Dec 24 marks the 3000 day of the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan. It is also the 30th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of that war-ravaged country.

For the record, here are the top-ten reasons to reverse President Obama’s plans for a troop surge in Afghanistan.

10. We can’t afford it.

The US government is massively in debt, the USA is in hock to the Chinese, the budget has a huge deficit, and tax revenues are down because the economy is in the toilet. Waging the war in currently Afghanistan costs US taxpayers about $1000 every second, or $86.4 million per day. And that’s before the surge.

At a time when the US is trying to rise out of an economic recession, fund healthcare initiatives, it seems jaw-droppingly foolhardy to burden the economy with the war in Afghanistan. The war could even bankrupt the US.

9. Most Afghans do not want us there.

Most ordinary Afghans dislike the Taliban, but they like foreign forces even less. The only ones who say they want the US and NATO to stay are those in the Karzai puppet regime or who work for US and NATO forces.

The largest ethnic group in Afghanistan is the Pashtun people — 42% of the population. The Taliban are mainly Pashtun. The name “Taliban” means “students” in Pashto, the Pashtun language. A noteworthy Pashtun proverb is: “Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; the three of us against the world.” This credo reveals a lot about the Pashtun culture, and thus about the Taliban. If others are absent, they fight each other. If others are present, they fight the “other”.

We are the “other” in Afghanistan. Only some actively fight against us, but almost all resent our presence. Afghanistan is not France. We will never be seen as liberators in Afghanistan. Those who fight us will continue to do so until we leave, and then they will go back to fighting each other. It is the Pashtun way.

8. No clear “success” goal has been defined.

The Bush administration originally said its goal was to kill or capture the Al Qaeda leaders who masterminded the September 11 2001 attacks on the US, particularly Osama bin Ladin. When bin Laden and other key Al Qaeda operatives escaped at Tora Bora, the official goal was changed to deposing Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, on the grounds that the Taliban had harbored Al Qaeda. Bush declared victory after the Taliban were removed from power and a western-leaning puppet regime was installed in its place. But the Taliban weren’t actually destroyed; they just faded into the population, bided their time, and now are attempting a comeback. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

But Bush is history. What about the Obama administration? What is their goal in Afghanistan?

Obama said during his presidential campaign that he intended to refocus US efforts towards bringing justice to those who actually attacked the US on September 11 2001. That would be Al Qaeda’s leadership. Obama repeated this theme during a recent interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes”. He said that when the bulk of the American public supported invading Afghanistan in 2001, “they signed up to go after Al Qaeda.” True.

However, now the Obama administration now says its goal is to “stabilize” Afghanistan. The American people did not “sign up for that” and are not on board with that plan.

But even ignoring American’s lack of support for stabilizing Afghanistan, what does “stabilizing” mean? What would count as a “stable” Afghanistan? The country has never had any stability, ever. It has never even really been a country in the western sense of the word. No Afghan central government, whether installed by the English, the Russions, the Taliban, or the US, has ever had any control over more than a few limited areas of the country — mainly the region around Kabul. Most of Afghanistan is a collection of independent medieval fiefdoms. Even the national borders are purely an invention of the west, ignored by the Pashtun people who move freely between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For example, consider the Obama administration’s plan to train tens of thousands more Afghan police and troops. They are supposed to help bring stability and order to their country. Think about that for a moment: arming people who tend to fight against each other when there is no outsider (such as ourselves) to fight against. What’s to stop those we have armed and trained from pulling a military coup? What’s to stop some of them from joining with their Pashtun borthers in Pakistan to attack the Pakistani government? What’s to stop various warlords and clans from organizing their own militias and start fighting each other? Arming large numbers of Afghans is not a formula for stability. As Afghan American journalist Mizgon Zahir points out, it is a formula for chaos and civil war.

If a stable Afghanistan is our goal, then we will be there forever, because Afghanistan never has been and never will be stable.

7. No clear “failure” criteria have been defined.

Under what circumstances would we decide to cut our losses and leave Afghanistan? We don’t know. I am afraid the Obama administration does not know.

How bad must things get — how many US troop deaths, how many Afghan civilian casualties, how much money spent, how many Afghan government corruption scandals, how much economic pain here in the US — before the US command would say “OK, enough is enough. This isn’t working.”

No such point has been specified, so we are caught like a bug about to get washed down a drain, unable to recognize the point of no return. The situation in Afghanistan could get worse — much worse — and during the downward slide there would be no pre-defined trigger-point at which the Obama administration would assess the situation as hopeless and withdraw. After every setback in the campaign to “stabilize” Afghanistan, the official assessment will be “OK, now things can’t get any worse.” And the situation will continue to get worse.

Afghanistan really is Vietnam all over again.

6. History indicates that the campaign is doomed.

No previous attempt by outside forces to subdue the Afghan people has ever succeeded. Both the English and the Russians tried. Despite having superior firepower and greater troop numbers, both were driven out. The Russians predicted they would be more successful than the British were. They were wrong. Their failed attempt to subdue Afghanistan is cited as an important factor in the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union. Now the US believes it will be more successful than the Russians were. Why? Upon what is that assumption based? No clear explanation has been offered.

One could argue that the Russians lost partly because an another strong military power — the US — was supporting the Afghans in fighting against them. Yes, but the same is true now. Many of the Taliban are the same insurgents the US trained and armed to fight the Soviets. Those insurgents have not forgotten what our CIA taught them and they still have some of the weapons we gave them. So part of the Taliban’s support came from the US. Current support comes from the narcotics trade, not to mention from Sunni Islamic nations and organizations that would love to see the US bankrupt itself waging a futile war in Afghanistan.

5. Our troops will cause more Afghan civilian casualties.

During the Bush administration, US troops going after insurgents caused thousands of Afghan civilian casualties. Officially these were accidents because “US and NATO troops do not target civilians”, but they were really negligence based on rules of engagement that placed little or no value on Afghan civilian lives, especially compared against American military lives.

The rules of engagement were supposedly changed in 2009 to decrease the number of Afghan civilians killed or injured by errant US/NATO military actions, especially airstrikes. Nonetheless, civilian casualties due to mis-identification and negligence of US troops have continued to occur at a disturbing rate. Even after Obama replaced the general in charge of the Afganistan war, civilian deaths continued.

Even one more Afghan civilian death is too many.

4. We already have more troops there than are needed for the original mission.

The US currently has about 70,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Supplementing those are about 50,000 thousand troops from NATO countries, 75,000 contractors, and 100,000 Afghan troops.

Thus, almost 300,000 troops are fighting against roughly 10,000 Taliban while hunting for about 100 Al Queda insurgents.

Adding 30000 more combat troops will not change the balance significantly. As defense analyst John Arquilla points out, “war is not a numbers game”.

The real problem is that the US and its NATO partners are focusing on a military strategy, when the Soviet experience already showed that that strategy won’t work in Afghanistan. Our own nation’s experience shows us the same thing. The US supposedly already defeated the Taliban in 2001, when we knocked them from power. But in Afghanistan, defeated enemies don’t stay defeated. They just fade away, join your side, get training and weapons, bide their time, and come back with a vengeance.

Furthermore, the military mission has expanded far beyond the original one: capturing the Al Qaeda leaders who organized the 9/11/2001 attacks on the US. For that mission, we don’t need even the number of combat troops we currently have in Afghanistan, and we certainly don’t need to add another 30,000.

3. The troop buildup strategy is exactly backwards.

Military officials have said that they want US forces in Afghanistan to consist of more combat soldiers — “more trigger pullers” — and fewer support personnel.

That is completely backwards from what is needed. Sending more “trigger pullers” will only make things worse: more troop losses, more Afghan casualties, more angry and vengeful Afghans, and more support for the Taliban. Sending more combat troops also blows mind-boggling sums of US taxpayers’ money on what is purely an expense, in no way an investment.

Instead of more “trigger pullers”, what is needed are more well-diggers — more builders of houses, roads, bridges, clinics, and schools. Some military troops would be needed to protect the infrastructure workers, and some Special Operations forces may be needed to continue the hunt for bin Laden and his cohorts. But we don’t need anything like the number of combat troops currently planned for deployment in Afghanistan.

2. It abdicates policymaking to the military.

The US military command called for a sharp surge in the number of combat troops in Afghanistan. Some defense analyists (Ellsberg, Dreyfus) have suggested that Obama faced a “revolt” of senior military commanders if he did not agree to a troop surge.

