War Path

We owe God a death
--Henry IV, Part 2

Not even God can change the past
--The Betrayal of America,
Vincent Bugliosi

Hence we can have no standing armies for defense,
because we have no paupers to furnish the materials
--Thomas Jefferson

Fascism will come to America
in the name of anti-fascism.
I'm afraid, based on my own long experience,
that fascism will come to America
in the name of national security
--Sen. Huey Long
________________

Our endless "Long Wars" pose the question: "What does America stand for?" Who are we, and what are out core values? Are our domestic and foreign policies in accord?

Why do we fight wars?

1914 saw the start of a Big War which grew out of an assassination which kicked into play interlocking treaties and alliances. The United States was neutral at the inception, having no treaty obligations to any of the belligerents. Up until World War I the United States only fought declared wars with England, Mexico and Spain, unilaterally in today's parlance. These wars were for sovereignty and land grabs.

Before 1914 there was 1813 and the Battle of Leipzig, the "Battle of Nations". The countries of Europe countered the great General Napoleon on the battlefield. The U.S. was fighting the Battle of New Orleans, and was interested only in territory and our nation's survival. The War of 1812 insured U.S. survival, and the nation stayed out of foreign entanglements, instead fighting its war against each other and against the Native Americans.

During the U.S.'s inner-focused period, Europe had Leipzig (Napoleon), the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, The Russo-Jap War and various local flare ups. The U.S. kept its hands off. But then came 1914.

The Europeans continued their 500 year+ dance of death, but the U.S. had transmuted this war into a democratic endeavor. Being a beacon of democracy seemed to mandate our entrance (sound familiar?)

Entrance into WWI was a point of fracture in U.S. policy: the isolationists had lost out to the interventionists. But the transition was not to be seamless; the U.S. entered the war but failed to follow through, the isolationists defeating the U.S. entry into the League of Nations. This ambivalence of national definition has continued through to today.

In World War II the U.S. allied with Communism to defeat Fascism, yet then adopted fascist tactics to defeat Communism. The post war years saw the U.S. join the United Nations, even signing on to their manifesto declaring the Rights of Man. However, now we roamed the world in a military posture. It was an existential dichotomy which allowed the U.S. to lose sight of its lodestar.

Does the U.S. trust the UN, or is the lone swaggering sheriff of the world? Many U.S. presidential wars and regime change invasions have come and gone, and the issue of national definition goes undiscussed. We have entered today new territory in which our political parties favor tax cuts for their base, but also the maintenance of a strong military.

If the taxpaying voters oppose this practice, they have not made that clear. There has been no groundswell against the Long Wars favored by both parties, the people instead happily ensconcing themselves in their niche issues: gun control, gay marriage, reproductive rights -- things they can understand, and which make them feel moral.

It's 2012 and the same question remains to be addressed as in 1917, 1941, 1950, 1964-72, etc., namely, what does the country gain from intervening militarily in foreign wars? How does a democratic nation become a Warrior nation, when its roots were otherwise?

Where is our once-fear of standing Armies? How have we become so comfortable with preemptive invasions and attendant regime change? As Bugliosi wrote, even God can't change the past, but we seem comfortable re-writing history and reinterpreting the facts. We can even forget that we once hung people as war criminals when they conducted wars of aggression.

1813 - 1914 - 2012?

Take your pick, but rest assured that this topic will not be addressed in the entertainment we call the 2012 presidential election. It hardly even qualifies as infotainment.

Would you like a Ginzu knife with that candidate?

Survival, Inc.

Integrity is not a conditional word.
It doesn't blow in the wind
or change with the weather.
It is your inner image of yourself,
and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat,
then you know he never will
--John D. MacDonald

[upon seeing Apollo Creed]:
He looks like a big flag
--Rocky (1976)

The most revolutionary act
is a clear view of the world as it really is
--Rosa Luxemburg

A dysfunctional political system is one that knows
the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally,
let alone act on them,
and one that devotes vastly more attention
to cable TV preachers than to recommendations
by its best scientists and engineers.
--Can't Keep a Bad Idea Down, Thomas Friedman
__________________

War, counterinsurgency, Homeland Security -- the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) behemoth which has issued forth from the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 -- has no bearing upon the survival of the U.S.

However, those secondary phenomena which are being packaged under the rubric "Survival, Inc." will impact our survival, and not in a good way. Whether they threaten our moral or economic existence -- or, both -- the concept of U.S. democracy will have been forever altered.

Our survival depends on the ability of our government to govern, and our local and state governments have lost the ability to finance these quotidian services. It is this loss which threatens the well-being of the American people.

Computer modeling for the spread of infection throughout a population is instructive. Any population has a certain toxic load it may bear. Once that critical level is surpassed, the population crashes. The U.S. citizens have been dealt a number of recent blows; while we are not down for the count, who knows how many rounds we may yet sustain before we and our government morph into something other than what we have been?

The blows have come from many sides: A profligate and criminal fiduciary class has gutted the life savings of many. Two wars and all the attendant expenses provide a cruel and steady drain on our coffers, both now and projected well into the future. One this is for certain: Terrorism, counterinsurgency, and Homeland Security has no meaning if our financial future is not secure.

The United States will not be kept sound through combat patrols and actions in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq. The future of the U.S. is dependent upon the security of your home, your neighborhood and your assets. Whether the Bros. Karzai deal dope, steal elections or peddle influence has no relevance to our survival.

Many feel the wars and the Department of Defense constitute but a small percentage of the Gross National Product, and are therefore not complicit in the economic woes of the U.S. But the Department of Defense does not operate in a vacuum. Adding in all concomitant costs -- Homeland security, Department of Veterans Affairs, civilian intelligence agencies, NASA military oriented spending, State security-related costs and servicing the debt of aforementioned items -- runs into a tidy sum, contributing to the largest deficit in the recorded history of the world.

The Long Wars and associated costs are the straws that are breaking the humped camel's back.

--Lisa and Jim

Long and Winding Road

--Drugs win war on drugs (The Onion, 1.10.98)

The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands.
And the rest of you, just rattle your jewelry
--John Lennon, Royal Variety Performance

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
--The Long and Winding Road, The Beatles

She goes running for the shelter
of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way,
gets her through her busy day
--Mother's Little Helper, Rolling Stones
__________________

Just a little rumination: Sir Paul McCartney was recently feted at the White House by the President, in this veritable season of fetes, and Mr. Obama presented Sir Paul with the Library of Congress's Gershwin Award.

What occurred to us is the eternal nature of some missions. The U.S. is currently in the midst of The Long War (whatever) in Afghanistan, but still trudges hopefully/hopelessly on in another, even more ephemeral war: The War on Drugs. Began when Mr. McCartney was a wee lad beginning his forays into the world of psychedelics in earnest, then-president Nixon declared it a war in 1971 and thus it has ever been (forever and ever, amen.)

Yet here they were on stage -- in the White House! -- two former users and abusers of the devil's weed and then some (blow, LSD, etc.) We as a nation should not demonize drug dealers and then schmooze with their customers. Like in Afghanistan, where poppies are bad (except when they are good.) Maybe it is just those users South of the border who are problematic.

In a consistent and just universe, users like McCartney and Obama would have ended up in jail. Just as surely as say a Liverpudlian kid or one from Southside Chicago.

But let no one say decorum is entirely dead -- at least they didn't invite Phil Spector.