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

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The Disappearing Invasion 

...it was always a stupid idea, frankly, that the government of the United States was jumping all over the Haiti earthquake in a effort to exercise the opportunity to invade and occupy that star-crossed nation. "Invasion" and "Occupation" were charges raised by various individual observers from the left here in the US, but they were also broached by a representative of the French government. Given that the 'two war' strategy that the Pentagon has always employed as the foundation for its force planning has been proven to be woefully, tragically inadequate in the face of involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the idea that the US was somehow interested in involving itself in an occupation of Haiti was absurd on its own face. Ill will about the Monroe Doctrine die hard, though, both here and abroad, and even in times of dire need there will be those who, for whatever reason, fail to - or refuse to - understand some of the fundamental aspects of the short-term capabilities of the military to immediately respond to catastrophic events...

The rumblings about occupation are probably to be expected in this case; it is Haiti, after all, and both the United States and France have all sorts of history there. The reality is entirely different, especially if one looks at the need to respond to the looming humanitarian disaster presented by the Jan. 12 earthquake from the standpoint of mobilizing resources to remote places. People I know do this sort of thing all the time, every year, year after year, and those people would commit unspeakable acts if such behavior would offer a shot at having the resources of the military available to move all the personnel and all of their attendant supplies to wild land fires across the western United States. Without emergency declarations and a certain lag time, this doesn't normally happen, no matter how many homes may be at risk from conflagration...

Aside from all of that, it appears that the much-dreaded invasion and occupation of Haiti by US troops is starting to look not very much like that sort of thing. You don't pull troops out if you are planning an occupation, and you certainly don't leave a mere 13,000 troops to engage in the occupation of an entire country, especially when many of those troops may not be deployed for purposes of quelling the population at gunpoint (which is what 'occupation' is all about). It was always, as I said before, a stupid idea that the US would see this moment as the perfect time to occupy another sovereign nation - even one falling within the reach of that old Monroe Doctrine -
if for no other reason than the fact that there is no compelling national security reason to do so. As a result of the intrusion of harsh numerical reality, the "invasion" seems to be disappearing...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:09 PM 0 comments

Monday, February 08, 2010

Firsts And Lasts 

...first time things are amazing, exciting, even occasionally wondrous for the power of the emotions that they fire up deep in our guts. The first bike ride without training wheels; the first time staying over night at a friend's house; the first time driving a car; the first time driving a car alone without parents shouting panicked instructions; the first kiss; "the First Time"...

Last time things are emotional, too, but are usually more poignant than uplifting (though they can possibly be both). That last walk through your parents' house before leaving to start your new life elsewhere; the last caress of a beloved childhood pet before you place it in the hole you dug out in a far corner of the back yard; the last goodbye to a friend or lover or loved one that you know you will probably never see again for a whole variety of reasons...

Over a remarkable span than covered less than 12 hours last night and early this morning, we had - if we wanted to join in - the opportunity to watch both a first and a last. Today, a good portion of the population of New Orleans spent the morning sucking down pain relievers like confectionery tablets out of a Pez dispenser in a desperate effort to calm heads and stomachs after the first Super Bowl victory by a football team that has been for the better part of half a century the picture next to the dictionary definition of the word 'hapless'. An entire city - and, for a moment, an entire nation - chanted "Who Dat" as last night's game supplanted the last episode of MASH as the most-watched TV program of all time...

Less than six hours later, anyone who wanted to stay up really late could watch the last nighttime launch of a space shuttle...and one of the last launches period of any space shuttle (photo courtesy of www.satnews.com):
...I'll admit it: I'm a space geek. I grew up in an era when Mom and Dad roused me from early-morning sleep to watch those first Mercury launches on the far side of the country at 4 and 5 and 6 o'clock in the morning. I remember exactly where I was when Neil Armstrong stepped off the LEM pad onto the lunar surface (sitting alone in Grandma E's Bremerton, WA, living room, screaming my lungs out at my parents and grandparents to come watch a moment of history that was far more important than whatever inane chattering they were engaged in; didn't work, and I watched it alone). I cheered space shuttle satellite launches and the advent of Sally Ride; I celebrated the Hubble launch and the repair missions. I remember where I was and how I felt about the Challenger's last failed mission and I woke the entire family up on that fateful early West Coast Saturday morning on 1 Feb 2003 when the news first broke about the reentry failure of Columbia...

I am a child of the space age, growing up at the same time that the US space program grew to maturity. Budgetary and societal issues have dictated that the era of human space flight - at least as far as US astronauts being flung into space on US-built space vehicles is concerned - is coming to an end this year. The mystery and majesty of an endeavor that captured the imagination of the Baby Boomer generation will see its curtain drawn down for a whole lot of reasons that either make perfect sense or make no sense whatsoever, depending on particular world views, but the bottom line for now is that Endeavor's last night launch is one of those Last Things...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:49 PM 1 comments

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