January 28, 2008 archive

Intro: This is the first in a series that I’ve been running at dailyKos and SwingStateProject… the series isn’t over in either of those places, so I’ll post more quickly here, if there is interest, so that eventually all three places will be getting the same stuff.  It’s also a bit of an experiment – I’m feeling out the territory here. If you like the series, let me know, and it will continue.  If not, well, I do have two other outlets for it.  Most of those diaries covered more than one state.

The order of states was by the date of their filing deadline, but it’s a bit messed up now.

I am all for running everywhere, and the 50 state strategy.

But neither we nor the Republicans are running everywhere (at least not yet!) In this series, I will look at where we are running and not running; and where the Republicans are running and not running (I am not going to look in detail at where Republicans are not running, as I have no desire to help Republicans, however modestly)

This diary is partly inspired by the great work done by BENAWU, and informed by the great Race Tracker Wiki (links throughout).

…for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.

Ancient Neo-Babylon was to its time exactly what the US has been to the contemporary world:  the predominant ruling military/religious superpower of the ancient world.

Whether one believes in the actual reincarnation of a people (and this would be a most convincing case) or would view it simply as the repetition of pattern, it is a marvel that the modern superpower has chosen to wage war on the site of its ancient likeness.

While ancient Babylon fell and was repeatedly rebuilt, the original Babylon of the Biblical infamy is particularly concerned with the times and reign of Nebuchadnezzar:

The term Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean refers to Babylonia under the rule of the 11th (“Chaldean”) dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 626 BC until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, notably including the reign of Nebuchadnezzar   source

For the purposes of this writing, “Babylon” refers to the Neo-Babylonian era incarnation of the great city.  The people of that time were a Semitic tribe unrelated to the current Persian occupants of the region.

“Babylon” means confusion.  And Babylon’s name is confusing, because the name “Babylon” can be interpreted as ‘babilu’ or ‘gate of the gods:’

…in the Old Testament, the name appears as ??? (Babel), interpreted by Genesis 11:9 to mean “confusion”, from the verb balal, “to confuse”.

America, have a look in the mirror

Compare the US to ancient Babylon again in military stature, for the ancient city was to its time what the US is to our contemporary world:  the biggest economic engine on earth.  The Babylonians grew rich on the spoils of war, the wealthiest people on the planet in their day.  To keep the great economic engine alive and in tune, Babylon constantly was at war to bring in steady streams of slaves and spoil.

Ancient NeoBabylon is also the site of the world’s first religious-military-imperial-corporate-capitalist-investment banking complex which coincidentally lies minutes from the war du jour of the world’s current premiere imperialist superpower in decline.

Rise and Shine Bostonian Dharmamaniacs!

Look, I made you breakfast :p

This is an Open Thread: Locked doors? What locked doors?

Monday’s Headlines: Races Entering Complex Phase Over Delegates: Economy, War To Dominate State of Union: Global markets tumble again on recession fears: Kremlin bars last independent candidate from presidential poll: Iraq contractors tap Latin America’s needy: ‘If there is no change in three months, there will be war again’

Return to Fallujah

Three years after the devastating US assault, our correspondent enters besieged Iraqi city left without clean water, electricity and medicine

By Patrick Cockburn

Monday, 28 January 2008

Fallujah is more difficult to enter than any city in the world. On the road from Baghdad I counted 27 checkpoints, all manned by well-armed soldiers and police. “The siege is total,” says Dr Kamal in Fallujah Hospital as he grimly lists his needs, which include everything from drugs and oxygen to electricity and clean water.

The last time I tried to drive to Fallujah, several years ago, I was caught in the ambush of an American fuel convoy and had to crawl out of the car and lie beside the road with the driver while US soldiers and guerrillas exchanged gunfire. The road is now much safer but nobody is allowed to enter Fallujah who does not come from there and can prove it through elaborate identity documents. The city has been sealed off since November 2004 when United States Marines stormed it in an attack that left much of the city in ruins.

In The Things They Carried, a compelling condemnation of war every American should read, Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien describes the physical and psychological burdens young American soldiers had to carry for 365 days and nights, through the rice paddies and hamlets of a foreign land 10,000 miles from home, haunted by the knowledge that sudden and violent death might be just one heartbeat away. . .    

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.  Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.  They carried shameful memories.  They carried the common secret of cowardice . . . Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Because refusing to kill other human beings would have been so embarrassing, 50,000 young Americans went off to boot camp and came back in body bags from the Ia Drang Valley, the Central Highlands, the streets of Hue, or a sandbagged bunker at Khe Sanh.  The killing went on and on, because losing that shameful war was a consequence politicians in Washington wanted to avoid as long as possible.  Sitting in their plush offices, they concluded that 50,000 slaughtered Americans and 2,000,000 slaughtered Vietnamese was a bargain basement price to pay for Peace With Honor.

America’s shameful occupation of Iraq is being prolonged by politicians in Washington with the same craven disregard for the sanctity of human life.  Instead of Impeaching the criminals responsible for five years of war crimes, they deny the harsh realities staring them in the face, and tell America “uplifting” war stories about that “heroic battle against terrorism” they sent the sons and daughters of other people off to fight in a country where 40 percent of the world’s oil just happens to be, instead of in Afghanistan and Pakistan where all the terrorists are.                    

Tim O’Brien doesn’t tell uplifting war stories.  There is nothing uplifting about human beings killing each other so politicians can parade around as patriots and war profiteers can get rich . . .  

If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.