FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES

I heard something that truly startled me the other day. I heard that soldiers in the Iraqi army, including those on our side, routinely have homosexual sex with each other, and that the practice is accepted and common. They even have a saying, "Women are for children but men are for pleasure." I do not write this for shock value, if that even has shock value, I am not really sure. I write it because it seems to me a poignant way to illustrate what I believe may be a fundamental misconception inherent in the American presence and plan in Iraq.
My point is this: Iraqis are DIFFERENT from Americans. Can you imagine something like this being allowed in our country? If you can, I think we may have been living in different Americas these last few years. If these differences run to things as basic as sexual behavior and the morality surrounding it, what other fundamental differences exist that separate us from them?
We seem to be laboring under the absurd fantasy in this country that underneath every person on earth there is a liberal democratic statesman waiting to get out. It is one thing to hold that as an ideal. It is morally irresponsible to fight a war based on that assumption, when every historical analysis shows the opposite. In the way that Karl Marx thought a communist revolution must begin with the people, any attempt to "impose" democracy is doomed to failure.
A democratic government is the people, ideally representative of the will of the people. So, when the people are as fractured as the people as Iraq, the division and instability will inevitably follow in the government. They are divided by race, divided by religion, and divided by a history of hundreds of years of warfare. How arrogant of us to think that we can end that by enforcing a system of government that, by its very nature, allows people to do what they want. Indeed, it offers them the means of legitimizing their violent behavior by attaching it to an official government.
The only way to avoid these problems in the new government is for us to maintain an armed presence in Iraq for a long-term period. That we will not leave Iraq quickly has been obvious for years. I am disgusted by what we, as a people, have allowed. I am truly shamed at this moment to be a part of it.

OGW

THE PROBLEM IS THE PROCESS!!! -----

I was watching "The Daily Show" last night and they had a segment where they went through and highlighted the many inconsistnecies and hypocricies the Bush administration has perpetrated since 2000. I was struck in particular by a number of pairings of news segments in which Bush said, direct from his own mouth, totally incompatible statements. For example, they had a clip of him in 2001 saying "Finding Osama Bin Laden is my number one priority", then of his in 2005 saying "I don't care where he is. That is not a concern of mine at all." There were an unbelievably large number of these sorts of statements.
Just when I was starting to feel that familiar anger at the Bush camp that has sustained me through much of the last five years, I was struck by the fact that I was watching the most insightful, best designed piece of news I had seen in that same period -- AND IT WAS ON A FAKE NEWS SHOW! These pieces of tape are not secret! It is not some incredible investigative journalism by the Daily show that uncovered this footage. These statements were all made on national news programs, and the footage is available for anyone who cares to put it together. Why have the "legitimate" news shows not done so?
My only conclusion is that everyone in power, including the major news networks, has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. What that interest is, I cannot really figure. But, there is simply no other explanation for the manner in which the Bush administration's blatant disregard for facts has been consistently ignored by the mainstream media. More reflections on this in a future update.

--OGW

THE PRICE OF WAR!

I have been thinking on many of the things that have happened since the start of this war, and I have come to one conclusion that I am fairly certain of. The conclusion is that there are certain necessary costs that must be paid in waging war, such as the human rights violations that have occurred in the last two years in Iraq. Pillage, Abuse, and even Torture will inevitably result from the waging of war. Period. Countless historical examples have proven and reproven this fact. However, instead of acknowledging this fact in the modern era, we persist in promoting an impossible and ambivalent attitude in our soldiers and our people. They are taught to treat with human dignity those same people they are sent to kill.
The truth is that that message, that unmanageable duality, is intended more for the people at home than the people abroad. It matters very much how war is perceived by the People, but very little how it is waged by the soldiers in the field. They cannot be decieved, but their opinions and their suffering count for almost nothing in the political arena. Fortunately for those in power, those who vote need not understand those who fight.
So Abuse and Suffering is the natural and inevitable consequence of waging war. If that is true, then the question of whetner to wage war is no longer so simple. We must ask whether the expected gain outweighs the cost. After al the careful consideration I can hope to give it, I must protest that our current war is not worth it. Not at all.

OGW

I was sitting in the car yesterday listening to what I am sure is my ten thousandth plus commercial that is trying to raise money for hurricaine relief. My first thought was pride at how well we are able to come together in times of crisis. But then I thought two things.
First I thought of the number of places in the world that have experienced the level of destruction that the gulf coast has. There are a fair number of such places that spring to mind. The areas in South East Asia, for example, whose fundraising commercials I remembered being all over the radio a few months before. Then I thought of some other areas that did not have any fund-raising commercials. Iraq. Afghanistan. The level of destruction wrought on these places is almost as severe as the aftermath of a hurricaine, the death toll far higher.
This lack of active compassion for places torn by war instead of by a natural disaster is the second thing I thought of in the car yesterday. It seems to me that the opposite should be true. After all, it is no secret that hurricaines, even very destructive hurricaines, are not all too uncommon on the Gulf Coast. That is, there may be some implied risk in a decision to live there. And while I recognize that many New Orleans residents had no means to live elsewhere, many did. And our aid and our empathy are given to both equally.
In war-torn countries, however, no natural disaster caused the destruction. Instead, we simply allowed our behavior to degrade it so thoroughly that it became uninhabitable! And yet we dig deeper into our pockets to help people hurt through no fault of our own!