Ouch My Head Hurts!

Iraq and a hard place: Episode II (A revolting development)

All levity aside I am getting a really bad feeling about Iraq. It feels like the kind of ugly tension in my gut that happens when a loved one is dying. I was never for the invasion. I though it was ill timed and poorly conceived even before the first shot was fired. However I find no comfort in Bush’s poor fortune. I know people who are over there and I have family approaching draft age. I am getting scared. If I had to put my money on any particular outcome I would bet on all-out civil war. In this particular scenario our soldiers end up as cannon fodder for both sides in a decade long (or longer) nasty police action. The kind of police action where you don’t know which person in the village is the enemy. National dept will skyrocket and a constant stream of coffins will be returned. Has there ever been an instant in history where an occupied country was pacified into an idyllic Eden? Bush’s hubris will destroy the economy and rip the country apart, but not before the election. He will get his “four more years” and we will be stuck with the bill. I don’t care about how the war was or wasn’t justified. Those arguments are pointless now. The true magnitude of the mess will not sink in till long after the election. After all, how long were we in Vietnam before our self-righteous arrogance gave way to the reality of the situation.

I have spoken to people who have spent time in the Middle East. It is a completely different culture than our own. It’s a much more brutal, corrupt and nasty world. There is no such thing as giving somebody “one more chance”. The rule of thumb for the Arabs goes like this: If your enemy looks weak give him a shove. If he doesn’t shove back he is weak, so kill him. When you add in the Muslim martyrs, power mad mullahs, blood feuds and Iraqi nationalism you have a slaughterhouse.

There is no exit strategy possible!

Morally, we made this mess. We built Saddam up, we tore him down, we bleed him into weakness then we killed his regime. How can we not clean up the mess?

Withdrawing will make us look weak (and we have already reviewed what happens to the weak). Not withdrawing makes our soldiers targets. We should just paint a big read bull’s-eye on that desert camouflage shirt.

As I said before, I was never for the war. But I have a personal stake in seeing it end quickly. My solution would be to break up the country. Give the Kurds the north, the Shiites the south and Sunni the middle. Then just leave.

Of course this will not happen. The Sunni and Shiites may dominate certain regions but they do not exclusively inhabit them. The minority population in a region would be slaughtered. Then civil war would breakout. And of course the Turks would have a cow if a Kurdish homeland were established.

So I sit and wait with that ugly tension in my gut. Waiting for the next shoe to drop, it’s the waiting that is slowly ripping me apart.


FYI:

Gulf of Tonkin Incident (The justification for major US involvement in Vietnam) 1964
TET OFFENSIVE, 1968
Last American Troops Leave Vietnam, 1973

Let’s ignore what is happening on the ground in Iraq right now. Hypothetically speaking, is there ANY worse case scenario that could occur that would cause the right-wingers to admit we made a mistake?

It took years for Vietnam to sink in before most Americans realized we were fighting a never-ending war of conquest against a country that just wanted us to leave. On the other hand what would convince the “right” they were wrong about Iraq. How high a body count and how much money would it take (seriously give me some numbers)? Are these even questions the “right” is concerned about. Perhaps they are driven by other motives like the jingoism, manifest destiny and the need to uplift and Christianize the heathen Muslims? Personally I have always been a pragmatist. I have always found the view of extremist unfathomable. I do a cost verses benefit analyzes and make a decision. I am getting a distinct feeling this is becoming a religious thing were Bush has to prove that his god is bigger than the Muslim’s.

My objections to the war were historical, political and logistical. Historically a country can never been truly be “pacified” by a foreign power. Afghanistan still is not “pacified”.

I wonder if Bush dropped his pants and whizzed on the flag during a live broadcast, would the “right” still give him a standing ovation?

Heck the Bosnians and Serbs are still fighting over stuff that happened centuries ago. I am at loss to counter the jingoistic, manifest destiny arguments of the right. The left is always against any war for any reason.

What is the end game strategy? Do we just keep killing each other till one side gets bored and goes home? The army is going to fight this war the same way it fought Vietnam. After all that’s what armies do. They kill people and blow things up. And every time we shot the wrong guy or burned the wrong village in Vietnam we made more Vietcong.

The Day after, maybe? More oil wars definitely!

