Memorial Day - How Many More?
They aren’t the wrong ones. They are not the gun, they are the bullet. Decisions made in elegant, wood paneled rooms, around gleaming tables by men it clean suits send them off to a land of death and horror. They quickly learn. To survive, they become something else. Something hard, and twisted. They learn to lay the front sight on center mass, and squeeze three times. And to move on. Fuckit. Don’t mean nothing. They learn to hold a wounded comrade’s hand, to tell the bloody mess it’s gonna be alright as the corpsman slams him with morphine and blood expander with tears streaming down his muddy cheeks. They learn to shake off the fear after a battle, to load their mags, bum a cigarette and find a quiet place to talk. “Did you see that shit?”
They learn again, when they get home. No one gets it. No one understands. They can’t. They weren’t there. They don’t have blood that will never wash off. They don’t carry scars - the easy ones, the ones in flesh and bone, and the harder, more deadly variety, deep inside. So the young men, broken, changed, wondering why the world looks like a grainy, black and white cartoon, try to find their way in this world, this world that isn’t, that cannot be real. Where decisions have no consequences, and a new car is important, and life is taken for granted.
They do not want your sympathy. They do not want a hand out. They want you to TRY, just please fucking TRY to understand what has happened to them. To give them a chance. To have patience when they seem to be pulled in other directions. To remember they didn’t choose this path, and that ultimately, they went there and did these things and saw these things for YOU. They just want to know that what they did was right, and that someday, somehow, things will be right again for them.
Don’t forget ‘em. Ever…
Cross posted for my friends at Sadly, No!
Osama the Clown er, Posse
An odd thought about Islamic terrorism post 9/11.
It's very well possible that the al Quaeda terrorists are victims of their own long-sought success. I mean, what if they now use a truck bomb to blow up the county courthouse in Tuscaloosa. Kill 340 people. The American population is gonna get pissed, but not rocked back on their heels.
Hell, Osama, this is America!! Y'know? You have to go Boffo every time. We don't have time for losers! You knocked down not one but TWO of the best-known, tallest buildings in the world. Killed THOUSANDS!! Your next attack oughta at least
approach that, don'tcha think?
So now you're fucked. The only thing left to you to make people say "WOW" is, like, Nuking the SuperBowl (tm) . You've set the bar too high and now you are faced with a stark choice. Look like an irrelevant fool, or spend years, maybe
decades, trying to outdo 9/11. Give it up dood, get a tattoo, drink some vodka, kill yourself. 'Cause you don't have any good path...
mikey
Be Afraid...Please?
Somebody needs to point out to Messers. Bush, Cheney and Rove that the well is dry. The post 9/11 hysteria has, for most of us, ended. We can now look at the possibility of terrorist attacks with a sense of cold detachment, and realize a couple things. First, and most importantly, we can understand that, while we very well might be attacked again, there is no way these attacks, no matter how severe, can change our way of life. They will not "defeat" or "destroy" America, and there is simply no way for them to impose the Shari'a or the Burka on the US. Many more people will die on America's highways every year, and this will not cause us to drive less, or slower, or more sober. Second, we're beginning to sense that our response to previous terrorist attacks has been all wrong. You cannot deal with the threat of a small group of well funded terrorists with military might. You will always end up attacking the wrong thing, and hurting innocents. This behavior will simply continue to enrage the people we attack, and they will want to attack us some more. Keep feeding the cycle, and it never ends.
One of the fascinating little signs that this administration has disingenuously exploited fear of terror is their utter unwillingness to allow discussion about the root causes of terror. They cannot allow the dialog to get past "they hate us for our freedoms", because to do so would require an examination of our own behavior, and would lead to actual solutions as opposed to permanent war.
Bush has continually exploited 9/11 and stoked fears of a relentless, implacable enemy to keep the American people from questioning too closely his militaristic, authoritarian corporatist ideology. He has hidden behind fear of "the terrorists" while he stripped away basic liberties and constitutional guarantees, from searches without warrants to habeas corpus itself. It was telling that even as he and Cheney ramped up the hysteria and fear mongering in November, the American people refused to be cowed, once again like sheep, and voted into power as much opposition as was available to them in a midterm election. So have they learned? Has Karl Rove had to come up with another solution to bamboozle the people into supporting the most incompetent, corrupt and dangerous administration in American history?
