we jumped in in a way that led to a large number of civilian deaths leaving many Iraqis to see us as the enemy rather than the liberator we claimed to be.