Bullets, Bodies and Bullshit
It is becoming apparent that those brave young souls getting mowed down in the hills of that distant land will not have gone in vain -- but not for the reasons you might expect. It is not enemy bullets that are responsible for filling the red and white decorated coffins, it is paperwork and policy. The pile of dead now significantly exceeds mole hill status and the corpses of the fallen are unwittingly creating a giant barrier right in the middle of Stephen Harper's road to success. As always, Chantal Hebert said it best today (here).
The father of a dead soldier who said last week that it was disgraceful for Bob Rae to call for withdrawal was under duress. That kind of emotional aggression is entirely understandable under the circumstances. But Rae is right. Only until the blue meanies can provide one good example of how such deaths have positively impacted a third world nation anywhere in the past will I ever support this abstract, distant, meaningless and destructive exercise motivated by pro-American political groupie-ism.
And when I say "positive impact" I mean giving tangible power, food, education and health care to the people, not the same old archaic, windbag bravado inherent in the idealism that the West is the sole gatekeeper and disseminator of world democracy. Democracy: Like that's a fucking reason to jump up and down for some parentless child on either side of the ocean.
Where will Harper be when his extension lapses and the bullets stop flying at innocent Canadians? Will he be advocating pouring the needed billions in aid into that country to help the people? Irrespective of the fact that his political shelf life may have expired long before 2009, I seriously doubt it.
The father of a dead soldier who said last week that it was disgraceful for Bob Rae to call for withdrawal was under duress. That kind of emotional aggression is entirely understandable under the circumstances. But Rae is right. Only until the blue meanies can provide one good example of how such deaths have positively impacted a third world nation anywhere in the past will I ever support this abstract, distant, meaningless and destructive exercise motivated by pro-American political groupie-ism.
And when I say "positive impact" I mean giving tangible power, food, education and health care to the people, not the same old archaic, windbag bravado inherent in the idealism that the West is the sole gatekeeper and disseminator of world democracy. Democracy: Like that's a fucking reason to jump up and down for some parentless child on either side of the ocean.
Where will Harper be when his extension lapses and the bullets stop flying at innocent Canadians? Will he be advocating pouring the needed billions in aid into that country to help the people? Irrespective of the fact that his political shelf life may have expired long before 2009, I seriously doubt it.
Labels: Foreign Affairs, Harpocrites, War
posted by K-Dough at 9:00 AM
15 Comments:
I picked the wrong night to watch Hotel Rwanda last night. Gets a little harder to pick a side.
I've never seen it. Probably won't until my daughter grows up and leave the nest. Any 2 hour block of free time is eaten up by heavy drinking, sex or body maintenance. I do all my serious academic work in the 10 minutes I have between showering and scarfing down a bowl of yogurt and berries and a double espresso in the AM.
But I just got to thinking.
Fundamentalists with neck strain and scalp tension are that much harder to talk with logically and calmly. What about deploying massage therapists to Taliban strongholds? They could really use some de-stressing these days and would undoubtedly be more amenable if they just let of go of a little of that rage that has built up since the Americans flew in there and demolished all their hard work.
You got dat right bone daddy.
It's unacceptable that we have no well defined goal for the war other than "spreading democracy". Heck, we could do that right here in Canada by giving 17 year olds the right to vote.
We can't get 18 through to 25 year olds to come out and vote... what point lowering the age?
Besides, 17 is too young. A teen doesn't understand the very identifiable stupidity of life yet, and therefore has nothing to contrast the bullshit being spun by your average politician.
I suppose on the bright side, the kill ratio's are impressive. I think its 25 Taliban to one Canadian right now... not bad considering the afghani are considered the finest guerilla fighters in the world.
JC: With all due respect, that kill ratio thing is pretty cool if you are playing video games. Probably not so cool when you are that one family that has to deal with the bloody fistful of hamburger left of the human body you used to call to your son. I guess.
I like the point Saskboy raises though about minding our own fucking democratic business. In a complacent nation that has such low voter turnout, doesn't it make sense that we should be concentrating on stimulating active democracy in our own country before we try force it on others?
The point the lad brings up is valid, but moot. We can't mind our own democratic business, even if we wanted too.
The kill ratio thing is not in jest, it's a testement to the training and capabilities of our boys and girls. I'm very proud of them, and I believe they are doing a good job. To fail or stint in support of them is plain wrong, and to as a nation we have obligations that have to met, whether we want to or not.
I wish it were as simple as saying "we want nothing to do with this" but it isn't, and your well aware of that K-dough, so don't suggest otherwise. Calls for pull-out, for a mandate other than the one which exists, are meaningless at this junction. We have to step up to our international agreements.
