Thursday, January 21, 2010

Weather and Politics Enough to Cause a Teetotaler to Drink

The weather has been...well...Boone weather today. It is cloudy, rainy, and there is ice on everything and people are beginning to worry about getting home. Appalachian State has canceled classes tonight and warned everyone to check the Web in the morning for whether there will be further cancelations. All in all, just another dreary day in the High Country.

Actually, the weather is pretty much a match for the funk the nation finds itself in. It seems everyone is pissed at the big banks, angry as heck at Congress and the White House, and, if Massachusetts is an example, angry enough to send any brainless bonehead to Washington in an effort to get change.

It's only been a year, but it seems the Democrats have set a record for how long it took them to completely turnoff supporters and ignite a progressive protest across the nation. If I weren't a teetotaler, I'd go home tonight and pour me a tumbler of scotch.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Who? What are we?

What will we remember about Christmas Day 2009? Will we remember it as a celebration of a Savior’s birth, or will we remember it as the day we, as a nation, showed the world just how feckless and cowardly we are?


Do you remember the 2000 hit movie “Gladiator,” starring Russell Crowe as the Roman general Maximus who was betrayed by an emperor, had his family murdered, and escaped death at the hands of the Praetorian Guard only to find himself in slavery, captured by a North African slave trader who sold him to Proximo and a life in the arena.


One scene in that memorable movie stands out for me and, and at least in my mind has come to represent what I see out of the Washington and media elites whenever some uneducated or obviously mentally deranged scavenger from some Third World country decides he wants to blow up himself along with a bunch of Americans.


Maximus is chained to Juba, played by that marvelous African actor Djimon Hounsou, and they stand with all the other newly purchased slaves in their rags and filth waiting for the crude door to this backwater arena to open and lead them to their fate. The excitement in the scene grows as each character comes to grip with what awaits them. Horns sound. The crowd screams in its bloodlust. The gladiators on the other side of the door, identities hidden behind grotesque animal heads, swing their arms and swords, axes and other implements of death. Maximus and a few others stand tall, tamping down their own fear ready to lead and conquer.


Remember? As a member of the audience the day you saw this film, weren’t you ready for Maximus to avenge himself? You had picked your side in this fight. That’s the image we want the world to see when they see an American. Isn’t that so?


But what image do they see all too often? It’s the image of the little, sniveling coward standing in line, chained to a huge German slave. Tears streak his dirty face and piss slides down his legs to pool at his feet. The others move away from him. The stench of death already rests with him and when the door opens the first to die is the coward.


Wow! I can heard it now. I’ll be accused of not supporting our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a U.S. Marine veteran I’m convinced our men and women in those theatres of operation are performing outstandingly. But of course the British Army was just as professional in the 19th century when it fought two wars against Afghanistan tribesmen. The first, from 1838 to 1842 ended badly for the Brits. After invading and ultimately reaching Kabul and seating their man on that country’s throne, the British faced insurrection and, ultimately, defeat in the mountain passes as the remainder of its combined Brit and Indian force and 12,000 civilians were wiped out.



It is not the brave men and women on our frontlines that I see as the sniveling cowards. It is all the rest of us who refuse to sacrifice for this struggle. Especially, it’s this daily image of conservative lawmakers and talkers who rant and rave about the inadequacies of our mission, blaming the current leadership, Democrats, for all that’s wrong but never once offering anything that might indicate they have really thought about this war and what our strategy ought to be. Despite all the failure. Despite all the abuse. Despite the war crimes we have committed and, probably, continue to commit, no one offers sound advice for getting ourselves out of this mess, and no one shows any willingness to talk with those in the other party to work it out. The failure, my friends is not with our brave men and women in uniform. It is with the feckless cowards who stroll the protected halls of Congress doing nothing to protect our soldiers, sailor, marines and airmen.



We are constantly bombarded with vitriol from the right. Conservatives in Congress take a perverse pleasure in seeking failure for the country as they see their only route to power as coming with the destruction of those currently in power. We ought to remember this. Democrats, then the minority in both Houses of Congress, crossed the aisle with extended hands offering to work with their Republican colleagues and the Republican administration in 2001 to defeat the people responsible for 9/11. That happened. It is in the historical record. But Republicans decided they controlled Congress so there was no need to be bipartisan. The White House decided it was their way or the highway, not only for the domestic political world but for international strategies as well. That attitude continues in Washington, and not just with the war effort. It is an attitude that will ultimately destroy us.


For me, I am beginning to see strong parallels to these Afghan wars with our own. I’m also beginning to see strong parallels to the Vietnam struggle, despite what our leaders and military analysts say. Cambodia, a neutral country bordering Vietnam was sucked into the maelstrom of war as it was used by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong for safe havens to escape American and South Vietnamese forces in the 1960s and 1970s. Sound familiar? Our leaders at the time opted to carry out secret bombings of that tragic little country, and finally, when that had not worked, invasion. The result was a country toppled into the quagmire of our war. In fact, we opened the gates of hell for Cambodia as the result of our failed strategy was Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. It is estimated that 1.7 million people died in the Killing Fields of Pol Pot’s regime.


We bomb the tribal regions of Pakistan trying to kill Al Qaeda leaders using drones and missiles. We badger the Pakistani Army to fight the war for us in the tribal regions, and in Afghanistan we face a growing and persistent threat from the Taliban, the former leaders of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the government we toppled in 2001 when we attacked after 9/11. Eight years later we are still fighting them. Just like the Brits in the 19th century, we face an insurrection. We have tied ourselves to a leader the people of Afghanistan hate, don’t trust, and whom we do not trust. The Afghans don’t want us there, yet we are afraid to pullout. The Taliban is using that growing hatred of Americans to grow its struggle for regaining control of that backwater little country. And, Al Qaeda is willing to see American blood spilled on any battlefield as long as it leads to the collapse of another super power.



Finally, who will be the next Pol Pot? Is he sitting in some mud hut in the tribal areas today? If we Americans are truly like Maximus, we will not let that happen. However, if we are truly like the sniveling coward with piss on his legs, then we are really at the end of our run as a world power. Which are we?