However, it is not the President’s job to do what the military wants. It is the military’s job to do what the American people want, expressed through the President (as Commander-in-Chief) and the Congress (based on their constitutional authority to declare war). Strategic goals and policy, including military goals and policy, are supposed to be decided by civilians, leaving the military only the task of fleshing out the details of the strategy and the tactics needed to execute the strategy to achieve the goals.

In acquiescing to the demands of military commanders, Obama has apparently abdicated his constitutionally-mandated policymaking authority as Commander-in-Chief to them. Is the US headed for a military government?

1. It is immoral.

The Afghan people have been pummeled by large external superpowers for at least three decades. The landscape is full of land-mines and other unexploded bombs. Their water, power, and sewage infrastructure — previously negligible — is now virtually non-existent. Their essentially medieval, feudal society cannot progress, because as soon as anything of value is built, it is destroyed by war. Ignoring the few so-called “leaders” who enrich themselves by skimming foreign aid for their own benefit, most Afghans are impoverished beyond what Americans can comprehend.

Continuing to drop bombs and missiles on these people is beyond immoral — it is perverse.

Instead of keeping these impoverished people in a state of continuous war, we should give them a chance to dig out of the Middle Ages. If we want to help them, we could do that by getting the United Nations — not the United States — to fund infrastructure-building projects. As Greg Mortenson’s experience shows, Afghans, rather than outsiders, should be heavily involved in the planning and construction, creating a sense of ownership and protectiveness.

Merry Christmas, Ramadon, Hannukah, or Solstice, and let’s all hope for a better 2010 — Peace Pundit

I and others recently wrote Senator Barbara Boxer (D CA) to express our opposition to President Obama’s proposal to add 30,000 more combat troops to the U.S. forces already deployed there.

The brief and to-the-point reply she sent indicates that she too opposes a troop surge:

December 11, 2009

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

David Finkel's harrowing book The Gold Soldiers makes for gripping reading.

The war in Iraq is well into its seventh year.

While President George W. Bush famously arrived on an aircraft carrier with the words, “Mission Accomplished” blaring on a banner behind, in reality the coalition’s time in Iraq had just begun.

Washington Post editor David Finkel spent the better part of a year with a division of Rangers in Iraq during the period in 2007 to 2008- a time in which Bush ordered a surge of thousands of additional troops to Iraq to defeat the counterinsurgency.

The Good Soldiers is the book Finkel wrote after these experiences, and it’s a searing one that should be required reading for those who maintain that war has no costs.

Ralph Kauzlarich, who was born a week later than me, is the book’s central commander.  A lieutenant colonel who learns some Arabic phrases to help interact with the locals and connect during his regular radio appearance, Kauzlarich is a career soldier whose philosophy at the book’s opening can be expressed in three words: “It’s all good.”

That philosophy is sorely tested in the weeks and months that follow.

Man after man, a dozen in total, are killed throughout the course of the time that Finkel spends with the unit.  Some, like Duncan Crookston, die after excruciating suffering and months of attempted rehabilitation in the United States.

Kauzlarich comes to be called “The Lost Kauz” and compared to Bush, who cannot see what the men do.

Bush’s words hover like a ghost throughout the book.  Finkel opens each chapter with a quote from the former president.

Some of the excerpts come from prepared speeches, while others more vernacular and representative of his character. “We’re kicking ass,” Bush says at one point, for example.

But, through their skillful placement as epigraphs, and thus their distance from the writing that follows, the quotes all illustrate the vast gaps between Bush’s comfortable callousness and the suffering the good soldiers undergo and inflict.

Finkel’s writing is spare and peppered with heartbreaking details, each of which illustrate the valor and character of the men and the undeniable toll of soldiers and Iraqis’ bodies and their humanity.

The soldiers’ families hurt, too.  Finkel devotes extensive space in the book to recounting the toils of wives and their children trying to carry on and preserve the illusion for the soldier that, to steal from Kauzlarich, all is good on the homefront. 
Some of the marriages endure excessive strain and end, while other couples struggle to bridge the gap of time and experience that has occurred during the second, third and sometimes fourth deployment.

In the end, the men return, but the war goes on.  President Obama has stated his determination to bring soldiers home from both Afghanistan, but only after another surge that is similar to that depicted by Finkel. 

In his recent Nobel Peace Prize address, Obama stated frankly that some of these soldiers will kill, while others will be killed.   This admission may earn him some points for honesty, but will likely do little to reduce the agony witnessed and described so expertly by Finkel.

By Critic Jasper Pennies

So I’ve heard a lot about Avatar so I knew I had to see it. My conservative friends warned me about seeing it because they saw elements of anti-Americanism throughout the movie. So I asked my more liberal friends, and they told me that this movie was made by a person who makes a lot of money and since money is evil, then a movie made by money wouldn’t be anything remotely anti-American. My liberal friends make a good point there.

So I went and saw the movie and, boy howdy, it started off with war clips of American soldiers eating Iraqi babies and it portrayed our American men and women in uniform as maniacal savages killing anything that moved. Then it showed a clip of George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier with his face covered in blood, his hands full of money, and the money had petroleum oil all over it. Then it zoomed in on his lips and he spoke the words, “Mission Accomplished.”

This was the movie poster for Avatar. It has the statue of liberty AND President Bush. Seems pretty American to me.

I have to say, I was a bit confused about this beginning part. Who was I supposed to hate more, the soldiers or aircraft carriers?

Anyway, then after all those war clips, everything turned CGI. If I understand the story line correctly, as humans encroach deeper into Pandorastan’s forests in order to obtain some valuable mineral, the Na’viban take threat and defend themselves. The Na’viban fly an airplane into the Greed Trade Center and all the greedy little Eichmanns die. When the Greed Trade Center is destroyed, money comes pouring out of it and the money falls into the hands of the proletariate. For two days, there is nothing but peace and rejoicing and poor Americans are using the money to buy simple things like food and clothing. Unfortunately, things change real quick.

All of a sudden, the President sues the poor for all the money they rightfully collected and this money is redistributed back to Wall Street. War is then declared on the Na’viban. Ironically, after the poor’s rightful money is seized, the poor are brainwashed into signing up to fight the poor Na’viban and seize their mineral supplies.

After all of this, the movie paused for a second and then an advertisement for Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States was shown. Quickly after that, another clip was shown of Hugo Chavez liberating the poor by bulldozing down rich people’s houses. And then in bright red letters it said “Audience: Feel Free To Laugh At The Misfortunes Of The Evil Capitalists”

Anyway, the rest of the movie involved this American guy named Jake who eventually befriended the Na’viban when he discovered just how peaceful they really were. Jake is convinced by Che, one of the Na’viban members, that the American Military Industrial Complex conquer and oppress poor people best through propaganda. At the end of the movie, Jake straps a hydrogen bomb to his back and nukes New York City, and the Na’viban celebrate.

The movie then ends with a clip of George W. Bush covered in blood and oil, holding up an Iraqi baby that he is about to throw off a cliff onto a giant mound of bloody Iraqi babies.

I have to say, this movie didn’t make any amount of sense but I am not really seeing the anti-Americanism in this movie.

I give this movie a rating of half-as-good-as-Capitalism: A Love Story.

Well, folks… that’s all she wrote. I’ve departed Baghdad, Iraq for the grassy knolls of the United States. However, it will still be some time before I step off a plane onto U.S. soil.

I had a friend of mine put together this Photoshop job replacing the image of President George W. Bush with mine.

In my last briefing to the commanding general of Task Force 134, we displayed it on the screen. It was quite a hit.

I wouldn’t dare say the mission in Iraq is “accomplished,” but I would say that it is well on its way to the end.

In fact, in the six months I’ve been in Iraq, we’ve accomplished quite a bit. These are just a few of the things we’ve done:

1. Withdrawn from the cities in accordance with the Security Agreement. The Iraqis are now responsible for maintaining security of their sovereign land.
2. Released more than 5,000 detainees from U.S. detention facilities to their homes.
3. Transferred more than 750 detainees to the Government of Iraq with an arrest warrant or detention order.
4. Closed Camp Bucca’s theater internment facility, which once held more than 21,000 detainees.
5. Transferred the Iraqi Correctional Officer training center to the Iraqi government (actually, this happens on Tuesday).
6. We’ve reduced our footprint from 135,000 troops in Iraq to roughly 110,000. That’s 25,000 servicemembers no longer in harm’s way.
7. Using diplomacy, we’ve helped the Iraqi government resolve some of its electoral issues, and they are now planning on having elections in early March.

These are just things that I know about in detail. I know we’ve also been shipping equipment out of Iraq back home and to Afghanistan in some cases. We’ve reduced the number of contractors in Iraq.

