Veterans Day

I was about to write something about Veterans Day. But then I realized that I already had.

Here's a reprint from last year. I haven't changed my mind one bit and have nothing to add.


Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I'm always a bit conflicted on Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. You see, I'm basically a pacifist. I think all war is stupid and I wonder why anyone would glorify it. But I know, I know, sometimes it's necessary. Unfortunately, I think a very small percentage of wars falls into that category. With 20/20 hindsight we can usually see how things could have been headed off. Alas, foresight is not so keen. And of course, the Law of Unintended Consequences often comes into play. One never knows what is truly necessary and what isn't. Even after the fact. But I think we err on the side of war way too often. We forget that, as Jimmy Carter said, "Although war is sometimes a necessary evil, it is always evil."

Here we must make a clear differentiation between those who fight our wars (and who we honor) and those who make the decisions to send them off to do so (who we generally despise).

When I see pictures of fine men and women at Walter Reed that are missing arms, legs, eyes, large pieces of their heads and even larger pieces of their souls I get pretty pissed. These people signed up to defend us. Few actually do. More often than not, they're on the offensive, thousands of miles away from the homeland. This is an increase of tragedy. The loss is utterly unnecessary.
Our leaders should have to look at pictures of these people all day, every day. They should invent a computer program that simulates the minds of PTSD soldiers and make our leaders feel what they feel on a regular basis. Nightmares, daymares, jitteriness, moral numbness and isolation. And fear. Maybe they'd think twice about sending other people's sons and daughters off to kill and die to satisfy their geopolitical wet dreams. I'd even settle for them thinking once about it. War sucks the humanity out of people.

My own views on the necessity of their vocations aside, I have great respect for the people who don the uniform and serve. There is nothing any of us can do that compares to it. It's something I am constitutionally incapable of doing. Even when they are being sent on fool's errands, they are serving us. They are doing their job for the country they love. And it's not exactly a cushy one. Or a well-paying one.

It's almost criminal that I'm getting paid more for sitting in an office building than somebody who's getting shot at every day. Not to mention the warmongers who sent them to do so. And senators and federal executives get lovely parting gifts, including pensions and lucrative careers on the public speaking circuit. Your average soldier? Not much. Part of their college tuition and medical care. That's the very least we can do. Really. I think that anybody who goes through combat should be taken care of for life. LIFE. And their immediate families should be taken care of too. Why do we give a scumbag like Tom DeLay a bigger pension than somebody who went and got his legs blown off and wakes up screaming every night at 3AM? It makes no sense.

There will always be veterans of the military. I've got some in my family. Although they didn't fight, thankfully. But I want for there to be no veterans of war. It won't happen in my lifetime. Most of the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are half my age. And it won't happen in our children's lifetime. It will probably never happen.

But we should at least work towards making sure that we have fewer and fewer veterans as time goes on. Can we do that, please?

Robert McNamara

One fewer reservation at L'Inferne Marriott. Good riddance to one of the 20th century's most cold-blooded wasters of human life.

Everything of importance that this man did was well before my time, except for recanting most of it. For this, watch Errol Morris's chilling documentary "The Fog of War".

Apparently, he did some good too. His obituary will tell you all about his work on behalf of tolerance, education and whatnot. But this can't make up for the evil that was Vietnam and his place at the forefront of it.

In Morris's film, which you really need to see if you haven't already, he sounds as if he's describing a product launch that didn't go as planned. He's not entirely unsympathetic in the film, which is the most sobering part of it. It's an important reminder that people will commit the most horrible acts thinking that they're doing good, and that evil is not Darth Vader or Sauron but actual human beings with families, values and ideals who have really bad solutions to problems.

"Dr. Strangelove" was a satire, but about the only thing different in "The Fog of War" is the accent and the apology. The sentiment is pretty much the same. Humans are no more than pawns in the game and their actual lives have no meaning.





Goodnight, Doctor. Enjoy the company where you're going.

Dumb Letters: I'm Not Paying for That

I'm a bit behind on my Dumb Letters. Here's a missive to the NY Times from yesterday.

I have happily paid federal income taxes for 64 years. President Obama’s repeal of our current ban on embryonic stem cell research will force my tax money to be used for what I believe is murder.

