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News :: International Relations |
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'Peace Takes A Bullet' |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mark Morford (via Rev Dave)
Email: DarkMatter (nospam) Hypocrisy.org (verified) |
05 Mar 2003
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It cannot be understated: Shrub's war marks a momentous shift in our society, a huge political and philosophical sea change, as we move from a unified coherent defensive posture to an aggressive, roguish, preemptive-strike attitude, kill first and ask questions never. |
In which the Bush Doctrine means never having to say, sorry about all the warheads and death
By Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle
These are the final days of peace in America. Please remember to turn off the lights and lock up when you leave.
These are the last days of relative calm before we start bombing and massacring hundreds of thousands of people and in so doing enter into what many believe will a very long, drawn-out, insanely expensive, volatile, destabilizing, completely unwinnable war against a cheap thug of an opponent who has negligible military might and zero capacity to actually harm the U.S. in any substantive way. U-S-A! U-S-A!
This will not be Desert Storm. This will not be quick and painless. This will be 3,000 guided missiles launched on the first day of the war, 10 times that of Desert Storm, turning Iraq into an instant wasteland. This is already a minimum of $200 billion, with an additional $50 billion to try and bribe Turkey alone, just to begin with. This is total unabashed war gluttony.
Some estimates put the total cost of this war, when all is said and done which it never will be, at $1 trillion. Enjoy that recession, kids -- it's gonna be here a while.
And say good-bye to your sons and daughters, too. Bush's own decorated army generals have said this invasion and occupation will require hundreds of thousands of American GIs -- quite possibly our entire enlisted force, all mobilized to one region, much of it for years to come, even after Saddam is ousted -- in an attempt to control and stabilize an extremely volatile and irate and terror-ready region. Do we know this?
Oh but there is so much more to it than that. For these are also the final days before this country lunges down a wholly new and wickedly aggressive path.
It cannot be understated: Shrub's war marks a momentous shift in our society, a huge political and philosophical sea change, as we move from a unified coherent defensive posture to an aggressive, roguish, preemptive-strike attitude, kill first and ask questions never.
It is called the Bush Doctrine, a.k.a. Shut the Hell Up You Durn Foreigners and Eat Our Might, and it is in flagrant defiance of not just the U.N. charter and international law but also every moral and philosophical tenet America itself was founded on.
This is the thing about ultraviolent preemptive attacks on whatever petty little nation we choose -- it sort of makes us the world's bully. It sort of goes against our fundamental notions of justice and fairness.
We are soon to be the world's only superpower that will attack anyone we deem might be a potential threat to our interests, immediate provocation notwithstanding, immediate danger irrelevant. This means anyone. This means Syria. North Korea. Iran. Anyone. To say this is a radical and vicious new twist in American policy is glaring understatement. Have we frequently fabricated and inflated our justificatins to attack, to go to war? Have we even invented them from scratch? Of course. But this takes America's thuggish audacity to an entirely new level, one that changes our relationship to the global community in a very bleak and desperate manner.
You think those other countries are sitting idly by, waiting to see who's next on America's hit list? Or do you think they're cranking up their nuke factories and inciting their terrorist cells and marshaling their armies right this minute, for the day when Rummy points his crooked little finger their way? Let's ask North Korea. Whoops, too late.
Perhaps we do not understand the weight of this. Perhaps we don't fully comprehend how profoundly this shift affects our standing in the world, our cultural complexion, our tenuously held respect among our wary allies.
Perhaps we do not understand how much it thoroughly and completely annihilates any remaining shred of international compassion or support we garnered as a result of 9/11. There is none. Two weeks ago, over 11 million people in more than 600 cities staged what is now considered the biggest anti-war protest in world history, all against Shrub's war. No matter.
America will never be the same, everyone said just after 9/11, and meaning it with all their heavy hearts, signifying that America might now have to reevaluate its international standing and its aggressive foreign policy, might have to reexamine its core values, seriously scrutinize capitalism's more dire effects on the world community.
We had two choices: stop Osama and take measure of our nation's heart, its shockingly hate-inducing policies abroad, strengthen our ties with allies and the countless other sympathetic nations that were offering support and alliance, leverage that bitter sadness into resolve and temerity and a new vision of what role our nation plays in the world.
Or, we could go aggro. Get all Bruce Willis on 'em. Still stop Osama, but and then get all macho and war hungry and exterminate everyone we deem a potential threat, no matter how remote. War uber alles. This was fed to us as the only truly patriotic response. This is where we are now. We are told war and aggression was the only possible response. It wasn't. It still isn't.
Here are the words you will never hear from Dubya: We have won the war on terror. Never will you hear this, because the battle is, by definition, unwinnable; you can't win a war on terror any more than you can win the war against racism, or ignorance, or drugs, or cutesy boy bands or sunlight. Terrorism is as much a concept as a force, an idea as a scattered, well-organized, global network we can't possibly pinpoint.
It is ongoing. It is never-ending. This is the Dubya plan. Perpetual war, perpetual fear, perpetual massive profits for a large handful of high-powered Bush-friendly CEOs and military contractors and petrochemical execs, long after Saddam is gone, especially after Saddam is gone. Who's next on the hit list?
They don't really care. War is at hand. America is about to turn a corner, sharp to the right. These are the last days of peace in America as you know it. And we will never be the same.
©2003 SF Gate |
See also:
http://www.sfgate.com/
http://www.saintstupid.com
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