Atheist Meditations

A tank just drove down the middle of my street. I looked out the window - stupidly, I suppose - I was in shock. A soldier sitting on the tank pointed his weapon at me, I stopped looking out the window. The nice people in military uniforms are on my television instructing us not to leave our homes until further notice. That's the only T.V. station, and they cut off my internet last week.


Alright, that didn't happen to me yet this week, but it happened to somebody today in Burma.

I'm finding my melancholic humors a bit stirred from the contemplation required in that first paragrab. If I suddenly switched bodies with a similar Burmese soul . . . that's not very fun thoughts. Being an Idealistic sort I'm sure I would have been at those protests, cheering on the actions of those Buddhist monks. ( men of religion, it is true, but this atheist holds a special exemption for the intellectually complex variants of Buddhism; I perceive those Burmese monks
on a pedestal of awe and respect) Just like China after Tienanmen Square, they are going to round up just about everybody they think had something to do with the protests. Just having been active on the internet will surely be a flag for Burmese Security Services that have been tasked with gouging out the eyes, tongue, and heart of this Demonstration Movement.

As they take you into custody, that's when you have to come to grips with the fact that The Suck will not end until they say so. It may well last for the remainder of your life.

Perhaps I'm a tad preoccupied with imaginings of atrocity, since I spent the morning reading the Wikipedia entry for List of War Crimes. Surprising how many just involve a village and a few dozen men and boys. Rounded up by invading soldiers and executed. That's the sure way to crush a resistance or stifle an uprising.

I'd intended to base this post around Sovereignty. The underlying principle of much modern international law whose conceptualization dates at least as far back as 1513 when Niccolo Machiavelli wrote. The Ruling Class, whether it is a sociopathic dictator, a group of military leaders, or an infighting club of capitalist elites; they do what they like within their own borders. Hear anybody talking about invading Burma and charging those 'Generals' with crimes against humanity? Why not? Where is the George W. Bush who connived so relentlessly to get our nation to overthrow Saddam and give the Iraqi's a chance at peace and democracy? You want to talk about a people who would greet us with flowers as liberators: we should invade Burma.

The contrast between Iraq and Burma are dramatically salient.

From what I understand Burma actually does have exploitable oil resources. Yet that is China's backyard and we have learned from the Korean and Vietnam wars not to mess with China's backyard. The Middle East, however, is territory we have declared our long term interest in. I think you could argue that WWII was decided by who controlled the Middle East.

The first rationale for invading Iraq was the fantasy that Saddam possessed 'Weapons of Mass Destruction.' That meant that he could finish the Holocaust with the push of button, America had to preemptively act. That's how the Bush Administration hoped to dance around the war crime of 'war of aggression', which, not too long ago when we were trying war criminals at Nuremberg, our nation described as "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." (Wikipedia, "War of Aggression")

Now it is completely obvious that the majority of international commentators, the U.N.A.E.C., and progressive news sources in America were saying all along was completely right. The notion that Iraq was producing 'WMD' during the U.N. inspection regime was absurd. Not only that, but we now have a shitload of evidence that Bush's marketing campaign to hype the threat of Saddam knew that the WMD case was phony and intended it merely as a means of 'selling' it to the public. They knew they were promoting bunk intelligence, and they combined that with a policy of devastating any skeptics (remember Valarie Plame?)

Now those same spinarbeiters want to tell us that the main motive in attacking Iraq was to liberate Iraq from the evil Saddam and 'provide an example of Arab Democracy that would soon bring about the reincarnation of civility to that backwards people.'

Saddam was a bad person, no doubt about that, but that couldn't have been the reason to invade. Or else we would have a carrier battle group in the in the Bay of Burma right now.

Labels: current events, Iraq War, Realpolitik

Voltaire once said that 'those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' This observation does not bode well for a country with standing members of congress who see creationism as reality, a country where 24 is watched by anyone over twelve. Yet while a myopic culture can have serious consequences, the same refusal to engage illogical memes can have exponentially worse consequences within certain institutions. Our military is the paramount example.

A recent interview I read had a military officer taking a moment to stress just what the U.S. military is: 'the most efficient fucking killing machine that has ever been created in the history of our species.' And it is true. The more one learns about the military, from A-10 tank killers to bombing systems that could turn an entire sports stadium into hamburger in seconds, the capacity to bring death numbs the mind.

This is what makes the recent poll numbers released this week so damn troubling. About fifty percent of marines and army soldiers informed America that they wouldn't report a fellow soldier whom they witnesses kill or maim a civilian. That's broken. The number can't be trusted straight up, because most individuals should be aware enough to lie if that was their honest belief. That fifty percent represents members of the U.S. military who don't give a good gawd damn about the institution they serve.

If you love your mother, you don't go telling strangers about what an easy slut she is. If you love the corp, you don't go summarizing to the media how little honor and the uniform code mean these days.

F.T.A. is back again, this time with soldiers openly admitting that they have rejected any sense of a moral code more enlightened than that of a prison gang. Represent, stick up for your brothers, never snitch.

I remember a conversation I had over Easter with several family members lamenting how 'a soldier would have to file out paperwork in triplicate before he can fire back a kid with a AK-47.' That's part of the rightwing bullshit these days, that our soldiers are dying cuz bleeding hearts want them tie their hands with rediculous regulations. 'Back in my day, you didn't have to call for permission to fire your weapon, if somebody was shooting at you, you shot back.'

This has a lot to do with the utter misunderstanding of modern warfare. In an arena where dozens of units from dozens of countries are working together under a shared command and control; war has changed. With the percentage of casualties attributed to friendly fire somewhere near 40%, when you are taking directed fire from over the horizon - the chances are pretty good that you have been mistakenly fired upon. You don't get to return fire until that hostile has been confirmed. You call down an airstrike on a team of Japanese, now the U.S. has an international incident on her hands.

I know that most Army recruiting media makes soldiery seem like Rambo. A soldier's job is not to kill. To paraphrase, 'a soldier's job is to do and die.' Sometimes 'doing' is killing, and in pitched battles our soldiers are second to none at killing, but many times the job is to die. To follow orders even when they seem suicidal.

I think too much of the thinking about the military has been affected by the 'Black Hawk Down' syndrome. A glorification of fighting for the sake of fighting, why and who are not important, only that you 'never leave a buddy behind.'

If I were a military leader, I'd love a military with such malleable morals. As a citizen, I'm shockingly disappointed that the men and women who serve do not aspire to more.

What makes America's military great is not its ability to wage war. What makes it great is its willingness to submit to civilian leadership. The Arsenal of Democracy fights for the good of We the People, not for some king or some fucking corporation. When half the uniform members tell the world that they don't give a rat's ass about international law or civilian oversight, they are saying something dark about the state of the U.S. military.

Withdraw from Iraq and most of the world. Bring our troops home and give them the care they have earned. Cut the standing army down drastically, and only keep/promote those who care about preserving the honor of their institution.

Labels: Institutions, Iraq War