Moving ahead, the commands in Iraq will consolidate into a single force structure called United States Forces – Iraq, or USF-I. This will further enable the command to streamline its operations into one cohesive unit, which will make things way more efficient.

Just from my point of view, there are way too many public affairs offices in Iraq, and none of them know what the others are doing.

So, I think “Mission Accomplished” may be a bit too early for Iraq, but I think it’s just about right for me. Very light posting on the blog this week as I make my way home through the spottiest internet on Earth.

More to come…

UPDATE: This audio is for Nikki…

Documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald has just released a new video in which U.S. Afghanistan war veterans testify that sending 30,000 more U.S. military troops to Afghanistan (at a cost of about $1,000,000 per American soldier per year) to try to eliminate Al Qaeda and stabilize that country is not an effective use of American troops or taxpayers’ money.

Accompanying the video is a petition to President Obama to rethink his decision. Please consider signing it.

[View Greenwald video]

Related Peace Pundit Posts:

• Greenwald Documentary: “Rethink Afghanistan”
• A Documentary Critiquing the Iraq War: “Why We Fight”
• Outstanding Anti-War Film: “Lions for Lambs”
• Bacevich: Costs of US Consumerism & Imperialism

Le “sentinelle” milanesi: 1500 denunce al mese. Soprattutto stregoneria.

TV, disabili su un’isola, l’ultima frontiera. Guest Star: Steven Hawking, a cavallo di un siluro fotonico. Arrapatissimo.

Napolitano: “Violenza alle donne è un’emergenza.” Bertolaso: “Già pronti 100000 imene prefabbricati.”

Obama: “la finiremo con Al Qaeda.” Oddio, ma allora è qualcosa nella poltrona?

Cuffaro, chiesto il rinvio a giudizio. Si pensa a uno scudo per reati di mafia. A quando sconti sull’acido perclorico (HCIO4) per chiunque dimostri di voler sbarazzarsi di un bambino?

Perhaps he is a bit ahead of schedule, but it appears that Obama can declare victory in his crusade to reduce the value of the American dollar to toilet paper:

Demise of the Dollar

Doing the bidding of China

Botched Op

Communists admit their true agenda?

More Taxes to Come

Thanks Lord Obama

If President Hussein wants to be certain of the destruction of the dollar before moving on with the other phases of the plan he can wait until inflation hits.  All the borrowing and printing Obama is doing will insure that the dollar is destroyed.

The only thing I can think of that will cause me to believe that President Hussein is not destroying the dollar is if he shuts down the Department of Education and presents only balanced budgets to congress.   Every time the Marxist in Chief says what about George Bush’s unbalanced budgets I become more certain than ever that the destruction of the dollar was on purpose.

George Bush was an idiot!  Why are you following the lead of a moron!!!

So I am thinking the new name for the US should the the Union of  Green, Socialist and Marxist States.

090909

How to Lead a Secret Life

Exotic Vacations

Traveling Naked

Avoid a fat head

It is better to be drunk than wasted

How to Travel Naked

Beer Alert

A Constellation of Idiots

It is Better to be Drunk than Wasted

Texas Toast

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Runes and Moons

Zazzle!

Angelic Verses

DeviantArt

Rumors of Angels

LuLu

CafePress

Luck

Digital Art

Angel Sightings

Cyber Rainbows

Selling Rainbows

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I just sent off the exhibition betas to Seattle, Montreal, and Chicago! For some reason, the small tasks are the most tiring to me. Giving the film to someone else to transfer it to tape, giving the film to the postman. Phew! (It takes a really long time to write addresses, okay?)

Also I definitely recommend Finish Editorial here in Boston for transfers. They did it quickly, and even screened the finish product with me. It looks great, and it was mega-cheap. (Just make sure to buy your blank betas from Rule Camera, D&H, or Ebay  first. Finish charges $90 a tape, when you can get them for $10-$15 elsewhere. That’s my only gripe!)

I recently was told about a documentary film, released near the end of the Bush administration, that tries to understand the reasons why the US went to war in Iraq. Hint: Oil isn’t the whole story; there is a great deal of historical context.

The film interviews current and former military officers, defense analysts, politicians, and ordinary citizens about why we went to war against Iraq. It also include archival news footage from all around the world.

I can’t decide what is the best part of the film.

• It might be the historical footage of President Ike Eisenhower warning at the end of his Presidency about the perils of having government be guided by companies who profit from war.
• Or it might be the ongoing interview with the Vietnam-war vet who lost his son in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and, wanting to “kick the perpetrators’ butts”, strongly supported the Iraq war, but eventually became disillusioned with Bush when he realized that Iraq was not behind 9/11.
• Or it might be intercutting of interviews with the pilots of Stealth bombers proudly talking about their precision-guided bombs with statistics on how accurate those bombs really were (answer: not) and much “collateral damage” (i.e., civilian casualties) they caused (answer: much).
• Or it might be the reflections of former Pentagon analyst Karen K about her conversion from military strategist to anti-war activist.
• Or, finally, it might be the interviews with the neo-cons who believed then and still believe that global domination is and should be the goal.

The video is an hour and a half long, but it’s divided into short episodes so you can watch it as you have time.

Highly recommended:
Watch Film

Related Previous Peace Pundit Posts:

• More Evidence That the Iraq War Was Unnecessary
• Bacevich: Costs of US Consumerism & Imperialism
• Cost of Iraq War: Civilian Lives, Lost Goodwill, and High Debt
• New Greenwald Documentary: Rethink Afghanistan
• McClellan: Bush Mislead Public about Iraq War

To: gbush@yahoo.com

From: kelly@banners’r'us.com

Subject: Your order

Mr. Bush,

Your “Mission Accomplished” banner was finished earlier than expected.  Would you like us to go ahead and deliver it now?

Afghanistan, Napolitano: “La missione non cambia. Quei 1000 P.X. li Vo-gli-oo!”

Bari, preso Tarantini all’aereoporto. Tradito da campionario di moquette vaginale.

Sanaa, la madre: “Forse è lei che ha sbagliato. Leucemia infantile gran modo di andarsene.”

Unipol/Bnl: Consorte, Fiorani e Fazio, a.k.a. 176-617, 176-761, 176-176, a giudizio.

Pakistan, bomba fa strage al mercato, rincari.

Strage a Kabul, La Russa in Italia.

Yemen: Raid aereo, 80 morti incivili.

Al supermarket vino del Duce e Hitler. E soia Kikkoman con Tojo.

Former Bush Deux speechwriter Matt Latimer has written a book. In all fairness, I assume that the man wishes to sell the book, therefore, I am willing to allow for the possibility that he’s making this shit up. Possibility. Not likelihood. No way, no how. 

Having seen photos of Bush and his beady little eyes with his squeaky little wheels turning and having seen what we all saw those miserable eight years…I damn well believe that Latimer isn’t making it up. In fact, I’d be more shocked than if I’d awakened this morning with a flowy unicorn tail and fairy wings if these words weren’t just the tip of the iceberg. The eyes speak volumes. Bush’s read “tilt” 78% of the time. The other 22%: “get the bastards!”, “call Harry at Dicks-r-Us Pharmaceuticals and thank him for the contribution,” “ohhh, prettttty pony!” and “me want Fluffer Nutter.”

From CNN, quoting the book: “(Bush) came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. ‘This is a dangerous world,’ he said for no apparent reason, ‘and this cat (Obama) isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you,’” Latimer said.

Let me repeat that for emphasis. “This guy has no clue.” From George Walker Bush. The guy with fewer firing synapses than Travis-the-stoned-kid from Clueless…”two thumbs up. Fine holiday fun!”

Just for shits and giggles, let’s take just a partial look at the former Prez’s long list of oopsies…

1. The war. 4344 American servicepeople dead as of September 12 (figures here: http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/.) 100, 000 plus civilians dead in Iraq (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/) where Bin Laden never even was. And where he actually was, he still is. Probably having a good giggle.

2. “Mission Accomplished.”

3. Waterboarding.

4. Wiretapping.

5. “Hey, U.N.! GET BENT!”

(personal note: I just had to chew four Extra Strength Tums to even get these lines typed.)

6. Katrina. I know I don’t have to expound much on this rickety stormwhore, but let’s take a moment to recall those images of bodies floating through downtown New Orleans while the Prez finished up some well-deserved Happy Time on vacation. Meanwhile, Michael Brown…Bush appointee and fellow horse enthusiast…was “handling” things with all the grace and ability of a baboon.

