Forgive me, as it was a long time ago, but in my 11th grade year I had, for some period of time a teacher named Mr. Souder (forgive the spelling too!). He was a way leftie, as I recall his area of research; how labor unions prevented a socialist revolution from happening in the United States. He was also proud of telling us that our parents and teachers have sex. For the life of me I cannot recall why this is important, but I digress - this is my blog after all.

Among many things he taught me; he would go on and on about the multi-generational impact war has on a society. It struck me at the time that this had little to do with me, I am not sure of a Tableman who has ever been in the military, for that matter anyone within a couple generations in any direction. You will find untold numbers of professionals, not much else.

Interesting question I need to ask my parents, why did my grandfathers never serve, they would be the right ages - again a digression.

War not only deprives us of financial resources, maims - mentally and physically - our citizens and the citizens of the nations we wage war against, we are deprived of the lives of those that die in the war along with all of their potential progeny. Think about this for a moment. It is as if you cut off a branch of a tree. The now detached branch will never bloom and fruit. We are potentially removing from our midst inventors, scholars, activists, hard-working-middle-class-aspiring-individuals, farmers, computer scientists, patent holders, bakers, chefs, strippers…you get the idea. But WAIT, it is not just the single individual, it is as if we lost hundreds more! In 40 year from now, we will be deprived of about 30000 people! That is the size of a medium American town.

I share this from the “celebration” of 4000 dead:

Specialist King. From his April 2, 2007, journal entry: “People used to say to me before coming here, ‘Ryen don’t try to be a hero, just make it home safe.’ I thought to myself that there are only heroes in wars that matter, but now I’m thinking that there were heroes when wars mattered…”

We have so much to learn from this and I have so little hope we will.

I copy this directly from the pages of WikiPedia:

Reinforcing the relative decline in U.S. power and the dissatisfaction of Europe and Japan with the system was the continuing decline of the dollar—the foundation that had underpinned the post-1945 global trading system. The Vietnam War and the refusal of the administration of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to pay for it and its Great Society programs through taxation resulted in an increased dollar outflow to pay for the military expenditures and rampant inflation, which led to the deterioration of the U.S. balance of trade position. In the late 1960s, the dollar was overvalued with its current trading position, while the Deutsche Mark and the yen were undervalued; and, naturally, the Germans and the Japanese had no desire to revalue and thereby make their exports more expensive, whereas the U.S. sought to maintain its international credibility by avoiding devaluation. Meanwhile, the pressure on government reserves was intensified by the new international currency markets, with their vast pools of speculative capital moving around in search of quick profits.

Let me make it clearer: Viet Nam = Iraq/GWOT, Mark = Euro, Great Society = Economic Stimulus, Shitty Dollar and declining American Esteem = Shitty Dollar and declining American Esteem

I have an RSS feed to my desktop of newly published Rand reports. I tend to read the summaries instead of the long studies, as even a student of the world doesn’t need to know the detail invovled in 700 pages treatises on a particular subject.

The report cited in the title, War by Other Means — Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency, is typical of Rand works: a wonderful read. I give you this quote as proof:

Information resourcefully gathered, widely shared, and wisely used can engender healthy pluralism and expand the awareness and options of individuals. It can be used to pry apart local insurgency and global jihad, improve operational decision making, and sharpen the precision and effectiveness of force. When seen and treated as a strategic asset, information power can help redefine the struggle with Islamic extremism from one of spiraling violence to one of competing truth, from a self-perpetuating war of attrition to a winnable war of cognition.

I only worry that the ideal of pluralism sponsored from information is a very “western” ideal and doesn’t jive with how Islamic societies seem to function. The need to pray 5 times a day, and in particular how the prayers come up on the TV and people drop to the ground quickly 5 times a day feels very big brother like. I have no real direct proof of this, but the homogeneity of at least subsets of Muslim peoples is driven by Islam itself, or perhaps the current rightist inclination of Islam. This translates into a lack of a desire for plurality. Think Catholic controlled medieval Europe.

Next, I hope all the neo-con idiots read this one:

The greatest weakness in the struggle with Islamic insurgency is not U.S. firepower but the ineptitude and illegitimacy of the very regimes that are meant to be the alternative to religious tyranny—the ones tagged and targeted as Western puppets by jihad. Success thus hinges on improving the performance and accountability of governments in the Muslim world.

Got it yet? Just like in Latin America, supporting the government that likes us is NEVER in our best long term interests. Supporting a government that supports the people, that certainly is.

Hope is defined as ‘a wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.’

It is not clear to me how the ugliest and most wasteful vehicle ever made, one that goes against every reasonable trend in the world, is the root cause of why we are fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and funds terrorism by funneling our dollars to Arab extremists is in anyway shape or form resembling any kind of hope. However, Hummer believes I am wrong.

And best of all, there are people out there who think they are doing a good thing by being hyperconsuptive and supporting terrorism.

Did it ever occur to these dim witted Hummer owners that the disasters they are helping us with have been caused by sprawl that most of them live in and the CO2 emissions of their hyper consumptive lifestyles?

Just pathetic and disgusting.

As you might be reading about our President’s recent speech in which he continues to show his detachment from reality.

From the Wash Post:

Historian Robert Dallek, who has written about the comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam, accused Bush of twisting history. ‘It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president,’ he said in a telephone interview.

‘We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,’ he said.

