Forgotten History

topic: war

The Bush administration led us into war under the pretext of defending ourselves against a terrorist and chemical/biological/nuclear weapons threat. Additionally they believed that by overthrowing a dictatorship and instituting a democratic government, democracy would florish throughout the middle east. Obviously none of that was true. None of it.

If we follow the logic behind the "democracy will spread throughout the middle east" premise, then it's logical to assume that the chaos occuring there will likewise spread. Thank you very much Mr. Bush. Thank you. President Jimmy (not James) Carter tirelessly negotiated a peace agreement between Isreal and Egypt that stands to this day. During these negotiiations Pres. Carter forgoed such White House formalities as the pardoning of a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, because he was too busy working on the treaty. Pres. Bush was so detatched from reality that not only did he have time to pardon a turkey but he also had time to make a Christmas video with his dog. The video raised quite a bit of money.

During tonight's Presidential speach, Pres. Bush admitted that too few troops were sent to occupy the territory taken in Iraq. This is an obvious and inexcusable mistake. Any student of ancient history learned that Alexander the Great's greatest accomplishment wasn't his military victories, but his ability to maintain control of the land he conqured. Before the age of 33 he controlled all the land from Macedonia to India. This at a time when the fastest means of transport was a horse. Now we can't control one tenth of that area in spite of our speed and strength. We can't do this because we didn't follow the example laid out by Alexander. Where he defeated armies incrimentally and built infrastcucture in his military's wake, we rolled through a country and held a photo op on an aircraft carrier declaring victory. "Shock and Awe!" "Let's Roll!" and "Mission Accomplished!". Remember?

Alexander knew in order to truely conqure a people, you must assimilate them into your culture. To achive this, a main component of his war strategy was to, in the aftermath of military victory, construct and staff both libraries and schools. His aim was not only military victory but to create a life for the conqured that was better than the one they had before. Is this what we've done in Iraq? Hardly. We can barely keep the lights on and the water running, let alone provide security. Libraries and schools are out of the question, a distant dream.

Now the plan is to inject more troops into Baghdad. Brilliant. That'll be like adding more grapes to a food fight.

Non Sequitur: Meanest hitter of the late 70s-early 80s, Jim Rice, #14 was left out of the Hall again.

From Drink the Kool Aid to Hair of the Dog

Topic: Politics

Tom Wolfe, wrote a book about LSD called "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". (Every time I hear the title I want to drink black cherry Wylers. My cousin and I used to mix one part of that, one part Ketel One vodka and one part coke, in a pint glass, over ice. It was called the "Rock Star" drink, quite good. It was inspired by William S. Burroughs' vodka and coke mixture, "The Burroughs", not very good.) Anyway, the current catch phrase used to describe those who went along with the war in Iraq is "They drank the "Kool Aid". They were fed the party line about WMD, etc., drank the kool aid and tripped balls, hallucinating that it was a good idea and that all was going well with the untidy misadventure over there. They heard horns, saw bright lights and thought it was a victory parade. It turns out, however, that it wasn't and that they were in fact, standing in the middle of a busy highway at night, watching the pretty trails that drifted behind their hands as they waved them in front of their face. The Kool Aid wore off and they found out it was really the poison laced Jonestown Punch that the Jim Jones cult drank to commit a mass suicide. The Reps. lost the Congress and Rumsfeld lost his job.

One strategy for relieving a hangover is to start drinking again, referred to as "the hair of the dog", as in, "bite the dog that bit you." It's obviously an idiotic idea that postpones the inevitable and makes the pain worse when it finally does come. Genius! Well the equivalent plan is about to be implemented in Iraq. They're calling it "The Surge" and it consists of dropping acid then adding more troops to the force in place, I guess so they can join in the fun.

Have a nice trip, hope you enjoy the fall.