7. Kyoto Protocol, or lack thereof. “Too expensive.” “Not effective.” Did you guys know I’m a mind reader on Wednesdays? Yep. What Bush was actually thinking was, “This shit would really, really piss off my logging/automaking/industrial-type buddies and I won’t get any more fruit baskets!” And the man needs fruit, apparently.

8. I know I already said the war, but that was from a casualty perspective. Let’s think about the money. Er…wait. There’s no fucking money of which to think. Bush enters office with a $127 billion surplus  and leaves with $455 billion deficit (figures: L.A. Times). Well played, sir.

And this isn’t even touching the fact that we were forced to look at the man attempting to speak for all those years…the fact that he wasn’t technically even elected first time…the fact that the only reason he was elected the second time was because the fat, pink, puckered asshole that is Karl Rove directed a brilliant campaign that scared grandmas, rednecks, homophobes, Fox’s entire viewing audience and the dangerously undiagnosed mentally ill into the voting booths in droves.

Yet it’s Obama who’s clueless.

Is it possible, you think, to OD on Extra Strength Tums?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/15/bush-on-obama-this-guy-has-no-clue/

Despite the largest deficit in history, trillions in unfunded liabilities, Social Security and Medicare on the verge of going broke, and trillions in additional spending on the horizon, the ever politically optimistic President Obama is claiming today that you have made a 17% return on the Government’s TARP investment.

That’s great news, show me the money.  Oh wait, just like my alleged payout from insurance lobbyists for protesting Obamacare, I have a feeling this is money I will never see.  Obama is like an evil trust fund manager, investing your money in the riskiest of businesses and then taking whatever profit might come of it and buying skate parks and honey bee insurance for Democrat congressional districts.

As a matter of fact, the $70 billion that has been paid back by the surviving banks is almost enough to cover the failed auto bailout which resulted in government ownership of GM and the sale of Chrysler to another country.  By the way, in case you were wondering if we will ever see any of that money back; profits from the Chrysler sale to Fiat went to the unions and GM can’t find their way out of the red even when Obama invests your money in Cash for Clunkers.

The key to Obama’s 17% return on investment figure is that he is only counting the banks that have survived and repayed TARP.  Other banks, like Citigroup, have not been allowed to repay TARP and now are owned by you and me through Obama’s investment scheme.  The mandatory Obama tax investment portfolio, starring Citigroup and GM, would make Bernie Madoff blush.

I’m glad Obama is an optimist.  Honestly, he is more optimistic about the government than Bush was about Iraq.  But as Obama sounds the call of “Mission Accomplished” on the economy, perhaps the only people cheering should be the ones occupying the hundreds of thousands of jobs Obama claims to have created.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to win, too. Not that I know exactly what to do, but we’re getting this all wrong. Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.

Heavy Sacrifice, Few Dividends

Reflecting on the state of current affairs and the 8th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it strikes me as utterly retarded that the world’s largest and best funded military is bogged down fighting a decentralized rag-tag faction – and doing a poor job at that. After all, this nation’s citizenry overwhelming supported these military efforts which we thought would be – and we indeed were sold on – brief conflicts that would transpire “decisively.”

Although we initially repelled the Afghan Taliban out of the majority of the state following the 2001 invasion with some degree of success, some estimates show that the Taliban either occupy or are a serious threat to up to 40% of Afghan soil today. Though the Afghan citizenry finds Taliban involvement in governance highly unappealing (they implemented the most brutal form of Shari’a law ever known to exist) – are (ironically) becoming increasing Talibanized. As civilians are killed (both inadvertently and purposefully so) the meager means through which any semblance of normal (however destitute) life can ensue are dwindling.

Their new democratic government, designed to be something of a shining city upon a hill is in serious threat of losing every remaining shred of legitimacy with an election scandal spiraling out of control, proven rampant corruption at the highest levels of government, and with laughable resources to accomplish their stated goals for development.

Central, however, to our plight in Afghanistan, the distraction of Iraq aside, is the fact that we’re an advanced democracy wherein politics has had a largely deleterious effect on effective war-waging. Second, the reality of the Afghan plight breeding this ad hoc insurgency – to borrow John Robb’s characterization – requires of us a far graver pass at nation-building than has ever been successfully undertaken or managed by the United States. Finally, the early West’s insistence upon Westphalian statehood has come back to haunt us.

Lethal Dosages of American Politics

As you read this, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen is rolling in reports of the seemingly endless number of ways this war is being lost. Territory loss. Swelling Taliban ranks. Casualty reports. Resource scarcity. Less than sympathetic local populations. Mean Afghan government rhetoric. Plummeting American support. An uneasy president who made a ton of promises who, aside from being the commander-in-chief is also politician-in-chief. The fate of political career, the democratic party, liberal ideals, etc rest on and are inextricably linked to successes and failures and perceptions thereof.

Sadly, within the existing system, none of these factors combined matter as much as the last 2 to Mike Mullen (Territory loss. Swelling Taliban ranks. Casualty reports. Resource scarcity. Less than sympathetic local populations. Mean Afghan government rhetoric. Plummeting American support. An uneasy president). These primarily exogenous factors are impacting the ways in which the war in central Asia, half a world away is being waged – just as history has shown us before.

To the extent that many analysts of American politics saw candidate Obama riding the wave of anti-war sentiment into victory before the economy took a crap, the current mismanagement of this war (if people ever think of anything outside of death panels) would cost the remainder of his balance of (already waning) political capital.

Mike Mullen, aware of this, (especially given recent poll numbers which show the overwhelming majority of Americans ready to get out of Afghanistan,) feels afraid of asking for more troops though the President has expressed an openness to another surge, if necessary.  This makes it look (as it really is) that our previous surge has had little to no effect on Afghanistan’s overall security environment. This reflects (or is perceived to) poorly on Adm. Mullen. Though be it an unspoken truth, given their interdependence, his job in this war is as political as the President’s.

All this is in spite of almost every analyst calling this a “doable” war, at least far moreso by leaps and bounds than Iraq which makes the given scenario seem even moreso a result of mismanagement than factors endogenous to the conflict itself.

Here’s what I see happening: we’re already pulling a play of out the Bush administration’s playbook and continually redefining victory, moving the mark increasingly closer to the abysmal status quo. Ultimately, then, we’ll declare however nominal a victory allowable for an exit stage left. Obama recently commented that our goal was to prevent al-Qaeda from carrying out any attacks based from Afghanistan. He recently said that  this would mean preventing Taliban re-empowerment. This, factor, however, will disappear  from  his speeches as we grow increasingly wary of our lack of success (because we ultimately will not send the threshold force to make any real gains). This has been scaled back dramatically from what was our initial stated intention to develop the Afghan state.

And if he did really mean prevent Taliban re-empowerment, does he mean indefinitely? I think not. Any president’s calculations are almost always limited to the short term (the length of their remaining time in office). Proof: the Bush administration could not have possible thought that the “gains” derived from segregation of Iraq that we simplistically attributed to “the surge” would prevent civil war in the long term. Remember “the surge is working/the surge worked?” As we’ve already begun to see on a relatively large scale, the new framework in Iraq is significant danger of effectively being subverted barely a couple weeks after the cessation of “combat operations”  by American forces without the express request of Iraqi government.

——————————————————————————

Iraqi Foreign Ministry, Post-America - 08/20

During the Abassid Empire, Baghdad was Madinat as-Salam, or City of Peace. The march of time as progress, indeed.

——————————————————————————

Insofar as al-Qaeda has no base of operation in Afghanistan, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! They all moved to Pakistan so now it’s someone else’s problem.

We won’t pay off the numbers of would-be defectors necessary and the Taliban leadership who exist in cozy ideological proximity to al Qaeda will not negotiate within a climate in which they are prevailing (which is this year’s weather report). If Obama pays off Taliban (“terrorists”) he will slip further into the abyss of being the vilified Muslim that (the bigoted cross-section of) conservative America painted him as during campaign season. Further, the Israel and Jewish lobbies which wield considerable clout in American politics may revoke their vote as they see this move strategically dangerous to their geopolitical situation in the Middle East and this presidency making our “special relationship” far less special through this action and other more important ones.

My Inner Critical Theorist Hates Me

I’d love to believe that problems like these have executable solutions. The basic tenet of critical theory in political science is that we study these things so that we can fix them. Realists believe it’s good to study these problems in themselves – and from their conclusions, perhaps someone will make an informed decision. Given the framework that I will neglect to define or  for which I will not provide parameters (suffice it to say self-interestedness, competition in an anarchic international system [one lacking an enforcing authority],  and democracy) – we have an abysmal track record of making significant headway in nation-building missions.