Weather is a chaotic non-linear system (basically a heat engine). Chaotic systems are normally very stable except when you start removing or adding energy to them. When you do this they become very very unstable. They will attempt to find a new stable state. They will do this very rapidly. The time frame depicted in the movie is not reasonable. However the final out come is not unreasonable. The data is hardly conclusive but a more reasonable timeframe would be 1 to 100 years.

To find out more about this read “Chaos: Making a New Science
by James Gleick.”

As for the source of the CO2:

We (the USA) have already run out of oil. We import about 50% from some of the most politically unstable regions on the planet. Which leave us with the question of where to get our energy. Market forces can hardly compensate for cheap oil supply that could be 100% cut off at any time for political reasons (like the over throw of the Saudi royal family.) Markets need time to react. A political suspension of supply would not allow for this. We are vulnerable. We need to defend ourselves from blackmail. I think we should remove all oil industry subsides and let the 5 bucks a gallon gas price make alternatives more available. (I like electric cars with Lithium batteries charged by nuclear power plants.)

Nuclear fuel rods can be reprocessed and reused. This is the system France is currently using. If you reprocessed the current “spent” fuel rods lying around at nuclear plants you wouldn’t even have to mine any more uranium (theoretically).

There isn’t enough solar and wind (even with 100% efficiently) to supply New York with power. We don’t have enough oil/coal/natural gas. Nuclear is dangerous.

Pick your poison people you only have three choices!
Fossil Fuel
Nuclear
Alternate energy and conservation

By the way if you are really interested in alternate energy Homepower magazine is the definitive site on the subject.
http://www.homepower.com

Also: The department of energy keeps records about solar and wind power availability the USA.

http://www.homepower.com/education/

When a person or civilization is faced with the possibility of destruction isn’t it a better idea to try and stop it rather that say: “Hey, lets wait till everything goes to hell. Then we will make a decision”.

It is obvious we are a nation of obese SUV driver unwilling to conserve energy in our homes, cars or work. Our only viable alternative is Nuclear.

Unless you want to go start a couple of more wars over oil!

Patriotism

Isn’t love of America supposed to mean love of the constitution and the bill of rights?
Isn’t there a definite danger to substituting a particular politician for love of country?
Isn’t it likely that if you unquestionably support a candidate that you risk becomimg a cult of personality member?

Many say they love America yet they can’t seem to rouse themselves to study the history of how this country was formed (with all its squabbling and back biting).

When you say you love this country do you just love the individuals who agree with you?
When you say love, do you mean you love the country so much that you will throw a dissenting member in jail with out due process to “save” the country? Or do you just love being powerful and feared by other countries? At Kent State who loved the country more the protesters or the guardsmen who shot them?

I have never considered adrenaline charged flag waving “love of country”. I consider love of country being willing to stand up to an anger lynch mob, the civil war era “underground railroad”, and martin Luther King. Love of country is not a 4th of July parade. It’s a willingness to stand up for the constitution when all others are against you.

These are dangerous time for the constitution and the bill of rights. If you really loved the country you would be outraged at the current assault on its foundation in the name of political expediency and power.

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63800,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

One thing I have observed by studying Pollingreport.com is that a third of the country would make excuses for Bush regardless of what he does (and conversely for Kerry if he is elected)

If Bush confessed during a press conference to having actually cannibalized babies you would see people defend him.

I often wonder what motivates such people (democrat and republican), so I came up with several theories on “unconditional” support:

Selfishness: The candidate is going to give you something. Whether it’s tax cuts by the republicans or “entitlements” by the democrats the result is the same. Selfishness was one of the major reasons for the collapse of Rome.

Dogma: Some people become so emotionally committed to an unsubstantiated or un-provable belief that not even the death of friends and family will dissuade them from supporting destructive behavior. The Iranian human wave attacks during the Iraq-Iran war is an example.

Hatred: Hatred is always something the “other” guy suffers from. When someone starts frothing at the mouth you know the higher brain functions have ceased to function.

Sadism: Some people are just animals in human form. They like to kill and inflict pain or watch it being done by others. I would never have thought to include this in a discussion of American political culture till now. It seemed to have been more an artifact of Nazism, Communism or third world dictators. Obviously that has changed.


PS: The army is currently having serious recruiting problems. If you really want to support Mr. Bush’s re-election why not enlist? Or get a son, daughter, niece or nephew to enlist? A dot-mil email address would give you a lot more credibility.