As a Christian, and a Roman Catholic, I know that my beliefs are shared by a multitude of other Americans. We are appalled, angered and saddened to be powerless.

Elaine C. Murphy
Boynton Beach, Fla.

Ms. Murphy, I hope you're enjoying the feelings that I, a pacifist, have been feeling since the beginning of The Idiot's war in Iraq. I feel for you. Really, I do. But before I allow myself to commiserate too greatly, let me engage in a bit of Can You Top This?

About half of my tax dollars are currently going to the military. A fraction of a percent of your tax dollars -- so small you'll never miss it -- will be going to stem cell research. But don't worry. When you get Alzheimer's you won't remember any of it. Your soul will rest easy.

The money is being spent very efficiently though. The teeny tiny amount of money that's being spent on stem cell research is only going to "murder" those teeny tiny embryos that a) are barely visible to the naked eye and b) were going to be thrown out anyway.

On the other hand, the massive amount of money being spent on Iraq is going to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent sentient beings of all ages. Beings with histories, families and friends. As a Christian and Roman Catholic, how do you feel about that?

Cry me a river for your precious embryos.

BONUS SMART LETTER:

On an entirely unrelated note, in yesterday's Washington Post, letter writer Walter Bardenwerper of Bethesda, MD says it all quite nicely.

Economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University derided President Obama's tax proposals as "one citizen" laying claim "to the wealth of his more productive neighbor".

What a generalization. Despite my own misgivings about the direction and timing of the president's tax plans, is it really so evident that a competent nurse is less "productive" than Citigroup's Charles Prince, who, it might be argued, helped to cripple that giant bank; that a dedicated police officer is less "productive" than former Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain, whose $1.2 million expenditure of company money on renovating his office included $87,000 for a rug; and that an inspiring teacher is less "productive" than limousine liberal Tom Daschle, who failed to pay more than $100,000 in taxes?

I suspect that Mr. Mankiw would agree that it is our good fortune that not every citizen dedicates his or her productive energies principally to the pursuit of personal wealth. And while honest productivity does yield honest wealth in some professions, I doubt he would seriously contend that the accumulation of wealth necessarily denotes a more productive citizen.

Challenging the president's stated redistributionist intentions with a gross oversimplification conveys an arrogance reminiscent of the departed Bush administration and undermines a legitimate -- and necessary -- debate on future tax policy.

Dumb Letters: Nukes Are Awesome for Us, Very Bad for Them

Will newspapers never cease printing letters from guys in flannel shirts and baseball caps that say "CAT Diesel Power"?

Here's yet another from the They're-Going-to-Kill-Us-All dungheap. Thank you, LA Times.

Doyle McManus doesn't pay enough attention to one of the most serious potential consequences of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon -- proliferation. If Iran can thumb its nose at the U.S. and build nuclear capability, why couldn't Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia? Or, indeed, any country? Sooner or later, you're looking at a Middle East boiling with countries hostile to Israel and the United States, all with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. This would be a nightmare scenario.

Given such a probability, wouldn't the decision to mount a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities become not only justifiable but a necessity?

Carl Moore
Lomita

There is a very very simple test that people like this never seem to conduct. It's called putting the shoe on the other foot. It's fun! Let's try it.

Right now, we have nukes. Lots of 'em. Enough to wipe out everybody on the planet several times over. And we constantly threaten other nations with them. The Idiot made a habit of it. It was on his schedule. So, using the criteria that the letter-"writer" states, aren't we the most dangerous and hostile nation on earth? Aren't we the embodiment of the "nightmare scenario" for the rest of the world? And, given this, shouldn't other nations be attacking us right now? It's totally justifiable.

This all boils down to the usual argument that WE are good and THEY are evil. Therefore, anything we do is okay, even if it's exactly the same thing as what the evil people are doing. There's a word for this. Ready for it? You know it's coming. Hypocrisy.

A person that lives near me has a gun. I know he does. And he's not the nicest fellow in the world. Should I get a gun and shoot him before he shoots me? Apparently so. It's justifiable. And he, of course, should shoot me before I get my gun, because I couldn't possibly be getting it to defend myself against him. I'm getting it because I want to get into a shooting match with him.

