The Afghan tap dance continues apace. Only now the tempo has eased; the wild clatter of taps on the dance floor is muted as the dance becomes a soft shoe and the clatter slows to a gentle scraping of taps being dragged across the same goddamn floor.
The headline looked great: “Official: Obama rejects war options.” Anyone scanning it would be forgiven for thinking that no more troops are heading for Afghanistan.
Not so fast, Charlie. Read the story.
What Obama is looking for is a tweak. He’s “pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government.” The number of additional troops needed for this “revised” policy is 30,000. However, only half of them would be combat troops. The rest would be trainers who would only see combat when they led their charges into battle.
It’s Vietnam redux when our goal was to train the Vietnamese army to take over the fighting. Of course, they never did and we just had to send in more troops to maintain our credibility. Reports indicate that the Afghan army is worse than the Vietnamese. So, it’s only a matter of time before Obama will have to send in even more troops to maintain our credibility. After all, what's a president to do?
Oh well. At least the headline looked good.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Soms Intriguing Questions
One of my readers sent me in a list of five question the BBC had asked Noam Chomsky. Below are the questions and my response.
Kandy,
Thanks for sending along your thought provoking questions. I’ll answer them in the order in which you asked them.
1. Do I think the U.S. government and its institutions have always been wrong and with mala fide intentions?
Not always. Our history has been a struggle between a gradual movement towards decency and an aggressive hubris that has sought power for power’s sake. What we are seeing now is the death throes of a militarized era that began with World War II. That war morphed into the Cold War, which resulted in the establishment of a permanent military establishment and the gradual transformation of the country into a nuclearized security state. Militarism and democracy cannot coexist. Fortunately, like most empires, we are in the process of bankrupting ourselves both financially and morally. Whether the seeds of decency that have lain dormant for too long began to sprout again remains to be seen.
With the fall of the Soviet Union we found ourselves with a bloated military and no place to go. The warfare and aggression now coming from America is the frantic thrashing of an aged dinosaur fighting for survival.
2. Has there been any good coming out of them at all?
All too often the United States is identified with Wall Street, the Pentagon and our nation’s capital. It is my belief that neither of them represents our core values of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, these are the institutions that have dominated our society since the dawn of the twenty-first century. Prior to the GWB administration, and especially in the sixties, there was an emergency of the above mentioned decency. Tragically, it is now dormant.
3. Did the US and its allies go into Iraq to satisfy some inner greed, prejudice and personal agendas of a few in the saddle?
I firmly believe they did. The rationales given for the invasion lacked credibility. It was an ugly, imperial invasion intent only on getting our hands on Iraq’s oil.
4. Are these Arabs goodies, have the good of their people at heart and have to wish to inflict death on the USA and its people?
No country or culture is purely good or purely evil. With the exception of a fringe group, I don’t believe the Arab world wishes to harm us. They are, however, intent on defending themselves from our aggression.
5. Do you subscribe to the view that the second Crusade has began as some Arab scholars claim?
I can well understand why they would believe this, but no, I don’t see another Crusade. The original Crusades were aimed at seizing Jerusalem so it would be in “Christian” hands. The current American aggression in the Middle East has to do with all the oil the region is sitting on. I’ve always contended that it would be a hell of a lot cheaper and burn less oil to fly a trade delegation over to cut the best deal we could instead of sending in an invading army.
I hope the above answers your questions. I don’t really think of myself as a cynic, but more as a skeptic who tries to cut through the fog of propaganda that issues forth from our mass media. If is the duty of every citizen in a democracy to cast a jaundiced eye on the machinations of its government.
Regards,
Case
Kandy,
Thanks for sending along your thought provoking questions. I’ll answer them in the order in which you asked them.
