Atheist Meditations

I've been listening to this Democracy Now interview with Nir Rosen. Damn.

Iraq's situation is maddeningly complex for a midwesterner to try to take on. So much of the information coming out of the region is either wishfull thinking by worthless 'embedded' reporters who have never left the green zone, or pro-american propaganda that our U.S. taxpayer dollars are purchasing at a rate of millions per year (yep, the military admits to buying Iraqi journalists.) Even those journalists who are not pets of the media can't get much of an Idea what's going down in Iraq, cuz they keep getting kidnapped or murdered.

As a rational man, I'm still inclined to seek out those folks that were right before we invaded the country; yet being able to call a spade a spade does not necessarily make one an analytical genius. Anyone whose skull diameter just can't quite penetrate their own rectum knew that Iraq had no serious weapons 'of mass destruction.' The U.N. weapons inspectors were saying it. U.S. weapons inspectors were saying it. Domestic critics of the military industrial complex were saying it. It made sense that a country under the thumb of deliberatly repressive sanctions might have a hard time duplicating the Manhatten Project. Plus, we kept learning more about the limitations of chemical and biological weapons - how they have a short shelf-life, how difficult they are to use in a tactical situation, how war crime justice just might catch up with leaders who do gamble on them. All facts that Colin Powell pissed on when he 'nailed it' before the U.N.

To understand why we were being lied to leading up to the invasion took the critical thinking skills of a twelve year old. To understand what the best course for Iraq is now takes a bit more.

They've been 'on the verge of a civil war' for about two years, and somewhere between 30,000 (Bush Administration estimate) and 600,000 (Lancet Medical Journal estimate) Iraqis are dead. If over 3000 died just last month; yeah, we all no better than to trust numbers from the calculator of George W. Bush.

Some interesting points by Mr. Rosen:

A civil war has been going on for several years. Soon we may see a major move by the Shia to 'remove' the Sunni presence from Baghdad.

Neither Bush nor the figurehead of Maliki can do anything about it. Maliki doesn't have a militia, so he has no power. Bush has a militia (yep, he means our bumpersticker supported troops) but they can't tell a Sunni from a Shia, so no matter how many innocent Iraqis they kill it just ain't relevent. They own a streetcornor until they leave. They can't possibly compete with a 'mob' style of street power. How can you fight the mob when you can't tell a made man from an ice-cream vendor?

"If I were an American," Mr. Rosen said, "I'd support an immediate withdrawl cuz why should another American soldier lose his life in Iraq? They didn't die for freedom, or to protect our your country. . . America can do nothing to help and maybe only a little bit to still hurt the situation.

This ain't Rowanda, where we can sit around and watch the two peoples kill each other. There was no civil war until we invaded. This is our fault.


I can't help but think of those poor mormon kids (and their poor father) who stopped over the other night. I just haunts me like a drag trap.

If one wants to believe in democracy (and as an atheist I probably invest a bit more of a 'need to believe' in my political structure than most) young men like that are anathema. Democracy that follows the 'will of the people' requires a population with a fairly high level of political acuity. The Mormon Trio had none of it. I'd bet my sideburns and all facial hair for a decade if either of them could have given me even a rudimentary overview of the Iran-Contra Affair. Remember, that little scandal of a few decade ago that a fair percentage of the current adminstration? Playing the Shia in Iran and the Sunni in Iraq against each other to destabilize the region and benefit their client (Israel) and 'national interests' (that involved oil extraction certain companies, and companies we do business with.) DEATH SQUADS AND JON NEGROPONTE. Whatever, I digress.

That must be it. The Mormon Trio has everything invested in their 'faith in a benevolent god', but only a trivial amount in a 'faith in good governence.' In fact, a lot of those worthless, traitorous wackos, actually profess to see the moral misguidance of government as a 'proof' of the validity of their belief system. Nevertheless, I have no 'faith in a benevolent god' so to provide my life with meaning I must search elsewhere. I'm interested in government cuz I see it as being a valuable, often dangerous, tool in trying to leave a mark, to improve upon, society.

Well, how's that for a five beer blog?