Out on the OP-LP: Someone's Coming!
I've been waiting for someone new
to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you
to come into my life
--Waiting for a Girl Like You, Foreigner
to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you
to come into my life
--Waiting for a Girl Like You, Foreigner
___________________
Better late than never. Your agony Aunt is in: Qualms, concerns, insights ... tell us something we don't know, about anything on your mind. This is your free-fire zone.
Meantime, we at RangerAgainstWar are pleased to be finding more fellow travelers in the media. For the longest time it was just us and Newt who called Game Up ("Newt's Aboard"). In 2008 the news reported that Mr. Gingrich said the war on terror was "phony". We at RAW had been calling the recent U.S. military efforts the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) since '06, but we were delighted for the company; they say beggars can't be choosers.
Well, that was four years ago. This week the New York Times ran an editorial, "A Phony Hero for a Phony War":
Well, that was four years ago. This week the New York Times ran an editorial, "A Phony Hero for a Phony War":
"The genius of General Petraeus was to recognize early on that the war he had been sent to fight in Iraq wasn’t a real war at all. This is what the public and the news media — lamenting the fall of the brilliant hero undone by a tawdry affair — have failed to see. He wasn’t the military magician portrayed in the press; he was a self-constructed hologram, emitting an aura of preening heroism for the ever eager cameras."
Of course it is not Petraeus alone -- he is just a cog in the voracious military-industrial complex. But the General's fall, for this moment, allows a few more to peek behind the curtain.
Labels: general petraeus, phony hero for a phony war, phony war on terror
posted by Lisa at 4:45 PM
6 Comments:
Dear Agony Aunt since RAW's inception I've been and admirer of the very unpopular yet courageous stance RAW have taken on the PWOT. Jim has been has been vindicated. For many Americans are now finally seeing the lies we've been fed and the tragic consequences that are unfolding as we speak. But there seems to be a glaring blind side to RAW's mission statement of exposing Phony Wars on Terror.
Logic would dictate that all phony wars on terror that this Country is implicitly or complicity supporting should and must be exposed. But all I hear is the sound of silence regarding the massive atrocity launched by Israel against a section of land 3 miles wide and 7 miles long called the Gaza strip, the most densely populated place on this planet.
Now anybody thats ever been in combat knows how hopeless it is to defend such a position is surrounded on all four sides by one of the most sophisticated military machines on the planet that has no regard for any Geneva Convention or civilian casualties. Lets call this what it is...murder. And yes our hands are covered in this blood. By our money/aid, our military 'packages', and especially our deafening silence of moral outrage in the media and Government. So RAW what is it going to be, SPWOT (Some Phony Wars On Terror) or exposing all our PWOT ? So freely fire away....or lets hear more skinny about General Petaeus's indiscretions. A comic distraction for most Americans but not all....
Blackhawk out....
BH,
I was just thinking of you the other day, and hope you are well.
The U.S. arms both sides. As President Obama said today, Israel has a right to defend itself; it has been rocketed daily for over a year. Now Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are targets, as Hamas's weapons (provided by the rest of the world's arms suppliers) grow inevitably more sophisticated.
The tragedy is, as with the PWOT, though Isreal's enemies may be sworn to its destruction, the common people of all sides generally just carry on with their lives and don't join in any radical causes. The tragedy is that vested interests rile up the people, fomenting hatred, using them as fodder. The UN group of 130 nations, headed by Ahmadinejad, censored Israel; meanwhile, the munitions keep flowing to Hamas.
The tragedy is a willing press slavering to package and exploit the pain of the underdog, as they see it; that always sells. The Palestinians are exploited by the Arab peoples who would like them to do their dirty work with Israel. Why did the Palestinians even begin the Intifadas?
Look at Israel's history and you will see two peoples who managed to live side-by-side with little strife. The Palestinians were offered an even split of of the land with Israel in 1948 but they had no honest broker to represent them at the UN, then as now.
Clinton brokered and accord which would have returned 98% of the occupied territories to the Palestinians; Arafat refused it, again radicalizing the people for no good reason.
The tragedy is the publicity game. Disparate data: One in 20 Israelis suffers bomb damage. The U.S. could not admit a ship of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, but admitted 10,000 Nazis after the war. Rupert Murdoch asked in Slate yesterday why the supposedly Jewish owned press so consistently anti- Israel in every crisis?
There is no further to say.
p.s. --
Our take on Petraeus is not light; we use his example to observe trends.
BH,
I think you meant over rather than out.
I'll tell you(or share) what i tell Lisa.
I don't give a rat's ass about anything except my Army and what it does.
Ergo i care zilch about Israel and Gaza.
I acknowledge your points and your concern, but i stay within my range markers.
As always i'm glad to hear from you.
Always.
jim
..."the common people of all sides generally just carry on with their lives and don't join in any radical causes."
I think you're giving WAY too many people a pass, here, Lisa. There are lots of "good Germans" on both sides who would be happy to see or do them some genocide. Palestinians still pissed off over Deir Yassin and other ethnic cleansing that happened 60 years ago. Ultraorthodox who see Arabs as vermin infesting Eretz Yisroel.
I tend to agree that ambitious "leaders" on both sides gin up some of this. But I think that if there were no substantial followings for their hate that it would fizzle like the Stormfront does here in the U.S.
No good options here for the U.S. I can see, and no real solution for the locals, either that wouldn't involve a whole bunch of people putting aside deeply-held grievances and/or malignant ambitions...and we all know how good people are at that.
Chief,
I was being charitable. Hatred is an easy go-to emotion for most people, and bigotry is bred in the blood. Surely Anti-Semitism is the 2,000 yr. old gift that keeps on giving.
The situation is so perverse. The Conservatives are Israel's "friend" in that Israel must one day go up in a ball of smoke in order to usher in their Rapture. (I honestly do believe GWB was inspired by this biblical vision to incite a war with Islam.)
Equally perversely, the Liberals want Israel gone because their hearts are so full of sympathy for the (as they see it) underdog. Of course, Israel cannot just roll over, yet it gets no worldwide sympathy for it's daily attacks at the hands of the Hamas thugs (funded by Egypt, Lebanon, etc. etc.) -- all the people our Presidents do photo ops with.
What almost everyone fails to see is that the Palestinians are rubes and pawns for the whole M.E. Hamas does not love them, and cares not for their suffering. They incite the people whom, as you say, are a tinder box waiting to be ignited. The Palestinians are now choosing Hamas over the P.A., so no coexistence -- forget peace -- can ever be forged.
The previous commenter cried how Gaza was 3 miles wide; Israel is 9 mi. wide. He says Gaza is surrounded by hostiles, but it need not be that way if they wanted to deal with Israel. It is Israel that is surrounded by enemies.
Per the Palestinians: hard to deal with a nation in good faith when your national charter is sworn to the others decimation.
Israel wants to survive; do not all nations wish the same? Rockets rain down on Israel's skies daily. The U.S. invaded two nations after a criminal act on its soil, not even attacking the nations from which the majority of the attackers hailed (S.A.) How -- why -- should we tell Israel how to survive? We do not walk in their shoes.
The liberal's ire should be saved for the Palestinians who care nothing about the misery of their own people, and who jerk them around like marionette puppets. If anyone in the M.E. actually cared, they'd be welcoming them in with open arms. Forget that Islamic brotherhood thing.
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