Tag Archives: taliban

Political Rants

Stuff and nonsense.

Just a few short takes this week. I’ve got a splitter of a headache – one of those neck and shoulder jobs. So my concentration is a bit compromised, but here goes.

Again-and-againistan. That Rolling Stone reporter who wrote the recent article on Gen. McChrystal has drawn a lot of criticism from various mainstream corporate press mavens. No surprise there. They are so obsessed with covering the ball-game stories – the ins and outs of policy making, careers, and personalities – that they neglect to examine these stupid wars that have been dragging on year after year. How closely have any of them scrutinized the rationale behind this policy?

Why the hell are we in Afghanistan? Our leaders say it’s to disrupt and destroy Al Qaeda so that they cannot plan new attacks on us. But to the extent that people like Osama Bin Laden are involved in operational planning for global terror attacks, all he and his pals need is a room (or a cave, but I suspect a room) big enough for a white board. Can anyone claim that we have denied him that in nearly nine years of war? Did our drones stop the Times Square bomber? (Fact is, they helped push him over the edge.) Where’s the story on that, kids?

No settlement. Despite Netanyahu’s fence-mending visit to the White House, there is no light at the end of the Israel/Palestine tunnel. His government is still strangling Gaza, still encroaching on more and more of the West Bank (in spite of the so-called settlement “freeze”, which is so conditional as to be meaningless). Old Bibi, like so many Israeli leaders, is beholden to the Frankenstein-like settlement movement that is a political lynchpin of his ruling coalition. Even if he wanted to close the settlements, he couldn’t (and trust me, he doesn’t want to). So the suffering goes on, and we keep underwriting it.

Gusher that keeps on giving. It’s been more than 70 days since BP blew a hole in the Earth, and the hemorrhaging continues. Do you sense a pattern here? Crises that never seem to end. This is a bad one. And yet, we shouldn’t pretend as though all of this oil, gas, and dispersant is spewing into a pristine Gulf ecosystem. According to the Coast Guard, millions of gallons of oil routinely spill into the Gulf every year – something like an Exxon Valdez size spill every three or four years for the past decade. Big as this blowout is, our problem is bigger than that. Let’s make the solution bigger, too. 

That’s all I’ve got. Bed time.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

War fog.

Big story this week about Afghanistan. In fact, a remarkably big story. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed by that flap over the ambitious general, McChrystal, who I can only think must have been very tired of his posting. (What the hell – not enough detainees to abuse, like in Iraq?) Far more interesting than this tawdry act of insubordination was the release of a congressional report confirming Aram Roston’s story in The Nation some months ago that detailed how our military resupply operations are actually generating a revenue stream for the Taliban, through bribery (the basic system of exchange in Afghanistan). Forget about the personalities involved here. We are, in essence, arming both sides. Shouldn’t this be of greater concern? Hello?

Most of the reporting on Afghanistan – the Rolling Stone article included – includes a kind of embedded imperial perspective. There’s an underlying assumption that we should be in Afghanistan, that there is some legitimacy to our enterprise there, and that it’s largely a matter of getting it right. This attitude is a formula for remaining in that country for the rest of any of our lives (particularly with respect to anyone who is sent to fight there). Unfortunately, our foreign policy is driven by domestic politics and the need for leaders to act “tough” and project an image of American exceptionalism. That is what makes generals like McChrystal so attractive to our leaders and the mass media that fawn on them (until they say the wrong thing).

Some talking heads have expressed gratification that McChrystal’s criticisms were mostly about personalities, not the actual strategy. This is good news? So what we’re doing over there is right, or “working” even? Here’s the strategy we need, in three words: Get. Out. Now. Not sure how ambitious a general you need to implement that one. As George McGovern once said, the best way of doing that is to put the troops onto trucks and head for the border.

Job Security. I see that the Senate has blocked any action on unemployment benefits and extended medical insurance to those millions without work. Once again, the tyranny of the minority is somehow keeping us from doing the right thing. What will it take to get the Democratic leadership to face off with the GOP on their perpetual filibuster strategy? Are we going to simply accept that it takes 60 votes in the already undemocratic senate to pass anything? What the fuck – people are hurting, damn it. Time to call your congressmember and Senators and tell them to push this through even if it means depriving Ben Nelson of his hair hat.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Payback.

Kind of unfocused this week with all that’s going on, so I’m going to resort once again to brief rants on various topics. Bear with me, friends – I promise to keep the lid of my head on.

The Commission. I understand Congress’s reluctance to deal with difficult issues like raising taxes, cutting popular programs, etc. That is, however, the main reason why they have been sent to Washington D.C. – to decide where the money for the federal government comes from and where it goes. If they are unable to grapple with these issues, they might consider applying for jobs at the corporations that paid for their campaigns. What  irks me about the deficit reduction commission, aside from the participation of paleocons like Alan Simpson, is that they are not directly accountable to the electorate. Even more than that, commissions are usually mustered to do particularly dirty work, like cutting or privatizing Social Security to save a few bucks.

Let’s look at this for what it is. The last administration recklessly cut taxes on rich people, not once but twice, and invaded no less than two countries. We can argue about whether or not Afghanistan should have happened (I think not), but Iraq was and remains a total, utter waste of lives and resources. The hole in our national finances is largely due to these elements, and if someone recommends we pay for criminal negligence such as this by cutting benefits to elderly people of limited means, that’s a non-starter.

Death and Texas. Jesus christmas. No one likes paying taxes, or going to the dentist, or taking exams, or eating their Maypo (well…. almost nobody), but this software executive in Texas who flew his plane into an IRS building should have taken an anger management seminar or something stronger.

Number Two. Our partners in war, the Pakistani intelligence services and military, have captured the Taliban’s second in command. I imagine someone will take his place, right? Whatever intelligence value he may offer, he certainly can’t tell us what we most urgently need to know – namely, what the hell are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and when the hell, with 8 years of war and counting, are we going to get out? Seems as though we’ve made the Afghans pay quite enough for 9/11, an attack planned by non-state actors whose initial funding in the 1980s came from us. And with all the civilian casualties we’re causing on both sides of the border, I imagine they’ll have no trouble filling that number 2 spot.

luv u,

jp