Saturday, June 18, 2011

War and the Wimps Who Wage It

Glory, patriotism, honor, valor, courage, and heroism, all adjectives with positive connotations referring to war. How is it possible to continue to use any of these words to describe any aspect of the process of war, men killing other men? The more proper nouns for these associated adjectives are brutality, injury, maiming, raping innocent victims, killing, slaying, and slaughter only to mention a few that more accurately describe the process of war. It is the barbaric destruction of the human dignity of both the attacker and the victim. Where do find the hubris to use any other words to describe it?

I can the remember the morning I sat in front of my television set watching with shock and horror the destruction of the Twin Towers, and the confusion that followed within myself with no desire for reprisal or revenge, only thoughts of how to stop the animals that would perpetrate further atrocities on American soil. Who did it? Al Queda did it so what the f***k were we doing invading Iraq, thought I, when the perpetrators were in Afghanistan? We had inexplicably supported Saddam Hussein in his dictatorship of abuse of human rights only years before. I was to learn much later the despicable motive of Bush, personal "glory", power, personal gain, and simple reprehensible, inexcusable vanity of wanting to be a "war president". I remember the passage of the The Patriot Act, and the power it gave this despot to snoop into people's private lives, example, vindictively dangerously exposing Valerie Plane because her husband did not agree with his slaughter of innocents for personal gain. How can he among others complain about Wikileaks if he believes so strongly that what he did was right?

All of these words, valor, honor, courage, patriotism were as in the previous history of war, see Tostoy's comments in War and Peace, to be used again as camouflage for what is really going on, senseless killing out of a leader's vanity that the American public without question supported.
We had a president who from the day he took office was secretly looking for a reason to invade Iraq. For what purposes? Primarily, ego, power, pride, and personal gain, his family being in the oil business and the Vice President being in oil and the business of waging war professionally with mercinaries. The American public is guilty, because it supported him. None of these efforts directed at Saddam Hussein had anything to to do with the defense of this county. Only the search for Ossama Ben Laden had anything to do with the prevention of future attacks.

It is no wonder Muslim countries in the Middle East hate us when we have exploited and destroyed the lives of their peoples for superfluous reasons when they have done nothing against us.We now have the blood of many thousands of people in the Middle East on our hands as well as destroying many of their lives by destroying everything they own when they have done nothing against us. That blood is on our hands, and yet we protect George Bush and do not arrest him and Dick Chesney or turn them over to face charges for their war crimes. We do not even immediately stop operations against countries we have no business bombing, poor third world countries we invade solely at the whim of out current president and against the law, Barack Obama. He continues to involve us in the private struggles of other countries.

There is nothing valorous, honorable, heroic, or courageous about invading third world countries to soothe the ego of our current president. Turn Bush and Chesney over for their war crimes and stop Obama from killing innocent people in an undeclared war at tax payer expense. These wars are reprehensible, abominable, cruel, base, cowardly, disgraceful, ignoble, deploreableable, wicked and evil affronts to the human dignity discounting any belief we might have in the value of life.

War has an insane quality about it that has been recognized for centuries. Can not a little reason prevail over our egos?