‘What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,’ he continued. ‘We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.‘ (em added)

Bingo. Once again. We on the left were correct. ‘Nuf said.

HAHAHAHA - Do a little dance, we were right:

After offering a bleak assessment of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq, Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said today that he was urging lawmakers and President Bush to change course quickly to protect a further erosion of America’s standing in the world.

It was only a matter of time before the cripple wounded made this just like Viet Nam. Thank you modern medicine, because of you Americas mistakes are even more numerous and walking into our grocery stores, churches, and right in the faces of the people who supported this boondoggle.

Now if we can only feel the backlash in middle America. If only. Who dares to call themselves a neo-con now? Creative destruction anyone? What a freakin’ mess.

All done on Jesus’ watch too. Thank you religious zealots in Alabama. Thank you for this chance to once again prove intellegence and education will win out over you backwards ways. What was that about “them uppity northerns bettah stop comings downs here ands treatins us like some kind of anthramapology experiment?” What way my reply? “Stop acting like protohumans and there will be nothing to study!”

I guess that “I’d rather have a beer with Bush” sentiment now includes a beer with Bush and an artificial leg and PTSD.

And before you think I am not sympathetic to people who are hurt in war, this is not personal, this is politics. I feel really badly for these people, they were consumed by a machine that doesn’t give a fuck about them and to make it more onerous (entailing obligations that exceed advantages) the machine duped them into thinking this was their patriotic duty.

Listening to the verdict made me laugh, G-d Bless America, please we need every blessing we can get.

Libby obstructed justice, committed perjury and made false statements when he told FBI agents and the grand jury investigating the leak that he had possessed no official knowledge

I appears that Libby is the fall guy for the corrupt ways of the Vice President. Is anyone shocked? I am not even a little shocked. We will find out slowly but certainly, over many years, the level of corruption of this White House.

Ambassador Wilson stated it best

…it’s a very sad day when a senior public servant is convicted of crimes, particularly the crime of obstructing justice because, after all, defending the Constitution of the United States is one of the obligations of a public servant.

Ah, ambassadors, they know how to say it like it is…

G-d Bless Rand:

President George W. Bush’s most recent address to the American people on Iraq may be the scariest presidential message since Ronald Reagan announced that he had launched a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Reagan was just kidding. Bush is not.

Immediate reaction to the president’s speech has focused on the intended increase in the U.S. troop commitment to Baghdad. However, the greatest danger posed by the Bush plan is not that of horizontal escalation in Iraq, but of vertical escalation throughout the surrounding region.

This is going to be fun to watch unfold. Add these comments to those of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The terrible and still unprecedented destructive power of nuclear weapons led Albert Einstein to observe, “With nuclear weapons, everything has changed, save our way of thinking.” As we stand at the brink of a second nuclear age and at the onset of an era of unprecedented climate change, our way of thinking about the uses and control of technologies must change to prevent unspeakable destruction and future human suffering.

and

[Scientists] warn that the consequences could drastically alter both the planet and human life. Already, ice packs in Greenland are rapidly disappearing, which, in turn, threatens the existence of hundreds of species such as polar bears and the traditions of whole societies such as the Inuit. The future looks even bleaker, as scientists continue to observe cascading effects on Earth’s complex ecosystems.

Nothing to say on this, I just wonder who is listening and what can I do?

But it kind of sucks too. I just did a quick lunchtime read of the The Iraq Study Report and the situation is not looking too good for Iraq. I wish I could say I was amused, even sarcastically bemused, at the smug sense I get while reading. Everything those of us on my side of the war debate have been saying for years is 100% justified - no make that 100% correct. We win. HA HA. Ok that is enough, because almost a million people are dead, wounded, and crippled.

There are 4 key parts to the report that I want to highlight:

• The insistences on the need for broad ranging diplomatic consensus. Thank you for telling us something we didn’t already know, or should I say, have been saying for YEARS.
• As noted just about everywhere, James Baker is not a Jewophile. Recall him saying: “Fuck the Jews. They don’t vote for us anyway.” No, you do not recall that? This will help.
• The mention of Israel and Syria is, in my opinion, appropriate, however, you have to keep Baker’s love for Jews in mind and read the conditions carefully. Syria would basically have to cease to exists as it does today - stop being a pain in Lebanon, stop smuggling arms into Iraq, stop being a pain to Israel. After a page of “only ifs” then you get to the point that Israel should give up the Golan. There are 2 major reasons for Israel to keep it: military importance and water. (I will dismiss the Zionists reasons for keeping it, for now.) If Syria is a friend, maybe the military importance diminishes. Water, on the other hand, is in short supply over there. It would benefit all those involved to start to own up to the major role water rights play in the region.
• The mention of a need to bipartisanship from these people is simply offensive.

Keep these items in mind as you read yourself into a rage.

Recall, I wan entranced by the Golan Heights. On my next trip to Israel I plan to spend a lot more time up there. In the news today, the release of the Iraq Study Report (I am printing it now) comes this novel idea:

Special panel …which looked into situation in Iraq and Middle East, rules that ‘in the context of a full and secure peace agreement, the Israelis should return the Golan Heights’

I am saddened. This area is spectacular. Go there while you can. But, I tell you, this will not happen with out a fight, on all levels. The Syrians deserve nothing, and I will not as much as hold a door open for one now, let along when this goes down.