Part of the reason remains that our early attempts to effect foreign governments was pervaded by coercive means through which we used our intelligence agencies to subvert states. In the early 1950’s we overthrew Mossadeq (see: A Brief History of Hating America) in Iran and imposed the Shah. He was deposed by the 1973 Revolution. That worked well for us, right? In 1961, we attempted to out Castro in the Bay of Pig invasion. It drove him further to the left and solidified his popularity. Much good that did. Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. There aren’t a shortage of examples where our policies have yielded the reverse of the desired effect.

The modern paradigm seemed to manifest only recently. Though many point to the Marshall Plan, this is a weak likeness – riddled with incompatibilities to development scenarios in Africa, the Middle East, and the underdeveloped South as a whole.

Needless to say, 1.) we suck at it and 2.) aren’t serious about it – so it won’t happen. Given that, nothing short of it will transform Afghanistan to the necessary extent BUT it.

To recap:

If and only if:

we can develop an effective Afghan state

then:

we will win.

Since:

we won’t and cannot develop an effective Afghan state

then:

we will lose.

Even if we relax our definition of victory, these lack any substantive meaning (especially relative to the initially conceived goals of grandiose proportion) and therefore, by practical normative standards, we still lose – like in Iraq.

Even sending more troops won’t help because we STILL won’t send the necessary troops. It remains a tall order that Afghan troops can support a large enough security apparatus of their own. What it would take would total something like 3X Afghanistan’s GDP to fund a force to thwart the Taliban.

In this respect, defensive realists seem to hit the mark by holding that more often than not, it is in our interests to do little unless directly provoked. Saddam Hussein, however, evil – did a far superior job at creating a security environment and governable space within Iraq that we have – a further – within the scope of a War on Terrorism, in even the loosest of interpretations, America created al Qaeda in Iraq upon our arrival there. Even if he had WMD’s – which he did not – he was highly concerned with maintaining power in Iraq, and therefore, by all rational accounts, was a deterrable threat to American interests.

What Border?

If you were on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, like in most areas of the world’s border regions, you’d have no idea. Just ask every unsuspecting journalist captured by unfriendly states within the last twenty years.

We’ve been in Afghanistan far too close to a decade for having accomplished as little as we have in relation to our initially stated goals. Their state remains ranked among the poorest, most corrupt, least free in the world. Having driven our true enemies into another state in which we have no real war effort, minus drone attacks and suspicious allies in Pakistan’s military apparatus, government, and ISI, there’s no guarantee that the nearly $200 b tab or 750 American deaths (1300 or so, coalition) has made even the most nominal impact on our security situation here at home. Some intelligence estimates show us less safe.

The modern Westphalian state which the West imposed upon the rest, as if by some divine irony is preventing us from killing the people that we need to die. All the nuance contained by the world cannot make this more implicit – al Qaeda stands as an undeterrable foe.

Believe It Or Not…

All this could be much much worse.

On a side note, in what I believe would have been the outset of WWIII, former VP Dick Cheney has recently publicized that he advocated a military incursion into Iran but former President George Bush expressly denied him. This, if nothing else, is George Bush’s saving grace. Albeit we may at some point find it necessary to go to war with Iran (if they make some fatal calculation against Israel, for instance) though their state stands willing to talk to us now.

He told the Wall Street Journal

I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues… I thought that negotiations could not possibly succeed unless the Iranians really believed we were prepared to use military force.

How are these 2 ideas even reconcilable with one another? Thank your luck stars that Bush had sense enough to deny this bit of advice. Perhaps it was the Israel lobby? We’re preparing to hold talks without having waged another war. Choosing military inaction was better than risking more mismanagement for the same result we’ve apparently achieved.

What’s more, John McCain joked on the campaign trail that he would

Bomb Bomb Bomb – Bomb Bomb Iran.

Good job, America!

We couldn’t properly manage 2 – three would have been suicidal on a couple important levels (particularly the energy one). Granted, if the war proceeded as the “decisive victory” it was supposed to, who knows what would have happened?

Also, insofar as Iran stands as a foremost breeding ground for insurgent factions (I propose we’ve been waging, at least in part, several proxy wars), this would have been a game-changing mistake.  The tides of liberalism are already working in our favor there and we would have simply solidified the grasp of the revolutionary regime upon consummating this error.

We learned 2 days ago, for instance, that they have breakout nuclear capability and have stalled in completing the final steps to weaponize their uranium stores.

Now they want to talk. Clearly, given the burden of sanctions which has weakened their economic capacity – which in tern, effects life for the citizenry – which places pressure on reformist sentiment – I suspect that they’ve wanted to  hold negotiations all along. Their breakout capability simply gives them a strengthened place at the bargaining table by which they can hopefully return economic growth and re-solidify power, ensuring the short-term longevity of Islamic Revolution of 1973.

Light Reading:

U.S. to Accept Iran’s Proposal to Hold Face-to-Face Talks

Wave of Attacks Engulfs Afghanistan

Victims’ families tell their stories following Nato airstrike in Afghanistan

Afghanistan Election Fraud and the High Price of Empire

Today is the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Congress is also getting back to work after its summer recess. The healthcare issue has taken center stage, but the continuation of the Afghan war is also an issue, and on that issue, President Obama faces growing opposition from his own party. Today the number of U.S. troop casualties in Afghanistan hit 745.

Three articles published today describe the controversy:

Democratic support for Afghan war waning

By Lara Jakes (AP), Sept 11 2009

WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress urged the Obama administration Thursday to quickly produce a plan for winning the war in Afghanistan or risk widespread opposition within the president’s own party to a new troop buildup.

Simmering congressional frustration could lead to tighter scrutiny and more limited resources, even if Capitol Hill ultimately does approve sending more U.S. troops to the war-torn nation, aides said.

“I don’t think there’s a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking Democrat to signal that a push for more troops will get a skeptical look.
Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha, chair of the powerful House Appropriations panel that oversees military spending, described himself as “very nervous” about sending more troops to Afghanistan and cited limited funds to do so.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid urged Democrats to resist rushing to judgment. But he, too, said he wanted to see President Barack Obama’s plans for the military mission before adding more soldiers, pilots and Marines to the mix.

…

[Read Entire Article]

How Many Troops Should Be in Afghanistan?

By Nancy Cordes (CBS News), Sept 11 2009

Paying tribute to the victims of Sept. 11, President Obama urged Americans not to lose faith in the mission it sparked.

“Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and plot against us still,” Mr. Obama said.

But as Mr. Obama considers sending more troops to Afghanistan, his own party is balking. Friday, the Senate Armed Services Chair Carl Levin implored him not to order more deployments, but to focus instead on training the Afghan army and police, …

“We need a surge of Afghan security forces,” Levin said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a similar message to the president. “I don’t think there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress,” Pelosi said.

The misgivings in the President’s own party reflect a growing national pessimism amid record casualties there.

A recent CBS News poll found approval for the president’s handling of the war has sunk to 48 percent – down 8 points since April.

…

[Read Entire Article]

Lawmakers Brace for Fight Over U.S. Troop Surge for Afghanistan

By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Bloomberg, Sept 12 2009

Lawmakers are taking sides in a debate unfolding at the White House and on Capitol Hill over the wisdom and cost of deploying thousands more U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan.

Senator Carl Levin, the Armed Services Committee chairman, yesterday joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats in expressing opposition to sending more combat forces. He urged the Obama administration instead to focus on expanding Afghan security forces and persuading insurgents to abandon anti-government militias, as was done in Iraq.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, meanwhile, lined up with leading Republicans calling for a boost in U.S. forces akin to the 2007 troop surge that has been credited with improving security in Iraq. Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

…

[Read Entire Article]

After I read Sarah Palin’s Facebook page response to the President’s speech on health care reform, I had to walk away and count to ten-in Russian.  You may say, why bother?  She’s not relevant.  She’s the pin-up girl for crazies.

Last night, a man with a gun attempted entry into the Capital.  Rep. Joe Wilson yells, “You Lie”, and teabaggers think it’s porn.  The radical right, who celebrate the assassination of Dr. Tiller and protest their children hearing the encouraging words of a black president, LOVE Palin.  She does nothing to denounce their idiocy, she revels in it.  I write about her now because of who she represents — very dangerous people.

Here is her statement with my response.

SP–After all the rhetoric is put aside, one principle ran through President Obama’s speech tonight: that increased government involvement in health care can solve its problems.

