Monday, April 03, 2006
The Fucking Iraq War
When the cultural infection known as Beetlemania first got a hold on our country, the young members of the Fab Four spoke to the journalists as they got off the plane. 'We are strongly opposed to all war, especially the war in Vietnam. We think about it every day,' John Lennon was supposed to have said.
He was also a man who did not have a problem with the rediculously childish taboo on vulgarity.
His professed daily ponderings haunt me. Even though my own capacity for mass commuication pales exponentially compared to his; am I doing enough? This whole immigration thing popped up and now all of a sudden nobody is talking about Iraq anymore. (Not like all that many people were talking about it before.) I started a rant about Iraq last week, and then never finished it so that I could get diverted by the crusade against fundamentalism. Greater thinkers than myself have been spinning their tires on that hopeless cause for hundreds of years.
Fucking wacko christians are killing dozens every year and seriously damaging the psyche - and thus the quality of spiritual life - in millions others. They prey upon children without remorse, and do more to derail the progress of the women's rights movement and the Ideal of social justice than any other institution. Yet, these specific religions I fight against pre-date my existence by hundreds of years; the destructive trend within them predates civilization by thousands. What's the fucking point? They sure seem to be stronger now than ever. How many of my ideological ancestors merely threw fuel on the fire of their fanaticism? When one of their number does happen to hear the odd criticsm, it just feeds their endless 'persecution' S & M fantasy. Mel fucking Gibson?!? Oh, they're all so fucking persecuted. . .
In Iraq dozen are being murdered every day, and millions live in seriously shitty conditions. Perhaps the only true statement Colin Powell has made in the last twenty years, 'you break it you bought it.' Well, the country that I pridefully claim citizenship in fucking broke it, and now the only stock this man owns be a little tiny share of fucking Iraqi War Inc..
This is what I should be blogging about every day.
Last week I blew a blood vessel on all the obvious bullshit that got us into this war. I got to come clean, when the war did start I had this little thought that, if the small number of dictators in the world who also happen to be sitting on unbelievable quantities of fiercely contested natural resources took a lesson from Saddam - treat your people badly and we'll use that as an excuse to take you out and steal your resources - well, that's gonna be a marginal step towards the improvement of the human species. Hey, I dislike the fact that international law means nothing, but we all know it means nothing. If atrocities are used to justify removing a dictator well that seemed to be a good thing.
Unfortunately, and also un-fucking-believably, the vast majority of Iraqis will tell you that life was way better under Saddam. Now I know that a diminishing percentage of my poor fucking fellow American's think that somehow the media is only focusing on the 'bad' news in Iraq, but shit has got to be a fuck of a lot worse now for anybody to want to go back to the days of rape rooms and genocide. It's worse.
Uncle Saddam was a fucking dictator. His main concern was staying in power, the main concern of most fucking dictators. Sure a few folks got tortured, raped, and murdered either as a mistake or as an example, but most folks who were not concerned with trying to overthrow him (or rise to power in the baath party) did not live in unrelenting fear of his sadistic wrath. He was strong enough to cow the radical elements of Islam (that's why Osama Bin Laden wanted him dead) and enforce a secular society. Iraqi's had a healthcare system most of us in America would envy, women and homosexuals enjoyed a fair amount of tolerance for the middle east.
Now Iraqi's have no Idea who to trust or what not to do. The U.S. occupying force, worried about public reaction to Vietnam-era casualty rates, does not have a quarter of the boots on the ground necessary to secure the peace. In this power vacuum, multiple groups are taking their shot at power emulating the tactics that Uncle Saddam taught them so well in all his decades of fucking oppression. That means daily kidnappings and deathsquad murders. At Salon.com, Riverbend writes a moving piece about the weekly trip to the city morgues. A family member was abducted over a month ago, when will his mutilated body find its way to the tepid chambers of a morgue. Deathsquads are so common, that Iraqi television is warning against capitulating to Iraqi Security Forces which do not contain American Troops - most of the rest are just out there rounding up their racial enemies and torturing them to death.
I'm worn out. I guess I've always accepted this fantasy where anti-war actions like the one's the Beetles took were some how hip and cool back in the sixties. Our species is fascinated by violence (I watched Paul Rogan moderate the IFC in a rerun last night) , those who stand against the tide of patriotic bloodlust must always feel like I feel now. Fuck.
He was also a man who did not have a problem with the rediculously childish taboo on vulgarity.
