I’m one of those reflexive anti-war guys, the type with one answer for everything. Stop the war. Bring the troops home from Iraq. Right now. Bring’em home from Afghanistan, too, and if you ask me, it’s high time that the US ends its brutal occupation of North America, as well. When confronted with the notion that the immediate departure of all US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan could lead to chaos, I’ll respond that whatever happens next couldn’t be any worse than if we remain. What if the various sides in Iraq start going at it? Doesn’t America bear some responsibility? ‘Yes,’ I say, but the single solution is to bring home all troops.
I never quite grasped how annoying I must sound until I listened to the participants in yesterday’s Tea Party nonsense, thousands of opportunistic dimwits proclaiming that immediate lowering of taxes will save the economy, restore America to greatness, and cure cancer as well. Why not throw that one in? It’s not about meaningful debate, presenting evidence for one’s ideas, a little helpful give-and-take. No. It’s all about building a movement on pixie dust that will advance a few political careers. Today, we have two economic realities. Obama is perfectly correct when he says that the worst thing you can do in a recession is stop spending. People complain that Obama wants us to spend our way out of this recession. Well, that’s how it’s done. It will work, and it already is showing signs of working. However, the other reality is that the projected deficit is much larger than it has ever been. Such a deficit is perilous and unprecedented in this country.
It would be great to see some serious dialogue between the parties and see if we can’t bring some of that spending in line. Therefore, it’s especially sad that the Republican Party is dominated by loudmouth quacks that simply say no to everything, by secessionists (Yes, the governor of Texas actually suggested such a notion at a rally yesterday), and by anti-gay activists. The Republican ideas that have been brought to the table so far are every bit as perilous and shortsighted as my own pet notion: immediate troop withdrawal from the Middle East. We need real ideas, not cynical political posturing.
L. Minnie
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.
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It is refreshing to see that someone can be so diametrically wrong, to the point of absurdity, on the two major political issues of the day. You might as well have demanded the US surrender everything of value immediately to any group of hateful idiots that demands it. Surrender in war makes us safe from people who want us dead? Surrendering our money to a wasteful government makes us richer? You are an idiot.
I’m one of those reflective, thinking anti-war guys who studies a lot about the nature of bullying (witness the comment above by James) and imperialism.
Americans don’t like to think about imperialism. They’ve been brainwashed by our oligarchs to trust that because we haven’t acquired massive foreign territories on the scale of India or Congo that we’re good guys. Facts are not on the side of those who send expeditionary forces across the planet to bully recalcitrant nations to submit to our corporations. We are an empire, a commercial, corporatized and corrupt empire. All one needs do is to read about how much Wall Street is sharing in the burden to pay their fair share back to the society from which their astounding wealth is extracted or how war profiteers are giving back their ‘earnings’ due to patriotism.
Why are we in Iraq? We are there to steal oil. Light sweet crude, the best the planet has to offer. James (above) cannot honestly argue that Iraq posed any threat whatsoever to the U.S. In fact, if he were a better researcher and less vitriolic, he’d learn that Saddam Hussein was first employed by the CIA in 1959, and that in the run-up to Bush 41’s Desert Storm romp, Hussein actually asked our ambassador for permission to invade Kuwait. The response was “we have no opinion on Arab-on-Arab conflicts”. And then George Bush Sr. double-crossed Saddam and set the course for his son’s invasion of (did I mention the oil?) Iraq.
One of the really galling things about attending the recent “Tea Party” at Troy Field was that I heard an earful about earmarks (less than 1% of the federal budget), but not one word about stopping the insane waste perpetrated by our war machine, about 50% of the discretionary budget. How deeply ironic that Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, is more concerned about the waste in the DoD than the people driven to the Tea Party by boob tube talking heads. If these tea party types were sincere, they’d be delighting, along with Libertarian Ron Paul, at the notion of saving taxes by reeling in our out-of-control empire. 750 admitted bases in 130 foreign nations sounds absurd doesn’t it? Especially in a recession. Unless,of course you are Exxon-Mobil and you’ve externalized your security costs to the American taxpayer and figured out how to play the public for brainwashed and bamboozled chumps.
I just wish the Tea Party people could do math. If they eliminated 100% of earmarks, they’d accomplish nothing. If they eliminated a mere 50% of our spending on war, conquest and slaughter, we’d have a budget surplus. Go figure…. I have.