1. Do I think the U.S. government and its institutions have always been wrong and with mala fide intentions?
Not always. Our history has been a struggle between a gradual movement towards decency and an aggressive hubris that has sought power for power’s sake. What we are seeing now is the death throes of a militarized era that began with World War II. That war morphed into the Cold War, which resulted in the establishment of a permanent military establishment and the gradual transformation of the country into a nuclearized security state. Militarism and democracy cannot coexist. Fortunately, like most empires, we are in the process of bankrupting ourselves both financially and morally. Whether the seeds of decency that have lain dormant for too long began to sprout again remains to be seen.
With the fall of the Soviet Union we found ourselves with a bloated military and no place to go. The warfare and aggression now coming from America is the frantic thrashing of an aged dinosaur fighting for survival.
2. Has there been any good coming out of them at all?
All too often the United States is identified with Wall Street, the Pentagon and our nation’s capital. It is my belief that neither of them represents our core values of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, these are the institutions that have dominated our society since the dawn of the twenty-first century. Prior to the GWB administration, and especially in the sixties, there was an emergency of the above mentioned decency. Tragically, it is now dormant.
3. Did the US and its allies go into Iraq to satisfy some inner greed, prejudice and personal agendas of a few in the saddle?
I firmly believe they did. The rationales given for the invasion lacked credibility. It was an ugly, imperial invasion intent only on getting our hands on Iraq’s oil.
4. Are these Arabs goodies, have the good of their people at heart and have to wish to inflict death on the USA and its people?
No country or culture is purely good or purely evil. With the exception of a fringe group, I don’t believe the Arab world wishes to harm us. They are, however, intent on defending themselves from our aggression.
5. Do you subscribe to the view that the second Crusade has began as some Arab scholars claim?
I can well understand why they would believe this, but no, I don’t see another Crusade. The original Crusades were aimed at seizing Jerusalem so it would be in “Christian” hands. The current American aggression in the Middle East has to do with all the oil the region is sitting on. I’ve always contended that it would be a hell of a lot cheaper and burn less oil to fly a trade delegation over to cut the best deal we could instead of sending in an invading army.
I hope the above answers your questions. I don’t really think of myself as a cynic, but more as a skeptic who tries to cut through the fog of propaganda that issues forth from our mass media. If is the duty of every citizen in a democracy to cast a jaundiced eye on the machinations of its government.
Regards,
Case
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Trying to win with a losing hand.
As Obama dithers in order to give his shrinking liberal base the impression that he’s really agonizing over a decision that’s already been made for him over escalating the war in Afghanistan, the right is trotting out the old argument to explain how we “lost” Vietnam.
The first flaw, here, is that you can’t lose something that was never yours to begin with. But then, a core delusion of imperial thinking is that the United States owns the world. Therefore, any country that doesn’t toe the line is “lost.”
According to the right, we lost Vietnam because the American people lost their will, and this loss of will was aided and abetted by a liberal press, all of which demoralized our citizen army that lost its stomach for a good fight.
The truth is that in a democratic society an administration cannot pursue a war once popular support is lost. That is the nature of a democracy.
However, we must be cautious before we draw a parallel between Afghanistan and Vietnam. There are some crucial differences. Back in the sixties we were still a democracy with a functioning and independent press that wasn’t embedded in Pentagon briefing rooms. This is no longer the case. Back then, we had a citizen army that had to believe in what it was fighting for. Alas, no more. A professional army fights because it is paid to do so.
Obama will escalate Afghanistan for two reasons. First, he is committed to the long war, also known as the Eternal War of the Empty Policy. Second, any democratic administration, no matter how liberal, lives in fear of the right’s pit bulls, and instead of tearing their throats out it moves as quietly and cautiously as possible less it awakens the sleeping dogs. The pack needs its wars and aggression to live out its macho fantasies of unbridled power.
I understand Obama is a poker player. It would be nice if he took the lessons he’s learned at the table and carried them into his policy making. With Afghanistan, he is like the player six cards into a game of seven-card stud who stays in a game with a jack-high hand even though his opponent across the table has two aces showing. A basic rule of poker is you don’t stay in a game with a bad hand simply because you have money in the pot.
