When playing the game of checkers, surrendering one piece to set up a subsequent double or triple jump may be well worth the sacrifice, remembering that losing a battle sometimes sets the stage for winning the war.
The Republicans had to be cognizant that the party that “won” the Oval Office in 2009-2013 would be holding onto the equivalent of a sack filled with animal droppings and an activated hand grenade. They may well have calculated that no matter which party occupied the White House during the current term, there was a significant likelihood that the opposing party would prevail in 2012, and perhaps more importantly, the party controlling the Executive Branch in 2012 could be well-positioned to retain that power for quite some time to follow.
We all strive to know what is on the other side of the fence.
That`s all good, but we often overlook the fence itself.
Sometimes preventative measures are for our own good, such as the feeling of security when holding onto the railing on a balcony forty stories up.
So today I stopped to admire a gate, expressly there to keep me from what is beyond it.
I never gave any thought to anything but the gate.
Tonight`s distractions are just that.
A gate to stop you for a moment without an inkling of what is beyond each image.
A time to stop & reflect, without the prism of some of the disconcerting events that have transpired this week.
Peace
For more than twenty years I`ve always admired this gate.
I`ve meant to stop & look at it numerous times but I only see it whip by my peripheral
vision as I traverse the canyon from the ocean to the valley over the coastal range.
Today I made a point to stop & take a few shots to show the quality of the work, a testament to it`s longevity.
Now, I`ve been beyond these gates many years ago, but I believe it would be wrong to divulge what I saw.
It is simply out of respect for the privacy implied by the fact there is a gate in the first place. Suffice it to say it`s simply beautiful & the entry road goes on for more than a mile.
So we’re still asked to believe the only reason we are in Afghanistan is because of terrorism, specifically because of 9/11 and the threat that it could happen again, only worse, if we don’t eradicate the menace. President Obama’s justification to American citizens for an escalation of troops in Afghanistan, delivered from West Point, was based solely on the threat of terrorism. His speech had nothing to do with Russia or China, with permanent military bases and huge embassies, with pipelines for oil and natural gas, or with opium and the money it brings and havoc it reeks. According to Obama, we are in Afghanistan to eradicate our number one enemy Al Qaida, while keeping the Taliban from gaining power. This effort, years, perhaps decades in the making and billions, perhaps trillions of dollars in costs, will keep Americans safe and free to stand in umemployment lines without fear of a nuclear bomb going off in a suitcase next to them.
According to President Obama, as with President Bush before him, the number one reason we are in Afghanistan is because “our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
President Obama is convinced our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That’s the reason for the escalation. Our security is at stake. And to be sure we realize that, the nuclear bombs of Pakistan have been brought into the equation. Everyone knows that Pakistan is falling into hell in a handbasket and it wouldn’t take much for one of those bombs to fall into the hands of, you guessed it, Al Qaida.
Ah, Jesus. I had to live through the Cold War era as a kid in the fifties and early sixties. I remember clearly the threats of the mushroom cloud going off while we hid under our school desks. The evil communists were out to kill us so we needed more submarines and aircraft carriers. We were given lessons from our government on what to do in case of attack.
The game plan hasn’t changed, only the players.
But is that all, Mr. President? Is that the only reason we are fighting a war, or as some would say, maintaining an occupation in Afghanistan?
Approximately two thirds into President Obama’s speech, he made what I thought was the most accurate statement of the evening.
“And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I do not have the luxury of committing to just one. Indeed, I am mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who – in discussing our national security -said, “Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.”
At first, it sounded like President Obama was indeed focusing on just one challenge, to keep America safe from future attacks on American soil by Al Qaida as supported by the Taliban. But then he made that statement and it all made sense. We have many national programs and he must maintain balance among them.
So what are those national programs Mr. President? Do they have anything to do with pipelines? Do they have anything to do with maintaining a significant military presence in Eurasia in order to contain the rise of China and Russia? Do they have anything to do with the control of the Afghanistan opium crops to supply off the books money to the CIA and create stoned populations in Eastern Europe? Do they have anything to do with creating a destabalized Pakistan so U.S. interests can intervene and attempt control over India/Pakistan/China relations? Do they have anything to do with Iran? Nothing of this sort was mentioned, only terrorism.
Imperialism is as old as human civilization. “Yet, an interesting aspect of imperialism is that empires, both ancient and modern, have also tended to regard themselves as spreading order, morality, the true religion and civilization, and have even claimed to occupy the high moral ground.” (New World Encyclopedia).
