<$BlogRSDURL$>

Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Nullifying the Haters 

...and so now we learn, courtesy of Carla at Loaded Orygun, that Fred Phelps and his merry congregation of lower primates are coming to Oregon to spew their hatred for homosexuality at the memorial ceremony for PFC Thomas Tucker at the Deschutes County Fair Expo Center on Saturday. Apparently they also intend to do a bonus round by debasing the funeral for Spc. Robert Jones in Clackamas on Friday, just for the heck of it...

I have learned through hard experience that going with first impulses isn't always a good idea. As a native of a pretty rough and tumble area in North Central Idaho, my first impulse is that these critters should be fire-hosed, pistol-whipped, wire-tie cuffed, strip-searched, water-boarded, cavity-searched with big bullet-nosed flashlights, tasered just for grins, and hurled into the first available eastbound boxcar.

But that would be wrong.

Mostly it would be wrong, not because of the abuse of First Amendment rights or because it would directly violate those Christian beliefs that I profess to hold (OK, it would, but let's move on), but it would be wrong simply because it would earn undeserved sympathy and attention to these 'people'. Thank God there are citizens like the Patriot Guard Riders willing to come face to face with this anti-Christian display of pure evil and just face it down with a calm muscular display of nonviolence. There are enough issues surrounding our presence in Iraq as it is, and many of us who opposed the invasion itself still support the efforts of the troops to try to fix the mess that Gee Dub, Big Dick, and Cheney have dragged us into. None of us, regardless of our opinions about the Iraq war, need this stupid little display of unrelated hate. Hopefully the efforts of the Patriot Riders and Americna Legion Riders and other groups who travel to the various memorial services will nullify Phelps and his minions and make them a nonstory. That's the only way to get rid of the haters...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:02 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Next Time Go Herbal 

…well, this certainly explains a lot. No wonder Rush is such an angry, bitter man. Not only does he apparently suffer from one of those most emotionally taxing of all man diseases, but now he knows that we know. That would certainly drive me into an Oxycontin fit…

Sometimes they just make it too easy for us...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:34 AM 0 comments

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Life and Death Questions 

...the lead story in today's Bend Bulletin is a feature about the tragically short life of a young Madras, Orygun, native and member of the 101st Airborne Division who was captured and killed in Iraq last week. The story, which occupies a great deal of Section A, brings the local community face to face with something that many haven't actually had to deal with all that much in the recent past: the raw personal cost that George W. Bush's Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure has brought to thousands of families across the country over the last few years. It shows beyond refutation that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's insistence that 2500 is "just a number" is simply a brutally callous characterization that speaks volumes to the attitudes of this administration. But it also brings all those old questions to mind:

What were they thinking There may have been arguably credible evidence of chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq, but there has also been developed since 2003 a body of evidence that the desire to invade Iraq was an almost overpowering obsession for key people in positions of influence in the White House, and that obsession was in the driver's seat when it came to actually making a case for the invasion. It's clear that there weren't drums of brutal chemicals or deadly organisms ready for the tapping by Al Queda operatives as it is equally clear that there weren't any connections between Osama's gang and Saddam that did or could ever pose a threat to our security. It's also clear that there wasn't anything even approaching the sort of nuclear program that Big Dick Cheney or Condi Rice just couldn't shut up about. There simply wasn't the sort of threat to justify killing 2500 troops and permanently maiming thousands more, much less the tens of thousands of Iraqi's who have died...

What was their plan? Did it take up more than one page? Did it include more than "hey, let's invade Iraq and create a shining beacon of democracy on a Middle Eastern hill to be a model for all Arab cultures (Details to follow)"? Was this anything more than some sort of bloody proving ground for Rumsfeld's personal dreams of using small mobile forces to settle our foreign conflicts? It would be nice if someone on this lame crew would step forward to take credit for the idea that there wouldn't be any problems with marching in and tearing down every piece of the human infrastructure that could make the country run; at least then we would know who we could put in the stocks in the town square and hurl rotten vegetables at. Gee Dub insisted during the 2000 campaign that he did not believe in nation building and the only thing we can take from that statement is that we have to give him credit for having made it, because not one single thing his administration has done in Iraq suggests that anybody in that misbegotten gang has much a feel for it either...

What was their objective? Was it actually oil? Apparently not, given the fact that we can't protect the oil infrastructure any better that anything else? Was this a PNAC thing, fulfilling the thesis that they developed during the Clinton administration on how to bring peace to the Middle East by bringing down Saddam? Bushco's dedicated repudiation of anyone who said they needed more troops or money to pull this thing off, coupled with the clear fact three years out that both the estimates of troop needs and costs offered by those cast so violently into the darkness were - if anything - themselves a little shy of the mark, suggests that nobody was giving any sort of real-world though to the ramifications of invasion. Bushco has acted as if trying to restore some sense of order to post-invasion Iraq requires little more effort that trying to grow radishes in the family vegetable garder. Their "plan" seemed to rely on little more than some naive hope that certain benchmarks - creation of a constitution; voting for a government - will automatically spawn the creation of some brave new era of peace and cooperation. The reality is a sad, bloody repudiation of whatever half-hearted efforts they may have expended trying to achieve their objectives, whatever they actually are. We are now even faced with the vision of the Prime Minister offering amnesty for insurgents in order to try to bring reconcilliation, although you gotta wonder just exactly where you go to find an insurgent who wasn't involved in the killing of Iraqis or Coalition troops (apparently those who confined their actions to obscene jestures will be invited into the fold).

The questions just keep coming, but at root it is a useless exercise. Gee Dub's "War on Terra", which should have focused on the 'terra' that actually threatens us but instead spun off into this Middle Eastern nation-building exercise that even George W. Bush himself increasing referred to as "liberation" of a downtrodden people when that WMD thing fell apart, could have and should have been directed at the things that actually matter in terms of national security. But as long as we are faced with Republican control and their own deep, fearful understanding that this is all they've got to go with, none of those questions will ever be answered...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:26 PM 0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?