SM–Nope, not what he said…so, to borrow a line from one of your fans, “You Lie!” Many suspect you did not write your Facebook response, but for argument’s sake, I will assume you did.

SP–Many Americans fundamentally disagree with this idea. We know from long experience that the creation of a massive new bureaucracy will not provide us with “more stability and security,” but just the opposite. It’s hard to believe the President when he says that this time he and his team of bureaucrats have finally figured out how to do things right if only we’ll take them at their word.

SM–Hmmm, reminds me of Homeland Security and cavity searches to get on a plane. Or illegally wiretapping Americans…or, yellow cake uranium and WMD, or…maybe you’re just projecting.

SP–Our objections to the Democrats’ health care proposals are not mere “bickering” or “games.” They are not an attempt to “score short term political points.” And it’s hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use “scare tactics” when in the next breath he says that “more will die” if his proposals do not pass.

SM–It is a sad fact that 14,000 people lose their health insurance every day in this country.  Less coverage means less treatment means more people die…it’s simple math. In fact, an estimated 18,000 Americans die every year because they are uninsured.  Scare tactics? That’s rich…I am a survivor of the Alaska Pageant circuit and if “scaring the be-Jesus out of old people” were a talent, you would’ve worn the crown.  The President (remember, he won the election) basically called YOU a liar last night.

SP–In his speech the President directly responded to concerns I’ve raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters. He called these concerns “bogus,” “irresponsible,” and “a lie” — so much for civility. After all the name-calling, though, what he did not do is respond to the arguments we’ve made, arguments even some of his own supporters have agreed have merit.

SM–First off, who’s “we”?  Do you have a monkey in your pocket or are you referring to your ghostwriter?  I’m quite sure President Obama didn’t respond simply because of you.  Name calling? Like when you said, Obama was “Pallin’ around with terrorists”?  Or, “he’s not like us”?  You are an irresponsible liar and fear monger-President Obama was right.  If you’re going to take credit for changing the conversation, then own the labels that you so richly deserve.

SP–In fact, after promising to “make sure that no government bureaucrat ….gets between you and the health care you need,” the President repeated his call for an Independent Medicare Advisory Council — an unelected, largely unaccountable group of bureaucrats charged with containing Medicare costs. He did not disavow his own statement that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost … the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives….” He did not disavow the statements of his health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, and continuing to pay his salary with taxpayer dollars proves a commitment to his beliefs. The President can keep making unsupported assertions, but until he directly responds to the arguments I’ve made, I’m going to call him out too.

SM–“Unelected, largely unaccountable group of bureaucrats” – like your ethics board? You, Madam, came between adequate care to Alaskans and their doctors with your negligence to those citizens who needed medical care.  On your watch, ALASKANS DIED.  If you want to call the President out on his policies, expect you will be called out as well.  Why the hell should he “respond to the arguments” you’ve made? You’ve become a simple shill for the wealth-care industry.

SP–It was heartening to hear the President finally recognize that tort reform is an important part of any solution. But this concession shouldn’t lead us to take our eye off the ball: the Democrats’ proposals will not reduce costs, and they will not deliver better health care. It’s this kind of “healthy skepticism of government” that truly reflects a “concern and regard for the plight of others.” We can’t wait to hear the details on that; we look forward to working with you on tort reform.

SM–You haven’t come up with one idea on how to help people.  As governor, you signed a bill that allowed the state to monitor and record every pharmaceutical taken by Alaskans.   You, Madam, grew BIG GOVERNMENT and invaded the public’s privacy.   On my radio show, I begged you to veto that bill.  Your party is paid well to grease the wheels for industry…there’s a word for that-the merging of government and corporate interests…it’s called fascism.  I know your supporters won’t understand the word, hell, at least one of them misspelled it on a t-shirt.  Google it.

SP–Finally, President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the War on Terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day and those who have died since in the War on Terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag.

SM–You have embarrassed Alaskans long enough.  Stop it.  My pop was moose hunting on 9/11.  He didn’t even know it had happened for several weeks – but he knows Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Even G.W. Bush admitted as much.  Where were all the teabaggers on the Iraq War? Shame on you.  How dare you.  I don’t know what the daily worry of another terrorist attack is for Americans, but there is another terror that keeps at least 40 million minds busy.  The terror that they, or one of their loved ones will become sick and they won’t have the money or insurance to have adequate treatment.  You, Madam, don’t live in this state of fear, but it is real.  Healthcare Reform is another war; a war against the corporations who make a profit from denying services.

SP–Remember, Mr. President, elected officials work for the people. Forcing a conclusion in order to claim a “victory” is not healthy for our country. We hear you say government isn’t always the answer; now hear us — that’s what we’ve been saying all along.

SM–Remember, MRS. Palin, you WERE an elected official.  YOU QUIT!  You’ve been saying the government isn’t always the answer…well, you certainly weren’t the answer.  You proved that the wrong person at the helm is dangerous for the American people as well as the planet.  “Forcing a conclusion in order to claim a “victory” is not healthy for our country.”  NO KIDDING – does the banner “mission accomplished” ring any bells?

SP– Sarah Palin

SM–Thank you for not signing Governor…really, I mean it, thanks.

A Seven-Step Program to Return America to a Quieter, Less Muscular, Patriotism

By William Astore, Tomdispatch.com, Sep 4, 2009

I have a few confessions to make: After almost eight years of off-and-on war in Afghanistan and after more than six years of mayhem and death since “Mission Accomplished” was declared in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’m tired of seeing simpleminded magnetic ribbons on vehicles telling me, a 20-year military veteran, to support or pray for our troops. As a Christian, I find it presumptuous to see ribbons shaped like fish, with an American flag as a tail, informing me that God blesses our troops. I’m underwhelmed by gigantic American flags — up to 100 feet by 300 feet — repeatedly being unfurled in our sports arenas, as if our love of country is greater when our flags are bigger. I’m disturbed by nuclear-strike bombers soaring over stadiums filled with children, as one did in July just as the National Anthem ended during this year’s Major League Baseball All Star game. Instead of oohing and aahing at our destructive might, I was quietly horrified at its looming presence during a family event.

We’ve recently come through the steroid era in baseball with all those muscled up players and jacked up stats. Now that players are tested randomly, home runs are down and muscles don’t stretch uniforms quite as tightly. Yet while ending the steroid era in baseball proved reasonably straightforward once the will to act was present, we as a country have yet to face, no less curtail, our ongoing steroidal celebrations of pumped-up patriotism.

It’s high time we ended the post-Vietnam obsession with Rambo’s rippling pecs as well as the jaw-dropping technological firepower of the recent cinematic version of G.I. Joe and return to the resolute, undemonstrative strength that Gary Cooper showed in movies like High Noon.

In the HBO series The Sopranos, Tony (played by James Gandolfini) struggles with his own vulnerability — panic attacks caused by stress that his Mafia rivals would interpret as fatal signs of weakness. Lamenting his emotional frailty, Tony asks, “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?” Whatever happened, in other words, to quiet, unemotive Americans who went about their business without fanfare, without swagger, but with firmness and no lack of controlled anger at the right time?

Tony’s question is a good one, but I’d like to spin it differently: Why did we allow lanky American citizen-soldiers and true heroes like World War I Sergeant Alvin York (played, at York’s insistence, by Gary Cooper) and World War II Sergeant (later, first lieutenant) Audie Murphy (played in the film To Hell and Back, famously, by himself) to be replaced by all those post-Vietnam pumped up Hollywood “warriors,” with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger-style abs and egos to match?

And far more important than how we got here, how can we end our enduring fascination with a puffed up, comic-book-style militarism that seems to have stepped directly out of screen fantasy and into our all-too-real lives?

A Seven-Step Recovery Program

As a society, we’ve become so addicted to militarism that we don’t even notice the way it surrounds us or the spasms of societal ‘roid rage that go with it. The fact is, we need a detox program. At the risk of incurring some of that ‘roid rage myself, let me suggest a seven-step program that could help return us to the saner days of Gary Cooper:

1. Baseball players on steroids swing for the fences. So does a steroidal country. When you have an immense military establishment, your answer to trouble is likely to be overwhelming force, including sending troops into harm’s way. To rein in our steroidal version of militarism, we should stop bulking up our military ranks, as is now happening, and shrink them instead. Our military needs not more muscle supplements (or the budgetary version of the same), but far fewer.