The first flaw, here, is that you can’t lose something that was never yours to begin with. But then, a core delusion of imperial thinking is that the United States owns the world. Therefore, any country that doesn’t toe the line is “lost.”
According to the right, we lost Vietnam because the American people lost their will, and this loss of will was aided and abetted by a liberal press, all of which demoralized our citizen army that lost its stomach for a good fight.
The truth is that in a democratic society an administration cannot pursue a war once popular support is lost. That is the nature of a democracy.
However, we must be cautious before we draw a parallel between Afghanistan and Vietnam. There are some crucial differences. Back in the sixties we were still a democracy with a functioning and independent press that wasn’t embedded in Pentagon briefing rooms. This is no longer the case. Back then, we had a citizen army that had to believe in what it was fighting for. Alas, no more. A professional army fights because it is paid to do so.
Obama will escalate Afghanistan for two reasons. First, he is committed to the long war, also known as the Eternal War of the Empty Policy. Second, any democratic administration, no matter how liberal, lives in fear of the right’s pit bulls, and instead of tearing their throats out it moves as quietly and cautiously as possible less it awakens the sleeping dogs. The pack needs its wars and aggression to live out its macho fantasies of unbridled power.
I understand Obama is a poker player. It would be nice if he took the lessons he’s learned at the table and carried them into his policy making. With Afghanistan, he is like the player six cards into a game of seven-card stud who stays in a game with a jack-high hand even though his opponent across the table has two aces showing. A basic rule of poker is you don’t stay in a game with a bad hand simply because you have money in the pot.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Our Imperial Entitlement
So, the Rt. Rev. Timothy Geithner is out preaching the Doctrine of Frugality. His message is simple, “The country must live within its means.” “Deficits must be brought down.” This, of course, will “require hard choices.”
Now, logic and common sense would dictate that the most obvious place to start is our bloated military empire. We are mired in two wars that aren’t going anywhere. We are being dragged down by a military-industrial complex that is little more than a dinosaur. The Pentagon has morphed into a gargantuan leech that is sucking our economy dry even as it injects its toxin into our civil liberties in the name of peace and security.
But I forget: logic and common sense are anathema to the Beltway.
The truth is that our military-foreign policy is not ruled by a reasoned assessment of our goals and objectives; it is ruled by a small gaggle of key buzzwords. Our policymakers have made security© a fetish. We need a national defense© that is robust©. All options must “remain on the table”.© To withdraw from Afghanistan or Iraq would damage our credibility© The last thing any politician can afford is to be perceived as weak© on national defense©
So it is that we wantonly destroy countries and kill children all in the name of our sacred buzzwords. And this is why, when the time comes to “live within our means” our military empire will remain untouched.
Rev. Geithner’s acolyte, Barack Obama, has spelled out where the cuts will come. He has promised to shape a new Social Security and Medicare bargain with America because “we” must get control over our entitlements, and there is only one entitlement that counts—maintaining the health of America's defense contractors.
Now, logic and common sense would dictate that the most obvious place to start is our bloated military empire. We are mired in two wars that aren’t going anywhere. We are being dragged down by a military-industrial complex that is little more than a dinosaur. The Pentagon has morphed into a gargantuan leech that is sucking our economy dry even as it injects its toxin into our civil liberties in the name of peace and security.
But I forget: logic and common sense are anathema to the Beltway.
The truth is that our military-foreign policy is not ruled by a reasoned assessment of our goals and objectives; it is ruled by a small gaggle of key buzzwords. Our policymakers have made security© a fetish. We need a national defense© that is robust©. All options must “remain on the table”.© To withdraw from Afghanistan or Iraq would damage our credibility© The last thing any politician can afford is to be perceived as weak© on national defense©
So it is that we wantonly destroy countries and kill children all in the name of our sacred buzzwords. And this is why, when the time comes to “live within our means” our military empire will remain untouched.
