Zombie War

--fr. Don Quixote, Gustave Dore

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately, things just don't seem the same
--Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix

He was spurred on by the conviction
that the world needed his immediate presence
--Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
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Ranger watched a video of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock last night and was amazed as usual by his tortured version of the Star Spangled Banner which flowed into his Purple Haze. What unintended prescience: Lately, things don't look the same.

1969 and 2009 both find Americans at war and disillusioned by their unsustainable, unwinnable nature and maundering violence. Our nation spoke via the voting booth against war in 2006 and 2008. Or so we thought. Ranger wonders if Generals Odierno and Petraeus are forming war policy, or Obama?

The 2009 war is unlike any experienced by U.S. forces. The enemy remains undefined and undileanted. There are no metrics for disengagement, while the U.S. walks a tightrope for its economic survival. The director of National Intelligence confirmed the idea that the tenuous economy is the greatest threat facing America.

Meanwhile, Obama sees fit to address the terrorist threat in the most conventional way, a way that will not make him look like a pansy: throw more troops at Afghanistan. Petraeus is calling cadence, and Obama has fallen into step.

When will our leaders see that we are tired of fighting phantom terrorists? The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is a fine example of "mission creep" -- the gift that keeps on giving. It is impervious to the taxpayer's wishes to disengage. Just like the bad zombie banks being fielded, Afghanistan and Iraq are becoming zombie wars.

The voters have no impact upon national policy. Obama, Biden, Clinton rose to the top denigrating Bush's policies, yet they are now complicit in some of his biggest productions. Ranger is not sure that is the CHANGE! we voted for.

At least Hendrix was under the influence of LSD. What excuse do our leaders have?

The U.S. is a nation that claims to export democracy, while draining it from its own indigenous.