2. It’s time to stop deferring to our generals, and even to their commander-in-chief. They’re ours, after all; we’re not theirs. When President Obama says Afghanistan is not a war of choice but of necessity, we shouldn’t hesitate to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Yet when it comes to tough questioning of the president’s generals, Congress now seems eternally supine. Senators and representatives are invariably too busy falling all over themselves praising our troops and their commanders, too worried that “tough” questioning will appear unpatriotic to the folks back home, or too connected to military contractors in their districts, or some combination of the three.

Here’s something we should all keep in mind: generals have no monopoly on military insight. What they have a monopoly on is a no-lose situation. If things go well, they get credit; if they go badly, we do. Retired five-star general Omar Bradley was typical when he visited Vietnam in 1967 and declared: “I am convinced that this is a war at the right place, at the right time and with the right enemy — the Communists.” North Vietnam’s only hope for victory, he insisted, was “to hang on in the expectation that the American public, inadequately informed about the true situation and sickened by the loss in lives and money, will force the United States to give up and pull out.”

There we have it: A classic statement of the belief that when our military loses a war, it’s always the fault of “we the people.” Paradoxically, such insidious myths gain credibility not because we the people are too forceful in our criticism of the military, but because we are too deferential.

3. It’s time to redefine what “support our troops” really means. We console ourselves with the belief that all our troops are volunteers, who freely signed on for repeated tours of duty in forever wars. But are our troops truly volunteers? Didn’t we recruit them using multi-million dollar ad campaigns and lures of every sort? Are we not, in effect, running a poverty and recession draft? Isolated in middle- or upper-class comfort, detached from our wars and their burdens, have we not, in a sense, recruited a “foreign legion” to do our bidding?

If you’re looking for a clear sign of a militarized society — which few Americans are — a good place to start is with troop veneration. The cult of the soldier often covers up a variety of sins. It helps, among other things, hide the true costs of, and often the futility of, the wars being fought. At an extreme, as the war began to turn dramatically against Nazi Germany in 1943, Germans who attempted to protest Hitler’s failed strategy and the catastrophic costs of his war were accused of (and usually executed for) betraying the troops at the front.

The United States is not a totalitarian state, so surely we can hazard criticisms of our wars and even occasionally of the behavior of some of our troops, without facing charges of stabbing our troops in the back and aiding the enemy. Or can we?

4. Let’s see the military for what it is: a blunt instrument of force. It’s neither surgical nor precise nor predictable. What Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago remains true: when wars start, havoc is unleashed, and the dogs of war run wild — in our case, not just the professional but the “mercenary” dogs of war, those private contractors to the Pentagon that thrive on the rich spoils of modern warfare in distant lands. It’s time to recognize that we rely ever more massively to prosecute our wars on companies that profit ever more handsomely the longer they last.

5. Let’s not blindly venerate the serving soldier, while forgetting our veterans when they doff their spiffy uniforms for the last time. It’s easy to celebrate our clean-cut men and women in uniform when they’re thousands of miles from home, far tougher to lend a hand to scruffier, embittered veterans suffering from the physical and emotional trauma of the battle zones to which they were consigned, usually for multiple tours of duty.

6. I like air shows, but how about — as a first tiny step toward demilitarizing civilian life — banning all flyovers of sporting events by modern combat aircraft? War is not a sport, and it shouldn’t be a thrill.

7. I love our flag. I keep my father’s casket flag in a special display case next to the very desk on which I’m writing this piece. It reminds me of his decades of service as a soldier and firefighter. But I don’t need humongous stadium flags or, for that matter, tiny flag lapel pins to prove my patriotism — and neither should you. In fact, doesn’t the endless post-9/11 public proliferation of flags in every size imaginable suggest a certain fanaticism bordering on desperation? If we saw such displays in other countries, our descriptions wouldn’t be kindly.

Of course, none of this is likely to be easy as long as this country garrisons the planet and fights open-ended wars on its global frontiers. The largest step, the eighth one, would be to begin seriously downsizing that mission. In the meantime, we shouldn’t need reminding that this country was originally founded as a civilian society, not a militarized one. Indeed, the revolt of the 13 colonies against the King of England was sparked, in part, by the perceived tyranny of forced quartering of British troops in colonial homes, the heavy hand of an “occupation” army, and taxation that we were told went for our own defense, whether we wanted to be defended or not.

If Americans are going to continue to hold so-called tea parties, shouldn’t some of them be directed against the militarization of our country and an enormous tax burden fed in part by our wasteful, trillion-dollar wars?

Modest as it may seem, my seven-step recovery program won’t be easy for many of us to follow. After all, let’s face it, we’ve come to enjoy our peculiar brand of muscular patriotism and the macho militarism that goes with it. In fact, we revel in it. Outwardly, the result is quite an impressive show. We look confident and ripped and strong. But it’s increasingly clear that our outward swagger conceals an inner desperation. If we’re so strong, one might ask, why do we need so much steroidal piety, so many in-your-face patriotic props, and so much parade-ground conformity?

Forget Rambo and action-picture G.I. Joes: Give me the steady hand, the undemonstrative strength, and the quiet humility of Alvin York, Audie Murphy — and Gary Cooper.

William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatch regular. He teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology and can be reached at wastore@pct.edu.

What an awfully long day.  I hardly know where to begin!  My feet, yes, are aching from walking all over the city in heels, but physical pain is easy to transcend.  I am, however, psychologically & intellectually exhausted.  I’ve been ON from the moment I woke up. Already I’m… seeing stars?

Where shall we start? Where shall we– star!

Try not to star

I suppose that now is a good time to tell you that today I have a 1. STARRING problem. The Coin of Destiny has decided that each day I’ll let one of my commenters provide me with an either/or directive.  I select my favorite directive set & then 2. flip the Coin to determine which directive I follow.

This time round, facing stiff competition I might add, Magali won!  I was to either 3. have a starring problem or a woopie cushion & the sense of humor of a three year old.  Well, I found the starring problem very fascinating.  I believe she MEANT staring, but that’s not what she said.  I 4. flipped & found myself with a serious starring problem.  Just look at the comments on below entry for proof!

By now, with several comment responses & a few emails behind me, I have my starring problem somewhat under control.  You should see at least one instance of starring in each of the following paragraphs, but I am stifling the urge to pepper everything liberally with asterisks.  Not that it doesn’t take an awful amount of self-control!

Today I woke up, as one does.  I did some serious coin-flipping.  If your future is written in the stars, well, the Coin of Destiny was my direct link to them.

• Should I return library books & mail things today? (YES)
• Should I do it before or after coffee & 5. podcast (Tails: AFTER)
• Should I watch the rest of the movie tonight after blog, or earlier in the day? (Heads: AFTER)
• Should I stay out of Ptolemy/Allyson clash? (YES)
• Should I shower now or later? (Tails: LATER)
• Before or after chores? (Tails: AFTER)
• Should I get out on the other side of the bed today? (NO)

& thus I got out of bed, starry-eyed at prospect of day ahead.

I 6. Consulted the I Ching to see which Radio Lab podcast I should listen to today. I got Hexagram 49: SKINNING (open surface, interaction, free, responsive, unhindered mouth; joy, radiance, burning, brightness, congregation [as of stars]).  It seemed pretty clear that I should listen to 7. “Emergence.” Glad I did.

Skipped downstairs to pick up coffee (coins in my coin purse bright as stars) then headed back up to podcast myself into oblivion, or its reverse.

Played solitaire as I listened. I’m a true star when it comes to solitaire.  I win at least three games for every two that I lose.  I must conclude that the stars are, in solitaire — as in everything else — on my side.  So appropriate for the theme of the podcast too.  I sat sipping my espresso & clicking away at the seemingly random cards, occasionally sacrificing my score in the timed games to take the notes you’ll see below:

• “order materializes out of nothing”
• E.O. Wilson writing name in ants
• “every time it happens it happens by accident [...] error is architecture”
• “local unplanned decisions add up into macro-unit that has a personality”
• you’re looking at an author? vs. empty of purpose. which?
• emergence = science of “how many stupid things can add up to something smart”
• jellybean guessing!! — is this why voting makes sense? [apparently, if you get a roomful of people to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar, the averaged number of their guesses is typically unusually close to the actual number-- much closer than any individual guess.  This was discovered by a pioneer of the eugenics movement. Forget which one]
• “to see the world as a coherent thing is a miracle”
• is there a conducter?

Few facts are included in my notes, as it’s the facts I remember most easily.   The ideas of others, however, I have to write down.   If you want the facts (&, I assure you, the facts are interesting ones!) I encourage you to download the podcast yourself.  It’s free on iTunes.   Anyway, do you see a pattern materializing in my notes?  Can you read my dreams & anxieties therin? Does the apparently arbitrary pattern seem appropriate?  Is there an order materializing “out of nothing”?  Commenters, consider.  Work for that daily gold star.

