Politics

William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune (emphasis mine):

American commentators like to think that the “Jacksonian” frontier spirit equips America to dominate, reform and democratize other civilizations. They do not appreciate that America’s indefatigable confidence comes largely from never having had anything very bad happen to it.

The worst American war was the Civil War, in which the nation, North and South, suffered 498,000 wartime deaths from all causes, or slightly more than 1.5 percent of a total population of 31.5 million.

The single battle of the Somme in World War I produced twice as many European casualties as the United States suffered, wounded included, during that entire war.

There were 407,000 American war deaths in World War II, out of a population of 132 million – less than a third of 1 percent. Considering this, Washington does not really possess the authority to explain, in condescending terms, that Europe’s reluctance to go to war is caused by a pusillanimous reluctance to confront the realities of a Hobbesian universe.

…

It cannot be emphasized too often that not one of the principal figures associated with the Bush White House’s foreign policy, with the exception of Colin Powell, has any actual experience of war, most of them having actively sought to avoid military service in Vietnam. Their inexperience and ignorance could not be better displayed than by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s recent comment that draftees have added “no value, no advantage really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time.” Who does he think fought World War II – the 174,000-man prewar regular army?

The American regular army has never been truly effective until large numbers of flexible, brainy and nonconformist wartime civilian soldiers were integrated into its command, staffs and ranks.

…

Germany’s current resistance to President George W. Bush’s war coincides with the re-emergence in Germany of articulated memories of exterminatory bombardment, pillage, population expulsions and mass rape, suffered in the final months of World War II. That devastating experience has for years been deliberately repressed in the German consciousness, in acknowledgment of Germany’s responsibility for the war and the crimes committed by German forces.

In recent months a series of books and articles have at last recalled what the Germans themselves call taboo subjects, at a time when the youngest generations of those who experienced these events are mostly still alive.

This has not been to argue the merits, justification and (minor) actual effect on the German war effort of allied saturation and firestorm bombing of German cities, but in order to establish a moral and aesthetic coming-to-terms with events that, together with the firebombing of Japan’s wooden cities, rank among the worst things ever done in or by Western civilization.

Go read James’s post about John Pilger’s column on our likely attack on Iraq. We are becoming a rogue nation, and it is laughable to pretend we are doing this in the interest of “democracy”.

Courtesy of George M. Carter:

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let’s look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

It’s “pre-emptive non-aggression”, bomb Iraq.
Let’s prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They’ve got weapons we can’t see,
And that’s good enough for me
‘Cos it’s all the proof I need
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam’s gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad),
Bomb Iraq.

If your corporate fraud is growin’, bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin’, bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain’t easy,
And your manhood’s getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We’ll call it treason,
Let’s make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

Also check out ABSURD RESPONSE TO AN ABSURD WAR. Who says lefties don’t have a sense of humor?

Haha – oh – stop it hurts!

I almost spit my coffee all over my iBook after reading about Lawrence Kudlow over at TBOGG:

The great investor class is mightily worried about all this — and it’s holding its breath, waiting for President Bush to launch a counter-offensive. Meeting with economists in the White House Cabinet Room is not what shareholders want to see. They want the new great communicator George W. Bush out selling his plan in the key heartland red states, and maybe even in some of the blue bi-coastal states.

You can buy this bumper sticker on her site:

Also, don’t miss her on Gum Control.

Ellis Henican on Col. David Hackworth:

David Hackworth is one of the most celebrated soldiers in modern U.S. history. He joined the merchant marine at 14, the Army at 15, and he’s never looked back. He was the youngest U.S. captain in the Korean War, the youngest colonel in Vietnam. As a soldier and later a war correspondent, he’s been on a dozen battlefields, hot and cold. And he never became a Pentagon bureaucrat. Of all the medals that have been pinned to his uniform, it’s the Combat Infantryman’s Badge he’s proudest of.

Now his country is tilting toward war again.

“Having thought long and hard about war with Iraq,” Hackworth told me, measuring his words carefully, “I cannot find justification. I don’t see a threat. They are not Nazi Germany. This is not the Wehrmacht. In no way does the situation in Iraq affect my nation’s security. That is the bottom line of analyzing threats. ‘Does this country threaten my country’s security?’ In this case, absolutely not.”

The awesome risks of this war, he said, far outweigh the potential rewards.

“Focus on protecting the American homeland, which is not adequately defended,” Hack said. “Nine-eleven proved that. All of the machinations that have gone on since then are more lip service and crowd-pleasing than real. Our borders are still wide open. Our ports are vulnerable, too. And there are plenty of sleeper cells – Middle Eastern terrorists living among us, waiting to do their thing.”

…

And finally, what about all the anti-American sentiment this war will generate? “One and a half billion Muslims, who don’t like us anyway. Now they’re gonna look and say, ‘Here come the crusaders again.’”

From their ranks rise the terrorists of tomorrow.

As he travels across the country, Hackworth told me, the vast majority of military veterans he meets see this war as a rotten idea.

“They’ve been there,” he said. “They know war is not a blood sport, as cable news make it out to be. Cheney and Bush and Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld – they’ve never stood and faced the elephant. These are the people who gush for war.”

But don’t expect the generals and the admirals to raise their own private doubts.

“Through the long eight-year bloodbath of Vietnam, not one general sounded off and said, ‘Bad war, can’t win it, let’s get out.’ They went along to get along. It’s true again. The top generals are head-shakers.”

As for the public, just watch how quickly the pro-war sentiment will evaporate.

“My parachute brigade was the first to go to Vietnam,” Hackworth recalled. “Eighty-five percent of Americans were saying, ‘Hey, hey, all the way with LBJ.’ We were there a year, shipping body bags back home as fast as we could. Suddenly, the American public, which is so fickle, did a 180. ‘Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?’”

Very interesting chart from the Jan. 21 New York Times:

James has a good post on what’s really going on in Venezuela.

Is the press starting to realize that Bush isn’t the Teflon® man?

AIDS Nominee Withdraws From White House AIDS Panel

‘Made in China’ labels hidden at Bush event

Of course, there are plenty of fundamentalist bigots still on the AIDS panel.