Beyond whether any of this saber-rattling is justifiable in a moral sense, we have a deficit of logic in the political sense. These people know that we have all those nukes. They know that if they send one teensy-weensy little nukey-wuke our way then Allah's going to have to place a rush order for a whole pile of virgins. So why would any remotely sane leader order a strike against the most heavily weaponized nation in the history of the planet?

Of course, this is logic. And Larry the Cable Guy doesn't seem to think that those crazy ragheads are capable of that. But then, neither is he. Takes one to know one, I reckon.

What's in a Name?

That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

And if you call a pile of shit a blueberry muffin it'll still smell like a pile of shit.

Mercenary outfit Blackwater has announced that it is changing its name to Xe.

Yeah.

The implications should be obvious. Remember when Philip Morris changed its name to Altria? Altria, like altruistic. The carcinogen that loves you. Uh huh. Nice try.

So, we'll all just forget that these are the same jokers who made gazillions doing what our soldiers could have (and should have) been doing for a lot less money and a lot more accountability. And, oh yeah, they murdered 17 people in a public square in Baghdad.

The new name (pronounced "zee") supposedly has no meaning. Really, people? Why not Happyco, then? Or The Fluffy Pillow People? Or Basket of Puppies, Inc.? And do they know that they may now be confused with The World's Favorite Currency Site?

The Spy Who Billed Me says this, as quoted in the WaPo article linked above:

RJ Hillhouse, a national security expert and author of the blog called The Spy Who Billed Me, said the company is "obviously trying to distance itself from their image as reckless cowboys that's etched into the world's mind from the September shooting. With a new name, "there are a lot of people who probably won't connect the dots," she said. "In a year or two, people won't remember that's Blackwater."

Yep. That's the idea.

Veteran's Day

I'm always a bit conflicted on Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. You see, I'm basically a pacifist. I think all war is stupid and I wonder why anyone would glorify it. But I know, I know, sometimes it's necessary. Unfortunately, I think a very small percentage of wars falls into that category. With 20/20 hindsight we can usually see how things could have been headed off. Alas, foresight is not so keen. And of course, the Law of Unintended Consequences often comes into play. One never knows what is truly necessary and what isn't. Even after the fact. But I think we err on the side of war way too often. We forget that, as Jimmy Carter said, "Although war is sometimes a necessary evil, it is always evil."

Here we must make a clear differentiation between those who fight our wars (and who we honor) and those who make the decisions to send them off to do so (who we generally despise).

When I see pictures of fine men and women at Walter Reed that are missing arms, legs, eyes, large pieces of their heads and even larger pieces of their souls I get pretty pissed. These people signed up to defend us. Few actually do. More often than not, they're on the offensive thousands of miles away from the homeland. This is an increase of tragedy. The loss is utterly unnecessary.

Our leaders should have to look at pictures of these people all day, every day. They should invent a computer program that simulates the minds of PTSD soldiers and make our leaders feel what they feel on a regular basis. Nightmares, daymares, jitteriness, moral numbness and isolation. And fear. Maybe they'd think twice about sending other people's sons and daughters off to kill and die to satisfy their geopolitical wet dreams. I'd even settle for them thinking once about it. War sucks the humanity out of people.

My own views on the necessity of their vocations aside, I have great respect for the people who don the uniform and serve. There is nothing any of us can do that compares to it. It's something I am constitutionally incapable of doing. Even when they are being sent on fool's errands, they are serving us. They are doing their job for the country they love. And it's not exactly a cushy one. Or a well-paying one.

It's almost criminal that I'm getting paid more for sitting in an office building than somebody who's getting shot at every day. Not to mention the warmongers who sent them to do so. And senators and federal executives get lovely parting gifts, including pensions and lucrative careers on the public speaking circuit. Your average soldier? Not much. Part of their college tuition and medical care. That's the very least we can do. Really. I think that anybody who goes through combat should be taken care of for life. LIFE. And their immediate families should be taken care of too. Why do we give a scumbag like Tom DeLay a bigger pension than somebody who went and got his legs blown off and wakes up screaming every night at 3AM? It makes no sense.

There will always be veterans of the military. I've got some in my family. Although they didn't fight, thankfully. But I want for there to be no veterans of war. It won't happen in my lifetime. Most of the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are half my age. And it won't happen in our children's lifetime. It will probably never happen.

But we should at least work towards making sure that we have fewer and fewer veterans as time goes on. Can we do that, please?