Hard to Know

[R]ight, as the world goes,
is only in question between equals in power,
while the strong do what they can
and the weak suffer what they must
--History of the Pelopponeasian War,
Thucydides

I been talkin' to playwriters
I been workin' on words, phrases
--Running Back to Saskatoon,
The Guess Who

The only way to predict the future
is to have power to shape the future
--Eric Hoffer
____________

It's hard to tell which is the worse way to enter sleep: To watch the Charlie Rose or Jerry Springer Show.

Charlie Rose has pretensions of being a serious news show, but he and his guest can be disturbing in the depth of their credulity. Recent guest Colonel Peter Mansoor (ret'd) -- former Executive Officer to General Petraeus and director of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center at Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) -- said Afghanistan and Vietnam cannot be compared because the Afghan people unanimously want the U.S./Karzai leadership and consistently oppose the Taliban. This is a false construct.

One cannot put faith in any opinion poll coming out of Afghanistan. If a majority favored anti-Taliban efforts, then the effort to pacify the country would be entirely possible, which is not the case.

In the Republic of Vietnam there was similarly little verifiable proof other than propaganda to express what percentage of the population favored Communism over force-fed democracy, but we went with documentation which favored the U.S. cause.

Historically it does not matter what the majority of the population prefer because revolutions, wars of independence and insurgencies are not democratic. Rather, they are directed by the power and organization of the participants.

The U.S. won its independence from Britain without majority support for the Union. A majority of the Colonists favored remaining a British ally, but the power went where combat led it. The same is true of the Soviet Revolution and subsequent takeover of Russia.

The Bolsheviks prevailed through organization and cunning, though having only a small minority of the population in their corner, but that segment included the former Czarist Army. Revolutions and insurgencies are not won or lost as a result of surveys and opinion polls.

Majority rule is an abstract concept: When does rule become "the majority"? Pre- or apres-battle? Does it hinge on who takes the polls, and who participates in them? What about the wording and interpretation, and perception of coercion?

The concept of majority support is really nothing but conjecture and emotion disguised as intelligent discourse. All the questions and answers are irrelevant, as it doesn't much matter what the Afghan or U.S. populations desire: Both will be force-fed a U.S. policy which is independent of our control.
(Similar behavior in the sexual realm is called "rape", which I learned on Jerry Springer.)

We accept falsehood as truth and package it as democracy, or Counterinsurgency [COIN], which is a mockery of liberal democracy -- a mockracy. U.S. security estimates are always couched in a miasma of jibber-jabber. No one explains how Afghan or Iraq will benefit U.S. security or return an investment to the U.S. people.

The wars are mirror images of the discredited Domino Theory -- the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) predicted the dominoes would fall toward democracy once the Arab world saw the benefits of the Home Shopping Channel, only it didn't pan out that way.

Why have the establishment of Quisling governments in Afghanistan and Iraq taken precedence over the actual welfare and freedom of the American taxpayers? The continuation of democracy in the U.S. is more urgent than fighting to impose ersatz democracies in theatre.

Both Afghanistan and Iraq are dysfunctional states created by dysfunctional U.S. policy. The U.S. can't introduce democracy because we no longer understand the term. We have forgotten That freedom is not spread by firepower from without. Freedom is an upwelling from within.

Oh, and to the initial programming comparison. Jerry knows he he is a clown, and has no pretensions to anything more meaningful. He has also nicely orchestrated the circus that is becoming the U.S., updating the Greek tragedy for modern times. He even offers a moral, however simplistic, at the conclusion.

Charlie Rose might have won 15 years ago, when his style was one of non-engagement -- simply letting the guest spool out his or her story. These days, he has become like every other talking head, interrupting and installing himself in the story line.

The content of both programs is disturbing, but I'll vote for Jerry on the basis of his lack of pretense. It is what it is -- no unraveling needed. The guest do that nicely all on their own.

Cut. Lights down.

Misdiagnosis

Close your eyes
Have no fear
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your daddy's here
--Beautiful Boy, John Lennon

The roman promoters really did things right.
They needed a show that would clearly excite.
The attendance was sparse so they put on a fight
Threw the Christians to the lions, sold out every night
--Give the People What the Want, Ray Davies
__________________

Is being a citizen a case of believing, or is it simply one of suspending disbelief?

Listen to General David Petraeus: He seems calm, intelligent and reasonable, but what he says is absolute insanity. Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) the loss of sanity, or the exact opposite? Ranger asks because he cannot accept the exhortations of Gen Petraeus as sane.

Petraeus was interviewed on Charlie Rose 4.22.10, and Ranger left the late night program impressed with the General's demeanor. It was not until the day after that he realized he had listened to, what the Southerner's call, "a mouthful of mush." It was beautiful piffle. A trifle. He wore the suit well is the best that could be said.

Has the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) become our national entertainment, our own home-grown reality show -- "Survivor Afghanistan"? PTSD is reality-oriented, versus the talk of Petraeus which merely presents the illusion of sanity.

Our leaders actually feed us a malignant reading of events which poses as sanity; in comparison, even the occasional paranoia of PTSD is sane as it has basis in actual lived events.

This Nearly Was Mine

United We Stand, Alex Lilly

Like an actor on a movie screen,

living out someone else's dream.
Living out a total misconception,
reality, a false perception.
--Cliches of the World, the Kinks

Now, now I'm alone, still dreaming of paradise,
Still saying that paradise once nearly was mine
--This Nearly Was Mine, South Pacific
__________

Before turning off the Charlie Rose Show featuring the chameleon Wesley Clark recently, Clark got in the requisite, "We're the most powerful nation on earth" schtick.

In that belief, Clark mirrors the attitude of many. But the U.S. is only the most powerful country willing to attack other nations without provocation. This proclivity, however, does not make us the sole world superpower.

Ranger has a few questions:

[1] Where would the oil come from to lubricate a full-scale war?

[2] Where would the personnel come from to fill these services?

[3] Where would a world conflict army train?

[4] What industrial base would support a large-scale war?

[5] From where would the money come?

[6] Has Wesley Clark noticed that the U.S. military is stretched to the breaking point fighting opponents often killed or captured wearing shower shoes?

[7] What if India and/or China united versus the U.S.?

[8] What if Russia attacked the U.S.?

[9] What if China attacked the U.S.?

[10] Any combination of the above.


A realistic assessment of U.S. capabilities is sorely needed. As it stand, we are glutted with too many cliches.