Tag Archives: war

Political Rants

Peace train.

My brother Matt was complaining about NPR today. I guess they were talking to one of the fifty generals they have on tap; a guy named General Mills. (“What the hell, does he command Cap’n Crunch?” said Matt.) We groused about this a bit for the podcast. NPR and PBS have always been heavily freighted with retired generals, like the commercial networks and cable channels. But because they have been erroneously described as “leftist” or somehow associated with an elusive liberal elite, they go overboard to disabuse people of that notion. They fired Soundprint’s Lisa Simeone for her association with Occupy DC, apparently fearing that her defense of the 99% would cloud her journalistic objectivity about opera, which is mostly what she covers. Call them National Paranoid Radio.

I’m thinking about NPR particularly because of the president’s declaration that the Iraq war will be drawn to a close at the end of this year, despite the administration’s efforts to keep it rolling for an indefinite period of deployment. NPR was completely on board with the Iraq war back in 2002-03; they dropped the ball on anything like investigative journalism at a time when it might have mattered to get the truth out. People tend to forget that the alternative press, plus outlets like the London Independent, blew holes in the Bush Administration’s case for war well before the shooting began. Counterpunch, for instance, knocked down Powell’s February 5, 2003 presentation point by point within days of its delivery. Much of what they reported is common knowledge now. NPR – like other mainstream news sources – were nowhere on this.

Now that people are beginning to think of the Iraq war as a done deal, we would do well to remind ourselves that no one – absolutely no one – has been held accountable for this major bloodletting. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice have all barnstormed the country, hawking their memoirs, bragging on their participation in committing the crime of international aggression – the worst of all crimes, per the U.N. charter, since so many smaller crimes are precipitated by it. On the hook with them are some of the nation’s most august news organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and, yes, NPR.

All I’m saying is, with respect to accountability for this historic crime we call the Iraq war, it’s not over until it’s over.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Hors de combat.

I’m not a big fan of the notion that people in custody should be abused, beaten, or killed. Once you have them restrained, if circumstances warrant it, that should be enough. Seeing Gaddafi beaten and bloodied, then expired with a bullet hole in his head was kind of sickening, frankly. Sure, he was an autocratic asshole. But he was also defeated and in custody. If the Libyans are starting their brave new future with extrajudicial killings, it doesn’t sound too promising. But then, I suppose, that would put them in the same league as their sponsors … particularly, us.

It’s been said that the Libya intervention is Iraq done the Obama way. Today kind of underlines that notion a bit. We didn’t get all arrogant about it or act unilaterally. We pushed through a UN resolution – something Bush couldn’t have had and probably wouldn’t have wanted, since his administration was actively trying to sideline the UN. Obama is a true imperial internationalist, and the product of that is the kinds of interventions you see in Kosovo and Libya and the kinds of coups you see in Honduras, as opposed to his predecessor’s far more blustering approach to wars and proxy overthrows. Sure, neither is a fly on Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, or even Reagan when it comes to mass killing. But Obama acts to sustain the empire, not destroy it. Bush apparently couldn’t care less about it.

My main concern is that we appear to be going the way of all empires. We are getting more comfortable with the trappings of imperial adventure. We are, in a sense, getting meaner as a society, more willing to mete out harsh “justice”, more attached to our bloodlust. We are, it’s also worth pointing out, falling apart from the inside out, the very bones of our civilization progressively embrittled by forced divestment and diversion of revenues to the maintenance of foreign wars, occupations, and forward bases. As Yeats wrote (later repurposed by Achebe), “the center cannot hold and things fall apart”. Our devotion to maintaining our neoliberal empire at all costs is driving us into a period of significant decline – one that cannot be ameliorated by the deaths in custody of third-tier dictators.

This is not an inevitable process. It’s a choice, and we can choose otherwise. Up to us. Imagine that.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Occupayback.

Can’t call me a cynic quite yet. The Occupy Wall Street movement seems a very positive development to my jaundiced eye. Hell, there were reportedly 400 people at the rally in Utica. When we brought out more than 200 for the big demo on the eve of the Iraq war, that seemed amazing for a place like this. 400 is practically unheard of. There is a strong undercurrent of resentment about the financial crisis and the fact that virtually none of the large institutions that caused the meltdown have been held to account, just as no executive in any of those firms has faced the threat of prosecution. Nay, they have continued to receive obscene bonuses, showboating their excess as if to flaunt their immunity from the restrictions of either the law or the marketplace. Like Dick Cheney bragging about his support for torture, they seem to be daring us to do something – anything – about their transgressions. You can’t touch me, they laugh.

Well…. maybe we can. There seems to be an overwhelming desire to do so. Not surprising. We’ve seen the result of not holding people accountable. Cheney’s a good example – still on the loose, influencing policy in some fashion. Karl Rove is another one, out raising millions for another crop of right-wing nut jobs. If course, no one has been held to account for the Iraq War, a needless conflict that tore a swath of destruction through an entire nation as well as the military families in America, draining our treasury and putting us at greater risk of attack. Ask any conservative – if you fail to adequately punish lawbreakers, you encourage others to break the law. We have certainly emboldened future presidents to march into any country they care to invade. In fact, Obama already has, without much fanfare or protest.

Some have complained that the Occupy Wall Street movement is too diffuse and disjointed. In a sense, though, that is its strength. There is a general thrust that society is divided between the stark minority with all of the money and the vast majority with financial problems. Within that lies many topics relating to economics, war and peace, freedom of speech, tax justice, etc. Flat, leaderless movements have a kind of strength that the traditional top-down model lacks: it’s easy to corrupt a handful of top dogs. But if the entire nation of Bolivia or Argentina or Greece is out in the street, banging on pots, clogging up the works, it won’t be easily co-opted.

Like the tea party, they’ve gotten their agenda in front of the people. Let’s see if they can keep it there.

luv u,

jp