The Denial of Death

All of this puts me in mind of Woody Allen’s famous distinction on the business of death. “I’m not afraid of dying–I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Exactly. That is the American position. It is the preciousness of America’s niceties that mocks our moral posturing. As a nation, we kill people–lots of them–both in war and on the home front. But, mind you, only for good reasons. And always with surgical precision. We have assembled massive killing power and will use it, but always with sincere respect for those made dead.

Our advanced technologies allow us to sanitize this process–keep it distant and avert our eyes from what’s really happening. “Shock and awe” bombing is our high-altitude tool for teaching others to respect American power. Dead civilians, including dead babies, accumulate as the regrettable “collateral damage” not to be confused with our noble good intentions. The other side–lacking our advanced sensibilities–simply kills people, butchers them in old-fashioned ways that we find shocking.

William Greider | The Nation

January 18th, 2007 || PermaLink

What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy

Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.

Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.

“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”

As it happens, $20 billion is not a bad ballpark estimate for the added cost of Mr. Bush’s planned surge in troops. By itself, of course, that price tag doesn’t mean the surge is a bad idea. If it offers the best chance to stabilize Iraq, then it may well be the right option.

But the standard shouldn’t simply be whether a surge is better than the most popular alternative — a far-less-expensive political strategy that includes getting tough with the Iraqi government. The standard should be whether the surge would be better than the political strategy plus whatever else might be accomplished with the $20 billion.

This time, it would be nice to have that discussion before the troops reach Iraq.

DAVID LEONHARDT | NY Times

January 17th, 2007 || PermaLink

War of Shadows

The insurgents - Shiite and Sunni - have done what we failed to do. They have built a vast and effective support network within their communities, communities we were never able to reach from Humvees or the fortified walls of the Green Zone. Most of the insurgents are Iraqi. They speak Arabic. They worship in the mosques. They buy vegetables in the local markets. They love their country. And many have paid a terrible price for their patriotism and their faith. These neighborhoods are secure. They are just not secure for us. They will never be. And sending in new batches of Americans from Texas or Ohio or New York to patrol these streets will not make Iraq or America safer. It will ensure that even more mothers and fathers, American and Iraqi, will be ushered by George W. Bush into the long night of bitterness and grief.

Chris Hedges | Truthdig.com

January 17th, 2007 || PermaLink

Is Energo-Fascism in Your Future?

Unlike Islamo-fascism, Energo-fascism will, in time, affect nearly every person on the planet. Either we will be compelled to participate in or finance foreign wars to secure vital supplies of energy, such as the current conflict in Iraq; or we will be at the mercy of those who control the energy spigot, like the customers of the Russian energy juggernaut Gazprom in Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia; or sooner or later we may find ourselves under constant state surveillance, lest we consume more than our allotted share of fuel or engage in illicit energy transactions. This is not simply some future dystopian nightmare, but a potentially all-encompassing reality whose basic features, largely unnoticed, are developing today.

Michael T. Klare | TomDispatch.com

January 16th, 2007 || PermaLink

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” The world must hear this.

Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968

January 15th, 2007 || PermaLink

The collapse of the Bush presidency poses risks

The most dangerous George Bush is one who feels weak, powerless and under attack. Those perceptions are intolerable for him and I doubt there are many limits, if there are any, on what he would be willing to do in order to restore a feeling of power and to rid himself of the sensations of his own weakness and defeat.

Glenn Greenwald | Unclaimed Territory

January 15th, 2007 || PermaLink

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

Well, I’m not going to point any moral;
I’ll leave that for yourself
Maybe you’re still walking,
You’re still talking
You’d like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Pete Seeger, 1963

January 14th, 2007 || PermaLink