re: Terrorism, mostly, and the schemes of fanatics.
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... sooner or later, in my view, we will have to survive without this little bit of fiction -- if we intend to survive in the reality based world.
... much as I had to leave teddy at home when entering the first grade, and Linus will have to, at some point, surrender his blanket.
Clearly and simply -- the war against 'terror' is our war against the poor of the world -- who happen to squat atop the bulk of known global energy resources -- energy that we covet -- who happen to resist our confiscation of their resources and markets and self determination -- who do not possess comparable conventional standing armies and arsenals.
... we must renounce this fiction for one of two reasons:
1) ... we risk our humanity as we struggle with the contradiction of perceiving ourselves as a humane and civilized society (and country) while continuing to perpetrate heinous acts on poor, civilian populations.
2) ... we most assuredly will lose this "war" -- lest we define and explain it correctly to the American people for what it truly is -- an all out and bloody sprint to control oil and the survival of empire -- that we simply cannot lose and maintain our existence as presently defined and understood.
In my view, the US population would eagerly embrace a clearly and accurately defined manichean agenda (spiced with appropriately religious, nationalist undertones), and we could proceed -- with clear and unfettered conscience -- with the task of carving a bloody path through the Middle East (and North Africa).*
* ... which, in my view, would utterly fail**, for myriad reasons, but that's a rant left for another time...
** ... or result, to creationist's delight, in the reality, if not the fable, of rapture. |