It's our "Western" attitude that caused this shit in the first place, and now we are paying the piper for years of complancency and disregard for the rights of these nations.
Slander the US, berate Britain, scoff at France... we are no less guilty as Canadians, perhaps just less obviously.
We have caused our fair share of damage to third world nations, and the global community at large. The only real difference might be intent. Ours benign, but no less imperialistic and destructive in many ways.
Who are we to stand up and tell the third world they have to clean up their environment, or save this animal or do whatever. They simply look back at us and say "your just trying to keep us down" and "why is it ok for you, but not for me".
4 billion people on this planet have not had the luxury of sitting back and contemplating the evils we commit to the earth and each other, nor do they have the education to begin to understand it all. Yet we in our arrogance still attempt to sway them this way or that, when our credibility ran out 50 years ago.
It's all unsustainable K-dough, it's all going down the shitter, and nothing we do now will matter, because we are too lazy. As long as the Western world doesn't have it's back to the wall, it will do nothing significant to change the status quo.
All any of us can do is look after our little piece of it, try to be good global citizens, and hope one day everyone is doing the same.
Given human nature I find that highly unlikely.
Doesn't matter though in the long run. Mother earth was here before us, and she'll still be here when we are gone, and if we are the problem, she will eliminate us.
Simple and straight forward from the earths perspective. We see time one way, and the earth another. In the battle for time, the earth always wins, and no matter the damage we do, the earth will heal. We just might not be around when it happens.
What arrogance does man have to think himself greater than the lowest of insects. From the earths perspective, we're just no different from the insects.
Unless of course someone wants to do radical surgery on western society.
Tell me:
Are you prepared to give up your bicycle? They are made using products that are created out of raw materials, which are refined.
Will you give up your computer?
Your shower?
Your access to clean water?
The clothes you put on your childs back?
Every thing we do is based on the science of mass production and technological knowhow.
How much that bicycle that is made by hand? If the demand is small, not much, but what if 15 million people need that hand made bike to get to work... then it becomes priceless.
In response to your earlier comment... it is just a game K-dough. It was always a game, it will always be a game, and all of us, from on high to the lowest of us, is simple a piece in that game.
Real people live and die in that game, but here I see the hew and cry for the soldiers who have fallen, yet never did I hear such hew and cry for the children, the hundreds of thousands of children, who die each day.
Just like our troops, they didn't decide for themselves either. They didn't ask to have to play in a game where there are no rules, or the rules change daily. Yet they still play, and they still die.
So if one of our troops can save the life of just one afghani, and each one of our troops does the same... its successful in my mind, for those souls would be lost otherwise, and they had much less choice that you or I, or even the soldier.
I've no doubt that would be small comfort to the parents of a soldier, but in the greater scheme, we owe the world a hell of lot more than it owes us.
Okay... no more double martini's for me. I think spending almost all of Monday watching HBO's "Rome"... all 12 episodes, has made me sick in the head. It's damn discouraging to realize that a barbaric (by our standards) society from 2000 years ago, had both more honor, and integrity than ours.
JC- you make some great points. Many of which I am in complete agreement with. I understand that Harper officially committed us to two more years in the theatre. But that is our fault. I don;t believe we are powerless as you say- to quote "all of us, from on high to the lowest of us, is simple a piece in that game."
We have power. Democratic power. Unfortunately the Conservatives, in their drooling, horny schoolboy prematurity, under the thin veneer of a minority mandate, committed us to a medium-term course of action. That was an irresponsible error in judgement- even if only on a political level.
You are correct, the earth will get rid of the problem. Hopefuly, so will voters when they once again assume responsibility for their little corner of the world in the next election.
Sorry mate... just wallowing in my own arrogance today. Feeling very sad, and very old. Neither of which is justifiable, but there you have it.
I dunno, JC. I think you're justified in feeling old ;)
the canadian settler government has faux democracy. same with the u.s., same with any country that claims democracy. it's my old' ramble on about the world truest form of democracy, the iroquois constituion time; !!!!
so how is democracy in canada going to be augmented to reach a truer form? that's what needs the concentration and effort.
Scout... simple. Anarchy!!!
joe, anarchy, or the potential for what has become to be known as anarchy, does exist if one reads the laws. because treaties were never honoured, north american government is in contravention to it's own laws, which , going back to the b.n.a. makes canada and the u.s. illegal entities. this can be taken back as far as the magna carta.
http://sisis.nativeweb.org/clark/eclipse.html
mr. clark is not the only one to have drawn these legal conclusions, but the governments do all they can to shut those people up because they know it's true.
as anarchy is so misunderstood i'll use the term 'civil disobediance', and that has all the potential to happen once the economy implodes.
oh oh, i'm getting way off track here :)
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