printThe following is an excerpt from my new column, “Grunts, Get In Touch With Your Inner-Muslim,” in which I “hit both sides of aisle for reactions to Quran-burning incident”:
“Just the other day, America was debating whether it was OK for our soldiers to pee on people they had killed in Afghanistan. There was no quarrel over whether it was OK to kill the peed-upon, in the first place.
Building on the skewed, To-Pee-Or-Not-To-Pee diversion, the question du jour is whether the same soldiers should say sorry for incinerating Qurans on a bonfire in the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
Built by Kellogg Brown & Root, which was ‘until recently a subsidiary of Halliburton,’ the Bagram Base ‘is located on a sere plain beneath snowcapped spurs of the Hindu Kush,’ writes author Cullen Murphy in ‘Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of Rome.’
‘In the Past, Bagram has yielded glassware and bronzes from as far away as imperial Rome.’ But,
Bagram today is an outpost of American, not Hellenic, civilization. … Bagram Air Base supports a population of more than 5000. The base perimeter, nine miles around, is ringed not with walls of stone or mud but with chain-link fencing and concertina wire and arrays of bright lights and electronic sensors.
With its rows of ‘prefabricated dwellings,’ stacked ‘shipping containers’ (‘giant bladders of water and fuel’), ‘American-style stores’ and hospitals; with, precincts packed with hundreds of contractors who cater to the troops, with checkpoints, multi-denominational chapels, which double-up as Vegas-style, quickie naturalization centers for Afghan recruits—Bagram embodies ‘imperial overstretch’: “The idea that one’s security needs, military obligations, and globalist desires increasingly outstrip resources available to satisfy them.’ (‘Are We Rome,’ p. 71.)
The dilemma over an apology is only the froth on the top. It is the elephantine character of the American entanglement in Afghanistan that underpins the fury. …”
The complete column is“Grunts, Get In Touch With Your Inner-Muslim.”
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UPDATED (March 5): Annals of pillage in Afghanistan, via RT, which is honest about Russia’s role in the destruction.
Two of them were “unnamed U.S. military advisers ranked colonel and major,” who were shot in the head execution style at the Interior Ministry in Kabul City.
Here is the LTC and here is the MAJ.
Here is a collection of the daily tallies.
If you can create a more maternal military – why not make the same men get in touch with their inner-Muslim?
That is a darn good idea. As much as I dislike them and do not want to live among them, I have to respect their fighting spirit and their refusal to be cowed. Forty thousand of these guys, armed only with assault rifles and RPGs, have faced down the supposedly greatest military force in history with all the latest, greatest weaponry at its disposal.
Having served in the military, I would never have imagined anything like those empathy bellies. I don’t think anyone was threatened with a firing squad for not donning them. Which either means that our troops’ discipline is so high they’d follow any order without hesitation, or they are so filled with fear that a school marm can exercise total control over them; you choose the answer to that.
I don’t know about chauvinistic, but the best soldiers are he-men, and that’s what we need.
As for the Quran, a blogger I don’t usually like did post a very eloquent response to the sensitive souls bothered by the burning of it: a large picture of Homer Simpson with his derrier facing the screen, and the words “KISS MY ASS!” aptly written underneath it. [You call that eloquent?!]
Our U.S. Military DOES NOT have to get in touch with any “inner thing” and all the PCers / All-Cultures-Equal devotees need to let the Military do what it is designed to do when, as Ron Paul always notes and properly so, CONGRESS DECLARES WAR. [And I never get why this is a magic amulet; as If this is what makes for a Just War.—IM]
I hope we do not desire to be, intend to act like, or, experience the same fate as Rome. But, as a society that, for the most part, highly values human life, what should we, as a nation do, if anything, when faced with these realities:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK6EnFu3NHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK6EnFu3NHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbkEahO161U&feature=related
We cannot police the world because we cannot even police places as small as Haiti or even Detroit. But what is the moral, ethical, humane way to deal with things that are antithetical to Western / American mores and culture? Perhaps it will evolve into private Magnificent Seven types of groups helping those who wish to be saved from their primitive cultures?
I agree with Rep Col Allen West who reprimanded those who pissed on the dead bodies…I understand the feeling these soldiers had, but they had a responsibility to act professionally.
The Qur’an burning was not an event over which gloating about it has been reported. It happened, but I think POTUS made too much of it. The long & short of it is we are dealing with primitive cultures ruled by a rigid theocratic system and we, simply, must leave them to their own self-inflicted fates and move forward with advancing our state of affairs.
Jennifer just forgot the Sarcasm” tag. Afghanistan has a 28% literacy level and only knows what the Cleric tells them, Sharia Law mostly. Getting to the ‘Inner Muslim’ and the ‘Inner Womb’ is so ridiculous that a Homer Simpson level comment is as eloquent as you can get and still be understood. Or you can bend your neck for the headsman and relate.
Well, that was sarcasm on my part. I DO call it appropriate.
I understand ’empatheticalism’ but have no idea as to what is being aimed for.
Empathy for women (what, no induced morning nausea?), daisies (10 day immersion in Queer Nation philosophy and bath house etiquette?), muslims (confused??? – if everything is allah’s will why isn’t pissing towards Mecca and burning qurans?), and gimps (I have no idea) – the new ‘Be All You Can Be’ campaign?
LOL I hear that, Robert.
[Sorry, J.; you were too subtle for me.—IM]
Bagram, it appears, is our rehearsal for Newt Gingrich’s moon base.
Of course, at least we are not trying to turn the moon into a democracy and the lunies are not shooting back!
No problem Ilana 😛 I just found the image so perfect for the situation that I exaggerated in my description.
Concerning a “JUST WAR THEORY”, note:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0182.html
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Augustine/augustine_justwar.html
http://ocw.nd.edu/peace-studies/islamic-ethics-of-war-and-peace/lectures/islamic-just-war-theory-updated
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23511
A Declaration of War by Congress is a component of Just War Theory – not the end all…be all, but a component nonetheless. For example, I believe a nation such as Israel has the absolute right, no other’s approval required, to defend itself against Iran and that includes preemptive action since Iran’s leaders have openly stated it wants Israel vaporized and Jews murdered / exterminated.
The legal community in the U.S. has some of this community calling for THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE, i.e. the movie, MINORITY REPORT (I do not agree with the movie’s premise…). However, it begs the question: Knowing what is known now about SOUTH AFRICA and the Boer’s situation as well as crime in general there, what action would you, dear readers, have taken when the power to take the action was still with you to exert?