So one of the talking heads who calls himself a general said today that "maybe, if things go really well, there's a vague possibility that we may be able to say that there seems to be signs of progress in Afghanistan sometime toward the end of the year".
Wow! I mean BIG WOW! this is the longest running war we've ever had, and maybe, perhaps, with a whole Lotta luck, there is a slight possibility that we're actually going to get something for our trillion plus dollars, that is if Halliburton, BP, and all the other companies that are enriching themselves at our expense and at the expense of the Afghanis decide that maybe the trough is starting to get a little empty and look for some other way to bilk the public.
Angry? You think I'm angry? What I'm asking is, why aren't you angry? Why aren't you furious? do you really think that there is a lack of money to pay for our infrastructure, our healthcare, our education, and everything else we need to prosper as a nation just because it mysteriously disappeared?
Think again.
Yeah, I'm upset. In fact I'm really angry. Warren Buffett said that we would have done better to drop pallet-loads of money on Afghanistan, and I tend to agree. It would've been a lot cheaper, and if we then dropped catalogs filled with American goods for the Afghanis to buy we could maybe have breathed new life into American industry as well.
If we had done that, if we had spent even half of what we spend on that stupid war on positive, peaceful action, Afghanistan would be our 51st state, the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be on the run, and we would have gotten off a lot cheaper. As it is, the only ones profiting are the companies in the military-industrial complex, the usual suspects.
Oh, please. Don't blame Obama, it's not his war. He's not running it, he's not making the decisions, he couldn't stop it if he wanted to. At $400 a gallon for gas delivered to the front lines, it's just too profitable for Halliburton, BP, and all the other companies that "make America great". Those very companies that are absolutely recession proof, whose stocks just keep going up, who pay off the politicians handsomely for involving us in a war based on lies.
Yes, this is a rant. There's so many positive things that are possible for this country and for the world, that I'm really angry that so much energy is being wasted on a war that can't be won, will not be won, and that it was clear couldn't be won from the beginning. The only winners are those same companies that are making incredibly high piles of money for themselves and for the tame politicians who support them.
And the losers? The Afghani people for one, the United States for another, and mainly you and me. And until we're really angry enough to do something about this, to really take action, this is going to continue.
I sometimes think that it would be great to be like God; to just wave my hand and every tank in the world turns to raspberry Jell-O, every motor on every aircraft carrier turns into banana cream pie, every nuclear warhead turns into dog shit, and people have to go back to fighting with sticks and rocks.
At least they're free.