That sounds quite similar to the United States and it’s supposed spreading of democracy and freedom. But in the end it’s all about power. Someone has to be on the top of the hill and in the stage of human civilization we current reside, the U.S. is, albeit tenuously, still at the top.
President Obama was as disingenous as President Bush in his West Point speech. His rationale to the country for an escalation in war was poor at best. There is no transparency when it comes to war. The reasons are well hidden and cloaked in the daggers of fear. An imperialist nation can’t very well say any different. The reasons for it’s actions can’t be recognized for what they are, they must be explained in a manner the public will accept. The public can’t acknowledge the Big Lie.
President Obama said, “Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.”
Is that it Mr. President? Is that the only reason we’re in Afghanistan?
In what is being hailed as the first journey of its kind, a pair of Brits rowed 7,000 miles from Chiba to San Francisco in a 26-foot-long boat. The journey took six months. Though the men wanted to accomplish the feat unassisted, they ran out of food 100 miles from their destination and had to accept provisions dropped from a helicopter. Pussies.
LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki suffered minor injuries when he slammed into a fellow cyclist while out biking along the Tama River in the Tokyo suburb of Akishima.
The Miyazaki Prefectural Government inked an agreement with Nissan to create a network of charging stations for electric vehicles.
It was reported that the Tokyo Metro is exploring a merger with Toei subway.
A United Airlines jet flying from Beijing to Chicago was forced to make an emergency landing at Narita Airport after developing engine trouble two-and-a-half hours into its route.
Two Japanese submarines scuttled by the US Navy shortly after the end of World War II were found resting 3,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific south of Pearl Harbor.
Do you remember the laughter when wingnuts started talking about “purity tests”?
How big of a failure was this? Big enough that Faux News reported that even conservative pundits, much less some of the their politicians, thought it was a bad idea. Let’s not forget about NY-23, where the wingnut “purists” lost the GOP an election that any Republican candidate should have won handily.
The idea of “purity of Party” simply for the political Party’s sake is one big epic fail.
In the Spring of of 2009, at the urging of the United States Government, Pakistan’s military began a series of large scale assaults within its own borders against Taliban insurgents. These continuing operations have resulted in a total internal displacement of over 3 million Pakistanis, with an estimated 1.25 million of these currently still facing the arriving winter as homeless refugees in their own country.
The ongoing wave of displacement in Pakistan is the single largest population movement recorded in the country since it was created in 1947. Under pressure to tackle the militancy which has taken root in the country, the government has launched successive military offensives in the past months across several districts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), including Swat, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), including Mohmand, Bajaur, and South Waziristan.
In early July 2009 there were between 2.7 and 3.5 million IDPs in NWFP alone, and 30 camps were operating across the Province. However, most were anxious to return to their home areas as soon as fighting had moved on, and in November the UN estimated around 1.25 million people were still displaced.
The ostensible reason for the large scale military operations in these border regions is to destroy the Taliban. That goal has yet to be achieved. What has been achieved is an humanitarian crisis of the first magnitude.
Just two days after announcing the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama held a jobs summit:
With unemployment levels above 10 percent, Obama said “We cannot hang back and hope for the best.”
But, mindful of growing anxiety about federal deficits, Obama also tempered his upbeat talk with an acknowledgment that government resources could only go so far and that it is primarily up to the private sector to create large numbers of new jobs.
He said while he’s “open to every demonstrably good idea … we also though have to face the fact that our resources are limited.”
Beyond the question of why a Democratic president is giving lip service to deficit hawks at a moment that screams for more Keynesian stimulus, the real question is this: why is it that we have to endure nearly a year of grueling political games just to get a weak, watered down health care bill that we have been told, all along, has to be deficit-neutral, yet no one bats an eye at throwing tens of billions more each year into wars?
I think the thing that fascinate me the most is the solemn and evangelical need for Americans to “be born yesterday”. This naivite is beautifully portrayed by Mark Twain and it continues to this day. That’s why it is so easy to fool Americans. I remember when I lived in Florence, Italy I knew some hustlers, mainly Papagalli or gigolos (I have a penchant for always associating with “low” companions) who told me that the stupidest people in the world and the easiest marks were the Americans by a long shot. People from other countries knew the score, knew what they wanted and got on with it. But Americans were clueless in the eyes of these professionals and wanted to be fooled.
So it’s no surprise that we have entire institutions built to convince us that we need to pull the wool over our own eyes. So the propaganda organs (and they are entirely that–I see no difference between Pravda of several decades ago and say NYT except that Pravda stories were better written. There is a party line in the U.S. media and there’s are pretend conflicts that resemble professional wrestling but no real fundamental political differences are ever seen in the official press.