His professed daily ponderings haunt me. Even though my own capacity for mass commuication pales exponentially compared to his; am I doing enough? This whole immigration thing popped up and now all of a sudden nobody is talking about Iraq anymore. (Not like all that many people were talking about it before.) I started a rant about Iraq last week, and then never finished it so that I could get diverted by the crusade against fundamentalism. Greater thinkers than myself have been spinning their tires on that hopeless cause for hundreds of years.
Fucking wacko christians are killing dozens every year and seriously damaging the psyche - and thus the quality of spiritual life - in millions others. They prey upon children without remorse, and do more to derail the progress of the women's rights movement and the Ideal of social justice than any other institution. Yet, these specific religions I fight against pre-date my existence by hundreds of years; the destructive trend within them predates civilization by thousands. What's the fucking point? They sure seem to be stronger now than ever. How many of my ideological ancestors merely threw fuel on the fire of their fanaticism? When one of their number does happen to hear the odd criticsm, it just feeds their endless 'persecution' S & M fantasy. Mel fucking Gibson?!? Oh, they're all so fucking persecuted. . .
In Iraq dozen are being murdered every day, and millions live in seriously shitty conditions. Perhaps the only true statement Colin Powell has made in the last twenty years, 'you break it you bought it.' Well, the country that I pridefully claim citizenship in fucking broke it, and now the only stock this man owns be a little tiny share of fucking Iraqi War Inc..
This is what I should be blogging about every day.
Last week I blew a blood vessel on all the obvious bullshit that got us into this war. I got to come clean, when the war did start I had this little thought that, if the small number of dictators in the world who also happen to be sitting on unbelievable quantities of fiercely contested natural resources took a lesson from Saddam - treat your people badly and we'll use that as an excuse to take you out and steal your resources - well, that's gonna be a marginal step towards the improvement of the human species. Hey, I dislike the fact that international law means nothing, but we all know it means nothing. If atrocities are used to justify removing a dictator well that seemed to be a good thing.
Unfortunately, and also un-fucking-believably, the vast majority of Iraqis will tell you that life was way better under Saddam. Now I know that a diminishing percentage of my poor fucking fellow American's think that somehow the media is only focusing on the 'bad' news in Iraq, but shit has got to be a fuck of a lot worse now for anybody to want to go back to the days of rape rooms and genocide. It's worse.
Uncle Saddam was a fucking dictator. His main concern was staying in power, the main concern of most fucking dictators. Sure a few folks got tortured, raped, and murdered either as a mistake or as an example, but most folks who were not concerned with trying to overthrow him (or rise to power in the baath party) did not live in unrelenting fear of his sadistic wrath. He was strong enough to cow the radical elements of Islam (that's why Osama Bin Laden wanted him dead) and enforce a secular society. Iraqi's had a healthcare system most of us in America would envy, women and homosexuals enjoyed a fair amount of tolerance for the middle east.
Now Iraqi's have no Idea who to trust or what not to do. The U.S. occupying force, worried about public reaction to Vietnam-era casualty rates, does not have a quarter of the boots on the ground necessary to secure the peace. In this power vacuum, multiple groups are taking their shot at power emulating the tactics that Uncle Saddam taught them so well in all his decades of fucking oppression. That means daily kidnappings and deathsquad murders. At Salon.com, Riverbend writes a moving piece about the weekly trip to the city morgues. A family member was abducted over a month ago, when will his mutilated body find its way to the tepid chambers of a morgue. Deathsquads are so common, that Iraqi television is warning against capitulating to Iraqi Security Forces which do not contain American Troops - most of the rest are just out there rounding up their racial enemies and torturing them to death.
I'm worn out. I guess I've always accepted this fantasy where anti-war actions like the one's the Beetles took were some how hip and cool back in the sixties. Our species is fascinated by violence (I watched Paul Rogan moderate the IFC in a rerun last night) , those who stand against the tide of patriotic bloodlust must always feel like I feel now. Fuck.
Comments:
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Thanks for not being afraid to just spit it out the way you see it. I keep wishing more people would wake up. It amazes me that more of us aren't outraged by what our country has done and continues to do around the world. I saw the movie "The Battle of Algiers" last night. It was used as a training film by the Pentagon for this Iraq invasion. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It was made in the mid-sixties and won many awards. Apparently, the viewers were told not to use those tactics as they didn't work, but what was the point of showing it then? It sure seemed to me that I was watching the current situation in Iraq.
# posted by 
: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 8:13:00 AM
: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 8:13:00 AM
yup...your right...i agree...oh right again...yup...agree..fuckers...your right...man doesnt that piss you off..yup...them sonsabitches...yuup.....
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