Rev. Geithner’s acolyte, Barack Obama, has spelled out where the cuts will come. He has promised to shape a new Social Security and Medicare bargain with America because “we” must get control over our entitlements, and there is only one entitlement that counts—maintaining the health of America's defense contractors.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The House Trips the Light Fantastic
To be a player in the corporate state you’ve got to be fast on your feet. It takes moves worthy of an Astaire to appear as if you’re tossing gold coins to the starving masses when all you’re tossing is lead slugs.
Last night, the House passed the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” a measure that gives much if you can afford to take advantage of it. It is a bill long on aspiration and painfully short on detail.
Yes, there is a public option and yes, the wingnuts denied federal funding for abortions.
It’s a boondoggle for private insurers because everyone has to have coverage. If a family can’t afford it, they’re hit with a fine equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income. For a family of four, the poverty level is $22,050. So if the family can’t afford the public option, they are fined $551 or 30% of a month’s salary. (No food on the table during that month.) Waivers are available, but details are short as to how they would be granted.
Medicaid is expanded from 100 percent to 150 percent of the poverty level. For our family of four, this would boost their eligibility to $33,075. The family making a dollar more than that would still be forced to purchase insurance. If they failed to do so, they would face a fine of $827, still 30% of a month’s salary.
The bill offers tax subsidies for individuals between 150 and 400 percent ($33,050-$88,200) of the poverty level. However, this provision overlooks the fact that poor families life hand-to-month and paycheck-to-paycheck. It’s not as if they have stock holdings that will compensate for the hold torn in their income by fines or premium payments until the tax subsidy kicks in. But, what the hell! Stale Cheerios still taste good even with water instead of milk.
With the abortion exclusion, Congress kicked a little more pork to the insurance industry. Women who want coverage for abortions will be able to purchase a rider from a private company.
What we have here is an irrational bill cobbled together to give as much to the proles as possible without unduly upsetting the House’s corporate handlers.
Now it goes to the Senate, then to a House/Senate conference.
The only sane approach to health coverage is a single payer pan. What will finally emerge is a bill that does its damndest to look sane, and is sane, as long as you ignore the straight jacket it is wearing.
Last night, the House passed the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” a measure that gives much if you can afford to take advantage of it. It is a bill long on aspiration and painfully short on detail.
Yes, there is a public option and yes, the wingnuts denied federal funding for abortions.
It’s a boondoggle for private insurers because everyone has to have coverage. If a family can’t afford it, they’re hit with a fine equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income. For a family of four, the poverty level is $22,050. So if the family can’t afford the public option, they are fined $551 or 30% of a month’s salary. (No food on the table during that month.) Waivers are available, but details are short as to how they would be granted.
Medicaid is expanded from 100 percent to 150 percent of the poverty level. For our family of four, this would boost their eligibility to $33,075. The family making a dollar more than that would still be forced to purchase insurance. If they failed to do so, they would face a fine of $827, still 30% of a month’s salary.
The bill offers tax subsidies for individuals between 150 and 400 percent ($33,050-$88,200) of the poverty level. However, this provision overlooks the fact that poor families life hand-to-month and paycheck-to-paycheck. It’s not as if they have stock holdings that will compensate for the hold torn in their income by fines or premium payments until the tax subsidy kicks in. But, what the hell! Stale Cheerios still taste good even with water instead of milk.
With the abortion exclusion, Congress kicked a little more pork to the insurance industry. Women who want coverage for abortions will be able to purchase a rider from a private company.
What we have here is an irrational bill cobbled together to give as much to the proles as possible without unduly upsetting the House’s corporate handlers.
Now it goes to the Senate, then to a House/Senate conference.
The only sane approach to health coverage is a single payer pan. What will finally emerge is a bill that does its damndest to look sane, and is sane, as long as you ignore the straight jacket it is wearing.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Toxic Idealism
Noble ideals produce a fatal paradox. We all buy into them; who doesn’t believe in freedom, democracy, liberation and civil liberties? These are ideals that have taken centuries to evolve in the West and are currently under siege as the United States continues to evolve into a corporatized military state, which could be why we’re so hell-bent on spreading them to the Middle East.