Nope. It appears that screaming "fire" in a crowded theater is all they have. Just yesterday the President was giving the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. In that speech he repeatedly tried to create fear in the population once again, clearly longing for the "good old days" when a few well placed veiled threats could earn him a pass on another egregious assault on everything America stands for. His message?
al-Quaeda is coming to America to Kill your loved ones!!! Collectively, the people yawned.
It's interesting when you think about it. Terrorists do not have the manpower or the combat power to actually have an effect on America and our way of life. They can kill some people, make us sad, and angry. But the best they can hope for is that by instilling terror in the American population, the people will take steps that begin to break down our way of life. It is the irrational levels of terror in the population
as a result of the attacks that, if everything works out the way THEY want it to, will cause America to self destruct from the inside.
When you recognize bin Laden's goal in the 9/11 attacks, you discover that his most effective ally, from the very moment those planes hit those buildings, has been George W. Bush. He has wrapped himself in fear, and spread fear from coast to coast. Fear has been the watchword of the administration, and fear has been the only source of real power for a mindless frat boy in way over his head. And now that the American people are beginning to realize that they don't need to fear, that indeed, there is very little to truly fear beyond the lies and desperate propaganda of a failed President, he looks like little more than a cartoon, shouting hyperbole in all directions, demonstrating for all the ultimate dishonesty in his message of fear...
Victory in Iraq
Iraq is not a war. Iraq is an occupation. A war can be won, an occupation cannot. When the 28 percenters talk about "victory", you'll notice they are never specific about who exactly we're going to defeat in order to win this great victory. Iraq is in chaos, and the American troops are just another armed faction.
Defeat the insurgency? They are primarily Sunni Iraqis who do not want their country occupied by a foreign army. You'd have to kill off over 20% of the Iraqi population to "defeat" them, and then you will have radicalized so many more it would be an endless task.
Defeat "al Quaeda"? These are the non-Iraqi jihadis who come to fight the American Imperialist occupiers. There aren't that many of them, but there is an endless pool to draw from. They will never be "defeated" either. But if Iraq wasn't occupied, they'd have significantly less reason to go there to fight.
Now, all of that said, I could end the insurgency in 90 days. You don't think so? Of course I could. Occupations of conquered lands have been successful for millennia. They used to know how to do it. The solution? It's called "Collective Punishment". If a roadside bomb kills a couple of your soldiers in a given town, you immediately go into that town, round up a hundred men, women and children completely at random, take them to the center of town, and shoot them. You do this a couple times, word gets around. Sure, the populace still hates you, but your well being is intimately tied to theirs. It comes to be in their best interest that you are not injured. They don't even want to see you with the sniffles. You have effectively co-opted the insurgency. If they can't convince some young hothead to put down his weapons, they will turn him in. The alternative is too costly.
What's that you say? Well yes, actually, this is specifically a war crime. It is a horrible, barbaric behavior, and if anybody can't recognize my satirical voice, I'm certainly not recommending it. But it is the ONLY proven method for controlling an insurgency in an occupied country. If you aren't willing to do it (if so, good for you), you can't end the insurgency so you might as well start planning your withdrawal.
I Guess it's Got To be Edwards
Obviously, I was never going to be able to support Hillary Clinton. It's amusing to me that she gets tarred with the "Liberal" tag, as the pundits on the right try to cast her as "out of the mainstream". That's just a joke. Ms. Clinton is a militaristic corporatist plutocrat, with very damn little daylight between her and the
Bushies. Can anyone truly believe that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be one marked by an outbreak of peace and justice? It sure doesn't look to me that she would take a single step back from the same discredited policies of the thugs in the current administration. Oh, sure, domestically she'd likely be a (small) improvement, but on foreign policy, where America's biggest challenges exist, she seems hopelessly wedded to military solutions.
All of which led me to
Barack Obama. Young, brilliant, charismatic, he seemed to exude a kind of Kennedy-like energy that inspired hope. Hope that he would change the dialog, drive positive change and undo some of the worst of the Bush/Cheney transgressions against America and her Constitution. I was quite ready to support the
Obama candidacy.
Then came this:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told Haaretz in an exclusive interview that the current level of pressure on Iran over its nuclear program is "is not enough."
"Iran continues to be a major threat to the U.S. and its allies," said the Illinois senator.