Paused here last night. It's been on my screen all day.

It was then time to head out for my chores.  Didn’t exactly want to, but who am I to rail against the stars?

I went to the library to return some books.  I also needed to mail things to Allyson & her friends/family, as required by Week 8.  First, the library.  It was nice to be there.  I’ve been in school for the last 22 years (with only one exception).  Everyone else is heading back to school & I miss the gold stars & pencil cases of my youth.  I put my books on the conveyor belt & felt wraught with indecision.  A flurry of 8. Coin-governed decisions followed:

• Should I get another book while here? (YES)
• Poetry or fiction? (FICTION)
• Male or female author? (FEMALE)
• Someone I’ve read before? (YES)
• American or no? (NO)
• Margaret Drabble or Iris Murdoch? (MARGARET DRABBLE)
• Gates of Ivory? (YES)

So there you have it.

Then I 9. asked the Coin

• Should I get a drink here? (NO)
• Big post office or little post office? (BIG)

so I tripped down the sidewalk as if walking on stars.  Signed up for ZipCar on the way.  Then headed towards the post office.  Nothing can stop the swift completion of my appointed rounds!

All of this fate made me thirsty! I 10 asked:

• NOW can I get a slurpee? (NO)
• Something else to drink? (NO)
• Can I get a slurpee when I get to the 7-11? (NO)
• After I’m inside the 7-11? (NO)
• Something else? (YES)

Well, finally!  I went to the 7-11 in a sulk, where oh em gee.  The gods knew more than I did.  The slurpee machine was under repair!  Alas for my star-crossed lover (the slurpee).  But it wasn’t too late for me.  I got a coke.

Once home, I 11. Consulted the I Ching very seriously to see where I should go for Monday’s trip. Insert star for some reason.

Quest question 1.

This was a long, drawn-out process that required several questions.  I do not want to reveal the hexagrams I got for each question, as they veer a little too close to home.  Suffice to say, it’s not uncomplicated.  & the hexagrams recurred with shocking frequency! Many reappeared more than twice.  But I got my answer, after asking the following:

• Should I go to Qualicum on Monday?
• What will it be like if I go Monday, specifically?
• Is it the best option?
• What would a different trip look like?
• Is it foolish to go to Qualicum instead of elsewhere?
• What good will come of me going?

It may not be the happiest option, but I believe it is the best.  It seems to be in the stars for me at least.  I’ll determine the details of the trip a little later.  All this had me very contemplative.

I took my long awaited shower. (I sang songs about stars).

Then I 12. Let the Coin of Destiny determine the details of tonight’s date. It told me:

• wear makeup
• & skirt
• put my hair up
• drink booze
• smoke
• don’t talk about the project
• no goldfish

I accomplished everything like the star I am (soon to be).

Met my new friend Brendan for coffee.  Arrived on time (13. nighttime) & observed him from a distance.  Was it him?  I 14. flipped the Coin of Destiny. YES.  Introduced myself.  Told him I couldn’t talk about my you-know-what (I’m a real star with the [lack of] fine print!).

After chatting for awhile, we went for a walk along the sea wall.  & then to Chinatown, where 15. The Coin told me we should go to a bar before going to the market.  Gold star for me & my multi-tasking.

I'm pondering just what you're pondering

We went to a bar (16. indoors, of course) where Brendan used to work as a barback. We walked through the very dangerous East Side.  It’s a good thing I’m such a trusting person & that Brendan is a man of an not-to-be-named-but-honest line of work, as I could’ve certainly ended up hacked to pieces in a ditch somewhere.  At the bar, we got in without cover because Brendan is so popular around town.  A VERY LOUD band was playing.  It felt like stars were exploding in my ears.  I could almost see stars circling around my head, as in an old time cartoon.  I have a picture of the bar, but it’s not any good.  We left after one beer.

On the walk back, feet blistering, we went through the market. What fun!  I got some sticky rice (my first meal of the day!) & STAR STICKERS!  Perfect for my starring problem.

Brassieres not included

Then we started the long walk home, my blisters near (not to be too graphic) the breaking point.  Well, mission accomplished?  I flipped 17. The Coin of Destiny to see if the date was over.  It was!  So now I was allowed to talk about the project.  & I did.

Our starry (k)night

We stopped at another bar where I compensated Brendan for the beer he’d bought me on our date by buying one for him.  He saw lots of people he knows.  He’s a real star in this town.

I’m done with/for today now.  All I have left to do is watch the rest of Scenes of a Marriage.  I’d normally go to bed but the coin doesn’t see that in store for me.  In star for me.

Bella & the Chancellor are cuddling in the corner, though Chance occasionally takes off to chase a ladybug hovering around one of the light fixtures.  Did you know that when I lived in Michigan my house was periodically infested by ladybugs?  & do you think Bella & the Chancellor know that they’re stars on the internet?

Speaking of the internet, stats are slipping & I’m not happy about it.  It’s not a top priority of mine (as I obviously have a lot of other things to take up my time), but it does make it easier to get through the day when I know there are thousands (& not paltry hundreds) of people rooting for (or against) me.  Remember, gold stars equal presents when the year comes to a close.  & this week (perhaps this week only!) you commenters get a hand in my fate!  Comment with either/or’s & I’ll incorporate one of my favorites into the following days.

What's in (y)our stars?

Thus concludes another day (in the life) lived by the Bailey Sisters, starring Emily Zinnemann.  It’s raining now.  When it comes to a walk, the dog will have to wait.  She seems happy to(o).

After initially intended to take my very first trip this morning, I woke up feeling less than spectacular. Figures, right? Well a long nap and some cold-busting medicine later, I realized I still had to go out for my very first excursion. I decided a few nights ago that I’d take about a 2-3 hour long trip through Frederick County because, I learned, there are a number of interesting bridges in the area. I mapped them out, and discovered that they made a fabulous loop, up, around, and back down to home. Perfect! Not really. Don’t be silly. It wouldn’t have been adventurous then.

But first a note: I gassed up before I took off. Now, being from Jersey, I’ve had the luxury of having my gas pumped for me for the entirety of my life. No, this is not a rant about having to pump my own gas. Pumping your own gas is easy and unless it’s raining halberds, you’re not inconvenienced either, so stop whining, NJ and OR. However, I severely dislike that honestly no two pumps operate the same way. Drives me insane every time. Rant over, on to the trip.

My first stop was Legore Bridge, a five arch limestone bridge. I’m pleasently driving down the road, rocking out to a playlist on my iPod, when about 5 miles from the bridge, a neon orange sign crawled into my vision. When it became reable, it said something to the effect of “Detour thisaway <–, your bridge is closed, local traffic only”. Well, I said to myself (probably aloud, too) let’s just see what there is to see. I continue past the detour signs and made friends with a few more “bridge is closed” signs along the way. Until I found this:

Not being one to just take signs at face value, I pulled over to investigate around the bend a little. Armed with my camera, I headed over to the signs and concrete barriers. I peered around the bend from the proper side of the signs. Nothing but more bend. I glanced at the signs, around the bend, behind me. Thought about it for a moment. Maybe two. Then I heard a truck on gravel behind me and it turns out I am more mouse than woman. The repair truck drove past without even looking down at me on the road, but I was deer-spooked and moved on.

Before I went to bridge #2, I attempted to approach the first bridge from the other side to see if I could get a better view, but I was unsuccessful. Too many big farms and too few connecting roads between them. Also, there was the whole “it’s a bridge over a river” deal. Without any trouble, and a little help from my GPS, I found my way to the first covered bridge. I’ve never myself driven over one before. It was small, one-lane, and I was convinced someone was about to fly around the corner and smash both myself and the bridge into smithereens, but we both came out unscathed.

On my way between bridge #2 and #3, I passed a farm with cows. Honestly and all told, I probably passed a few dozen or so, but this farm in particular had a rogue cow. This little Bessy had snuck out and was wandering in the road.  Her owners were trying to herd her to a gate back into a field, but she was having none of it. I was stopped in the road with a few other people who were’t hurried enough to risk hitting the poor beast. She walked right past my car, and in a rather unsportsmanlike fashion, hip-checked my passenger door on her way by. Babs survived unharmed, fortunately.

After she was herded back out of the road, I somehow managed to drive past bridge #3 and while looking for it, came upon bridge #4 instead. Good times. Never did find my 3rd bridge.