Billmon worries that the surge option or escalation, as they called it during Vietnam, might lead to massive butchery. President Bush doesn't have that kind of courage: remember Fallujah, the first time around? He walked us right up to the enemy and he blinked--all because of the election campaign that was ongoing.
Fallujah would never have been an easy choice for any leader at any time. But for Bush it was the logical extension of the argument neocons love to trot out about 'those people over there.' You all know the argument I am talking about. The one where they get all solemn and serious and say, "those people over there, all they respond to is force."
So when Bush had the chance to show just how ferocious Americans can be, what did he do but balk? He called the Marines back. He made a political decision, not a strategic or even tactical one.
He blinked because deep down inside he is a coward, unwilling to shoulder the immense moral burden of sending young men and women to the abattoir, instead maintaining a studied distance from the hard decisions and yet profit from them when possible, like landing on aircraft carriers and using war as a weapon in a political campaign. Bush is a weak, little man.
Bush couldn't do it then and he won't do it now. He'll take the easy way out (whatever that is) and create more problems in the long-term. As my Great-Uncle Casey, who was as mean as they come, was fond of telling me, "nothing to be feared more than a crazy man and a coward."
Well said, Uncle Casey. Well said.
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Comments: 19
Let's get back to facts: who hasn't caught Osama bin Laden, the guy who really attacked us in 2001, in what, like 5, almost 6 years now? And you tell me I am an enabler. Look in the mirror, Jesse. Shouting insults isn't going to cut it.
If we had nuked Korea, and systematically depopulated Vietnam, and set up farms and cities over there; and if we had leveled "Baag Dad," and "Eye-raan," there would have been those who would call it bravery, just like how most of the nation saw Harry S. after nuking them waskely Japs. "That brave SOB Saved all kinds of lives," they'd say. And those of us who found the decision to be just stupid, panicky cowardice would be considered, other than patriotic. More like idiotic.
Bravery.
Who was braver, The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., or General WW 1 (William Westmoreland The First)?
Our folks walked through hails of bullets in WW2 for a tangible reason, not a pseudo-super power theory causing ridiculous delusions of grandeur. We were late coming into the war against the real Axis of Evil, not because we were cowards, but because we weren't.
Now days we choose to pull the war card as solutions to far fetched what-if problematic scenarios that our people analyze as imminently threatening using a calculus that is just as flawed as White Supremacy was (is) way back in the 20th century.
So we lost in Korea, lost in Vietnam, losing in Iraq, and want like hell to jump on Iran, and make damned fools of ourselves there, too. Why? Because we've lost our souls to a very huge degree. We act like we don't know right from wrong.
We can't solve our own domestic problems, which are gargantuan, and we're trying to maintain The Cancer of the Middle East (Zionism), by fifty years of repressing clear, far sighted Middle East patriots, while propping up murderous, dastardly pretentious absolute despots who have turned whole populations to craven impotent halflings who cannot, and will not stand up for their own right of self determination. Those folks who have stood up ubiquitously vilified in our hell-of-a-lot-less-than-objective media.
The overwhelming majority of the Iranis saw Ayatollah Khomeini as a saint, and the Shah as The Devil incarnate. We chose to serve the Devil, who our own CIA reported to have killed by means of torture over one hundred and fifty thousand Irani youths in less than ten years. And the president at that time was the first Born Again Christian president... Jimmy Carter, Neo Dixicrat, GA.
Bush isn't a republican neo con, he's just another misguided American president who's so influenced by our flawed moral compass that his and his people's calculations are totally predictably deplorable. Our nation's problems are far beyond the differences in the two parties. The two parties are not that different. Our problems are systemic, transgenerational, and nearly invisible to even some of our most educated and sophisticated minds.
Why? It's the God Damned God Complex. Nearly half of us think they're God, or God's kids. The other almost-half thinks there is no God, or God's a She or a He, or there's many God's (He's and She's) (It's all just a matter of perception).
The one's who think they're Gods or God's kids think they're cool so no need to turn around... change... even scientifically examine the status quo. "We're free... white... which is not just a race anymore... old enough to vote... and half assed affluent." What could be wrong with the status quo from that perspective?
The other folks think that "things are bad" but they hate to be dogmatic about anything. "If it feels good, it is good." So they're into this perception thing. "There is no good or bad." It's just how you perceive it; Nightmare On Elm Street's Freddy Nietzsche's way of thinking.