Obama reiterated his position that the U.S. should engage Iran in direct talks,
but explained that these should be "low level talks" until there's "some sense of progress" such as voluntary freezing on the enrichment of uranium.
Obama expressed a "sense of urgency" in dealing with the matter.
I'm sorry, he said WHAT now? How is it that America, WAY over here on the other side of the globe, you know, that country with the Trillion Dollar "defense" budget, how can we realistically claim that Iran is any kind of a "threat" at all? That's beyond silly, it's certifiably insane. And it's really very simple. To whatever extent they do represent a threat, the best way to defuse that threat would be to develop friendly relations with them. They know if they actually targeted ted the US or Israel they would pay a truly terrible price, so logically the only reason they would ever consider an attack is if they felt threatened on an existential level. Which is what America's saber rattling rhetoric is bringing about.
Obama is supposed to be smart enough to recognize a counterproductive course of action when he sees one, and he's supposed to be independent and courageous enough not to pander to American fears in the same way the Bush administration has pandered over this entire decade.
Honestly, this path towards authoritarian militarism has a bad outcome in store. It's not a sustainable model for a 21st century democracy, and it already can be seen systematically destroying everything America has ever meant or tried to be. We have major needs at home, and just pouring a trillion dollars into the ability to make more wars is a tragic waste of resources. Interestingly, while America founders on the shoals of multiple
unwinable conflicts, the other powers, the EU, China and India are educating their populations, growing their economies, accumulating billions in hard currency through trade and forming mutually beneficial alliances with other nations, alliances based on economic development rather than military confrontation.
I'm not certain that John Edwards doesn't have these same militaristic tendencies. He seems to be an economic populist, and somebody who will pay attention to American domestic needs. I'll look into his platform and positions further before I make a decision, but with Clinton and
Obama disqualified and Gore and Clark not running, he seems to be the default choice.
Don't get me wrong. If the Democratic presidential nominee is Hillary Clinton or
Barack Obama I will work tirelessly to help get them elected, because another four years of bloodthirsty madness will certainly destroy this country. McCain or Giuliani would be truly disastrous for America. But somehow, I hope we can do better...
Somebody Needs to be Committed
So how did everyone, all of us collectively, bloggers and journalists alike, miss this? It's the answer. The whole, honest answer. Not to the "why", of course, but to the "what will happen" question. The whole "exit strategy" thing.
I like General Petraeus. I like his clear-eyed honesty, the zen-warrior calm that seems to envelop him, the understanding that it is not 1945 and the world has not only changed, but continues to change.
So a week or so ago, testifying before congress, when he told us everything we needed to know to understand the end game, it was widely reported. But oddly, I never saw anybody comment, even in passing, on the ramifications of the statement.
Here's what he said:"It is an endeavor that clearly is going to require enormous commitment and commitment over time," he said, adding that he didn't want to predict how many troops might be involved or when.
Now you simply have to ask yourself. Can you truly see the American People making "an enormous commitment over time"? Even the Republicans are saying that they will begin to reassess their blind, unquestioning support of the disastrous Iraq occupation after September. Four months does not an enormous commitment make.
This is why there should have been a great deal of discussion about this information. It is a glaring example of the massive disconnect between the Administration's desire to stay in Iraq permanently and the American people's unwillingness to waste any more blood or treasure in a futile, meaningless exercise. Once Gen. Petraeus made this statement, the only question that remained is "what then do you need, General, to execute a safe, methodical with drawl and redeployment of American Combat troops from Iraq.
Because if the only way to get to the end is a Massive Commitment over Time, and the Americans are unwilling to support a Massive Commitment over Time, then it becomes obvious that America will begin withdrawing forces soon, perhaps within months. So that means that EVERY life lost is, even more than those that have preceded it, a life wasted...
They aren’t the wrong ones. They are not the gun, they are the bullet. Decisions made in elegant, wood paneled rooms, around gleaming tables by men it clean suits send them off to a land of death and horror. They quickly learn. To survive, they become something else. Something hard, and twisted. They learn to lay the front sight on center mass, and squeeze three times. And to move on. Fuckit. Don’t mean nothing. They learn to hold a wounded comrade’s hand, to tell the bloody mess it’s gonna be alright as the corpsman slams him with morphine and blood expander with tears streaming down his muddy cheeks. They learn to shake off the fear after a battle, to load their mags, bum a cigarette and find a quiet place to talk. “Did you see that shit?”
