printThe New Individualist’s Spring 2010 edition doesn’t carry one of my columns (The Winter issue featured two), but it has a good, much-needed photo-journalism spread titled “This is War.” Iraqi family homes flatted by SCUDS (ours), streets in the aftermath of stupid bombs (from the US with love), the purest of the pure—the body of a beautiful little girl—washed for burial (“we love ya, democratized Iraqis”).
Scrutinizing the ever-so sad images of war brought back those horrible years during which, in vain it seemed, I pelted my readers with non-stop facts and doses of reality, the kind these images transmit with such ease. I tried the power of the Jewish teachings; these instruct Jews to robustly and actively seek justice; Just War Theory, developed by great Christian minds like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, the libertarian axiom, which prohibits aggression against non-aggressors. And I mentioned over and over again the natural law, and what the Founding Fathers provided: “A limited, constitutional republican government, by definition,” I wrote in March 12, 2003, doesn’t, cannot, and must never pursue what Bush is after—a sort of 21st-century Manifest Destiny.”
If you have a moral compass I ask you to patronize moral writers (provided they have talent, of course), not the apologists who supported this wicked foray, and are still unapologetic about it. All of them, I wager, are doing well—walking around, grins on their smug, death-head mugs, their claws dripping with blood, their wallets stuffed with wads, the Empire’s counterfeit currency. Incitement to murder and war profiteering are lucrative occupations in fin de siècle America.
The blowhards and blonds who slithered on their bellies for Bush (still do)—why do you read them? Buy their sick-making “Obama-this; Obama That” Micky-mouse books? (Okay, some like Coulter and Malkin have real talent, but the rest? Nothing but a T & A show all.)
It’s the story of Job, that Hebrew individualist, all over again; the wicked and the foolisher prosper, the righteous suffer, isn’t it?
As in Vietnam where the rationale for the war kept shifting (Domino theory, American credibility, Troops not dying in vein, Save the POW’s), the Afghan war’s justification keeps moving around. Mind you, Al Queda and the Taliban were booted OUT in 2001 but rather than leave ourselves, we stayed around to the point that most of the Pushtun areas are in Taliban or Taliban-like control. Now comes Bush speechwriter Michael “Axis of Evil” Gerson with his women’s liberation rationale:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/…/AR2010072604739.html
Yes, we must pummel Afghanistan into submission until they change their sexist culture! Why doesn’t Gerson and a few neocon feminists train the Afghan women on the use of Ak-47’s on their own nickel? Here is Fred Reed’s devastating answer to “make the world safe for feminism” warmongering:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Mattis.shtml
Like Job, you (Ilana) have been right on the wars. Even many “conservatives “(Farah, Coulter, Will, Blankley) are coming around and realizing that the wisdom of Robert Taft, Douglas MacArthur, and others about fighting land wars in Asia still hold. The Hannity “conservatives” apishly repeat idiotic platitudes about credibility, democracy, serving as a base for Al Queda, “the troops”, the great Petreaus, the successful “surge” while the nation slides into bankruptcy.
OK, now what? Everybody has 20:20 hindsight. (I know Mercer, yours was foresight and the rest of us were fools.) But I ask, as I’ve asked before, over the years, how do we get out? Nobody has answered this one yet.
That’s a neat looking death’s head up there. Looks like the Waffen SS.
Myron Pauli is correct.
But many of the “conservatives” he mentioned have, as they say here in Texas, no dog in this hunt.
Of course they are coming around only now, and not, say, 3 to 5 years ago.
Why?
Are they only now grasping the fact that there are no differences between the Administration and the former one(s)?
From open borders to the welfare state, and on to the warfare state and surveillance state, there are zero differences among the last 3 administrations.
Gerson is a shill for the empire. That he would resort to the women’s lib excuse is an indication of just how desperate the warmongers are to keep the occupation going.
I’m actually embarrassed for the guy. Has he no shame?
Most Americans do not care about foreign policy and will not vote based on it, unless it affects them personally. Once upon a time (1968) foreign policy did affect large numbers of Americans, based on the war in Vietnam and the accompanying draft. I believe that our involvement there ended, not because of anti-war protests on college campuses, but because the “silent majority” referred to by Nixon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3K2N7FZSXc –average Americans–were sick and tired of seeing their sons returning from Southeast Asia in body bags.
There is nothing comparable today, with our “all volunteer” army. When the army (or any other branch of service) is seen by many American young people as offering “an opportunity” not available in civilian life, there will be hundreds of thousands of “takers.” Why worry too much about foreign (even civilian) deaths when you can have an income, training, and a shot at a college education?