Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
W.B. Yeats - The Second Coming
It was disheartening to watch President Obama announcing his second escalation of the war in Afghanistan this past Tuesday night. I so wanted to see greatness from this president, and in my mind that would mean having the courage to stand against the Military Industrial Complex and do the right thing for America and Afghanistan – lead us to peace and leave them in it.
And no, I was not surprised. I know he always said he was in favor of this war. I suppose at some level I did hope that he was doing the politically expedient thing and acting like a militaristic bully without really meaning it (and yes I know, silly me). We all know how much Americans like someone who talks tough. I had hoped that when push came to shove that he’d prove better than that.
It always sort of amazes me that people can think of war strictly in terms of its political implications. As if the ugly reality of war can be subordinate to the politics of it. Apparently there is nothing worse in the political realm than being seen as soft on defense, the innocent babies that will be burned alive to avoid such a taint notwithstanding. My God, what would the republicans think if we stood firmly for peace? The conventional wisdom is that we cannot politically afford to spare the victims of our mindless military machine. People just won’t support us if we go all soft.
I say have the courage and moral fiber to do the right thing and then defend yourself for having done the right thing.
I think there is something bad wrong with us when we allow our politics to drive us into doing evil – and make no mistake – waging war when you don’t have to is evil.
To wage war is to admit that we are too mean and/or stupid to avoid it.
Do the right thing and then defend yourself for having done the right thing. What I would give for a leader like that...of course he or she would probably be shot down like a dog.
At the end of the disaster we call the Vietnam War, me and many of my peers believed it would be a long time before we would ever be stupid enough to repeat those mistakes. As it turns out, it wasn’t nearly long enough. It seems people forget history all too quickly. The concept of war itself had been thoroughly discredited but over time the neocons and the MIC types managed to rehabilitate it. By 2001 (if not sooner) we had forgotten enough of the lessons of Vietnam to once again think of war as not always such a bad thing. And that dear friends is a pity beyond measure.
The only lessons learned from Vietnam were not to have a draft and don't show the dead arriving home on the national news.
That is all.
Recent comment from RenderQT
Yeah, yeah, I know I know – Afghanistan is not Vietnam...but invading and occupying a wild and rugged land while bullying its people with force of arms into exchanging their ancient way of life for our new one is not really all that different. Occupying armies are just not that popular whatever the country or culture. Slaughtering innocent people while propping up a corrupt government didn’t work in Vietnam and it won’t work in Afghanistan. People just don’t seem to appreciate that kind of help. Go figure.
In the image above, note the key in the lower left and consider what the terrain must be like. No simple graphic can convey the harsh reality of the Afghan countryside. The mountains and valleys are so dauntingly steep as to be virtually impossible for an invading army to occupy, suppress or stabilize. This unforgiving landscape is populated by tough, fractious tribal people who have been warriors going back countless generations. They are not and will never be easily subdued. When all facts are considered one can only conclude that there is a damned good reason that this land has for so long been known as the graveyard of empires.
As much as I hoped for great leadership from Obama, my greatest fears about that have come to pass. He told some huge fucking whoppers Tuesday night. How do you look someone in the eye and say, "We do not seek to occupy other nations" when you are ordering 30,000 more of your troops into their country?
And what about this one?
Although a legitimate government was elected by the Afghan people, it has been hampered by corruption, the drug trade, an under-developed economy, and insufficient Security Forces.
A legitimate government was elected? How does a government fraudulently elected become legitimate? By American proclamation?
It is amusing, if remarkable, that there are still some players in Washington who try to maintain the fantasy that Afghan President Hamid Karzai governs with anything akin to legitimacy.
Karzai, an alleged oil industry fixer awarded control of his country by occupying powers, has always served with strings attached.
And the Afghan people have been quite aware of that fact.
(snip)
So he has, out of instinct and by necessity, relied on fraud to "win" the elections that have kept the Afghan president and his minions in power.
That was not much of a problem during the Bush-Cheney years. The men who assumed control of the United States after losing the 2000 popular vote by more than 500,000 and then shutting down the recount of votes in the contested state of Florida were not going to gripe about the mangling of democratic processes in distant Afghanistan.
But the fantasy is getting harder to maintain now that Bush has retired and Cheney has repositioned himself as the planet's primary defender of torture.
Afghanistan Election Fraud and the High Price of Empire
I still tend to think the fault is more in the system than in the man, but in practical terms the point is moot. Wherever the fault may lie, we are apparently stuck with a situation where war criminals run free, foxes guard the henhouse and warmongers direct our foreign policy. An honorable man, Don Siegelman, is on his way back to prison because no one will raise a finger to help him, and Bernie Madoff’s mistake was stealing from the rich. If he’d stolen from the poor he’d have a cabinet position. Congress is shoving a POS they call Health Insurance Reform down our hapless throats. And we can’t seem to stop ourselves from shamelessly pouring trillions of dollars into senseless wars while the American people go begging as they lose their jobs, homes, pensions and hope for the future.
Climate change legislation? Pfffft. Financial market reform? Pfffft. Health care reform? Pfffft. Change? Pfffft. Peace? Pfffft.
The sorry state of American politics has never been sorrier. So the answer of course is to send our Army halfway around the world at great expense to kill a bunch of innocent brown people - to no end that anyone can name. Brilliant.
Afghanistan War + More Troops = Catastrophe
I’m not going to address the arguments for this war any further - they are 100% government grade bullshit. You have a much greater chance of being struck by lightning than you do of ever being killed by a terrorist – not to mention that most of what we’ve done in the name of fighting terrorism has raised those chances (if only marginally). We need to quit letting fear-mongers stampede us into abandoning our good sense. We’re better than this – or so I would like to believe.
We have real problems to deal with and the plain and simple fact is that they are not of a military nature. We cannot afford these foolish and expensive distractions.
We should wind these senseless wars down ASAP, bring our service men and women home alive and apply our scarce resources where they have a chance of actually mattering.
I have one question for liberals, progressives or democrats who support this abomination in Afghanistan: Would you support the escalation or swallow the excuses for it if it were Bush asking you to?