And that is where the paradox turns fatal. Ideals have the habit of coalescing into absolutes, and absolutes have a habit of shedding blood when one nation attempts to impose them on another. Missionary zeal has a long and deadly history in the West that dates back to the days when the missionaries accompanied Spanish conquistadors as they savaged Latin America.
We now see this same missionary zeal at work in Afghanistan where we are told that ours is an effort to liberate Afghan women from the yoke of oppression that has been placed on their shoulders by a misogynist regime. It has appeal because in truth, women in that country are treated as if they’re chattel.
The paradox, here, is that women’s rights will never ride into Afghanistan astride a drone. In Vietnam we destroyed villages to save them; in Afghanistan, we destroy wedding parties to free them.
Two years ago, Malalai Joya was expelled from the Afghan parliament for denouncing corruption and the occupation. She sums up the paradox beautifully when she say, “The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman’s rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies of the Taliban.”
Nothing corrupts a noble ideal like ignoble means. Yet, attempts to spread the ideal always become toxic because the ideal is seen as an absolute, and when implementing an absolute one must destroy all who oppose it. And in doing so, the ideal loses its nobility.
Missionary zeal is a product of western hubris. All too often it is assumed that the western worldview sits atop the Great Chain of Being as if we represent the end product of social evolution. After all, don’t we have more “stuff” that the rest of the world?
Because God has so blessed us, the thinking goes, we have a moral obligation to spread this lifestyle to the ignorant savages of the world and turn them all into middleclass consumers, whether they want to or not.
Progressives have been sucked into this argument. They are reluctant to oppose the slaughter in Afghanistan because they see it as a fight for women’s rights, even though our efforts are having the opposite effect.
The treatment of women in Afghanistan is abysmal. Both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance are little more than narco-thugs. However, the brutal truth is that our military occupation of the country is only making these conditions worse. An equally brutal truth is that change will only come to Afghanistan when all foreign troops leave and courageous Afghan women like Malalai Joya bring change to the country from the inside out.
Of course, the above argument has one fatal flaw: noble ideals are simply marketing gimmicks to sell a war that has an ulterior motive, be it expanding markets or securing a supply of natural resources. It is an unfortunate blind spot in the progressive vision that it doesn’t see this.
And that is where the paradox turns fatal. Ideals have the habit of coalescing into absolutes, and absolutes have a habit of shedding blood when one nation attempts to impose them on another. Missionary zeal has a long and deadly history in the West that dates back to the days when the missionaries accompanied Spanish conquistadors as they savaged Latin America.
We now see this same missionary zeal at work in Afghanistan where we are told that ours is an effort to liberate Afghan women from the yoke of oppression that has been placed on their shoulders by a misogynist regime. It has appeal because in truth, women in that country are treated as if they’re chattel.
The paradox, here, is that women’s rights will never ride into Afghanistan astride a drone. In Vietnam we destroyed villages to save them; in Afghanistan, we destroy wedding parties to free them.
Two years ago, Malalai Joya was expelled from the Afghan parliament for denouncing corruption and the occupation. She sums up the paradox beautifully when she say, “The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman’s rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies of the Taliban.”
Nothing corrupts a noble ideal like ignoble means. Yet, attempts to spread the ideal always become toxic because the ideal is seen as an absolute, and when implementing an absolute one must destroy all who oppose it. And in doing so, the ideal loses its nobility.
Missionary zeal is a product of western hubris. All too often it is assumed that the western worldview sits atop the Great Chain of Being as if we represent the end product of social evolution. After all, don’t we have more “stuff” that the rest of the world?
Because God has so blessed us, the thinking goes, we have a moral obligation to spread this lifestyle to the ignorant savages of the world and turn them all into middleclass consumers, whether they want to or not.
Progressives have been sucked into this argument. They are reluctant to oppose the slaughter in Afghanistan because they see it as a fight for women’s rights, even though our efforts are having the opposite effect.