One group sees themselves as the Nation Of God's Elect. So they can't possibly see themselves as wrong. And the other group sees themselves free from Universal, Ultimate, Moral, and Ethical codes of Sex, War, Economics, and Political parameters. They too believe they can do what the F... they want they just have to be sneakier about it... until they're outted... busted... or made vogue.
I'm glad Allah doused Bushes lights for war in Falujah, even though as a Shia, I tend to despise those guys. I'm an American. And though I am by no means a pacifist, the whole Iraqi affair was a lie, and it diminished our group consciousness of the universal moral compass even more. If we had really gone over there to right the wrongs we did by supporting God Damned Saddam, it would have been a worthy war, if we'd gotten the majority of the Iraqis permission.
But we didn't, and we won't. It's not that we're too chicken to kill and die. We've got plenty of killers hyped up on rap music and video games willing to push some buttons and send some rag heads to those paradisiacal virgins. Our problem is that we're too chicken to admit how wrong we've been in the past, and how broken our system is.
We don't have the heart it takes to admit guilt. We don't have the intestinal fortitude to bow low and apologize. The Public Opinion in these United States is so uninformed and so callous to the hurt our nation has put on our fellow human beings, that it is impossible for our people to muster the moral courage to right the wrongs that have been done in our name, that has brought shame to our flag, and dishonor to our ideals.
It would take a Jesus like leader to lead us out of this mess. And which corporation is going to support a spiritually superior, idealist leader like that? Huh?
The real problem of troop strength is not about 20,000 new troops but 250,000. That's the realistic number needed to get the situation under control. The problem is that the cost of the force alone would bankrupt the country before you got them stationed.
You are right about Bush's cowardice. Even the more moderate Republicans see that as the real problem to Iraq. He also doesn't prepare well for what he does, like the NFL coach who prepares his team to play Detroit when they're actually playing Chicago.
A lot of times one man's cancer is another man's salvation.
I think the testicles will grow very quickly when the requested $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan comes up in Congress next month. Hehehe.
That's going to be like Viagra for Democrats!
Every group in that region are monotheist supporters. It is a refuge and a place where the principles of Abrahamic Monotheism are supposed to be upheld. Yet the founder of political Zionism was an atheist. A doubt very strongly that Herzl and Moses (God Brilliance Onto Him) would have been running buddies. Don't you, my Ball Headed friend?
Peace Jerry. Sorry I've been away for so long but to be truthful I'm not really back. But Sean-Paul's articles are so compelling sometimes. He makes me miss deadlines. But I see you keeping up the good work on Gather.
To all the participants here, there's a wealth of information hidden just under the surface of the publicity. It's not written down anywhere; it must be read in the darkness. It's an incredible power source, and it can stop all this warmongering in an instant. It's the Feminine half of the Human population of Planet Earth. If only the sisterhoods were finished with their web-weaving and heartline connections, we'd have an end to the violences right now.
As it is, we've got about 11 more months in the MidEast, and then about 3 more years in S. America; and some 5 1/2 years in Africa. We're building, building, building networks of light and lightworkers. The peacemakers are pouring out of their closets all over the globe, and figuring out, remembering, how to co-dream and follow visions and signs.
It takes no courage to kill a human. It takes a lot of fear/defense-aggressiveness plus cowardice, actually.
It takes real courage to dig in and find ways to "love/be loving toward the Enemy," no matter what.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/21/143259
"Today on Democracy Now we present an in-depth discussion between two figures who have critical of the Bush administration's policy on Iran. Scott Ritter is a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He recently wrote the book "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change." Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist for The New Yorker magazine. In October, Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh held a public conversation in New York about Scott Ritter's new book.
Scott Ritter. Former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. His new book is "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change."
Seymour Hersh. Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist for The New Yorker magazine."
It all looks as if it's about oil, doesn't it?
There's something else going on, though.
Although the Pentagon's little [unelected] "kings" may look as if they can keep on keeping on the warmongerings [planned 15-30 yrs in advance], they're nearing the end of their rope.
What kind of rope might that be?
That would be, the "rope" of what's allowed in the current paradigm.
Within 6 years max we'll have a Department of Peace, cabinet level; and our feminine component of legislative, judicial, and administrative leadership will be around 50-60%; and we'll have many fewer all-white-mostly-male leadership groups nationwide. The time of "the last shall be first" is at hand.