The treatment of women in Afghanistan is abysmal. Both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance are little more than narco-thugs. However, the brutal truth is that our military occupation of the country is only making these conditions worse. An equally brutal truth is that change will only come to Afghanistan when all foreign troops leave and courageous Afghan women like Malalai Joya bring change to the country from the inside out.
Of course, the above argument has one fatal flaw: noble ideals are simply marketing gimmicks to sell a war that has an ulterior motive, be it expanding markets or securing a supply of natural resources. It is an unfortunate blind spot in the progressive vision that it doesn’t see this.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Secret Life of the Lie
As a work of art, the lie is perfection personified. It is a polished gem of intellectual brilliance that transcends the mundane world of cause and effect.
Lies always trump because lies scream while truth only stutters. Every lie files down the shards of complexity that stud the truth until only a smooth surface remains that reflects the vacuity of the lie. Thus, the lie is the most democratic of utterances because it simplifies intricate issues so they may be easily digested by the proles.
The lie functions best when it has a label it can wield like a cudgel. It needs an “other” upon whom this label can be hung, a label so crated that it turns the “other” into the personification of evil. For decades, “communist” served this purpose only to be replaced by “terrorist.”
What the lie wishes to accomplish is not fear of the evil the label represents, but fear of having the label hung on oneself.
The lie is its own justification and needs neither rational argument nor reality to breathe. That infamous profit of revelatory bullshit, E.A. Hayek, coined a succinct dingleberry when he wrote, “The issue of justification is indeed a red herring.”[1]
Without the lie, there could be no progress, for to proclaim all progress good is one of the central lies that have made the rise of corporatism such an irresistible force. The barren fact is that all progress is suffering, be it the destitution of its victims or the moral decay of its beneficiaries. The myth of progress succeeds because it is so internalized and ingrained into our psyches that those who dare question it are dismissed as wild-eyed radicals. It ranks right up there with the superstitious belief in the “Invisible Hand of the Market,” that precious rationale for enriching the few while impoverishing the many.
The lie simplifies and paints in broad strokes of darkness and light. The lie soothes and comforts. Its certainty puts the mind at ease. Wrapped in mendacity’s security blanket the prole’s misery becomes bearable because his anger is directed away from those who caused his misery and is focused on those who are blamed for his misery.
[1] E.A. Hayek. The Fatal Conceit: The Error of Socialism. Pg. 68
Lies always trump because lies scream while truth only stutters. Every lie files down the shards of complexity that stud the truth until only a smooth surface remains that reflects the vacuity of the lie. Thus, the lie is the most democratic of utterances because it simplifies intricate issues so they may be easily digested by the proles.
The lie functions best when it has a label it can wield like a cudgel. It needs an “other” upon whom this label can be hung, a label so crated that it turns the “other” into the personification of evil. For decades, “communist” served this purpose only to be replaced by “terrorist.”
What the lie wishes to accomplish is not fear of the evil the label represents, but fear of having the label hung on oneself.
The lie is its own justification and needs neither rational argument nor reality to breathe. That infamous profit of revelatory bullshit, E.A. Hayek, coined a succinct dingleberry when he wrote, “The issue of justification is indeed a red herring.”[1]
Without the lie, there could be no progress, for to proclaim all progress good is one of the central lies that have made the rise of corporatism such an irresistible force. The barren fact is that all progress is suffering, be it the destitution of its victims or the moral decay of its beneficiaries. The myth of progress succeeds because it is so internalized and ingrained into our psyches that those who dare question it are dismissed as wild-eyed radicals. It ranks right up there with the superstitious belief in the “Invisible Hand of the Market,” that precious rationale for enriching the few while impoverishing the many.
The lie simplifies and paints in broad strokes of darkness and light. The lie soothes and comforts. Its certainty puts the mind at ease. Wrapped in mendacity’s security blanket the prole’s misery becomes bearable because his anger is directed away from those who caused his misery and is focused on those who are blamed for his misery.
[1] E.A. Hayek. The Fatal Conceit: The Error of Socialism. Pg. 68
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