I Hate To Be Negative.....

I hate to be negative but won't the effects of human driven climate change be mitigated by a population die off.  I mean, come on, get real,  I'm 60 and the population of both the planet and the United States have doubled in my lifetime.  The idea that we can provide food, water, and health care for a few more billion people is ridiculous.  We can barely provide for everyone now, and it's only going to get worse.

Now, I know that a lot of people read stuff like this and assume that famine, disease, and all that will be the plague of the third world, and it won't happen here. ( Fill in any first world country for here.)  I don't know why first worlders make that assumption.  A massive drought, not enough water to grow food, knows no boundaries, and when push comes to shove, we can only buy so much food  from other countries.  And let's not forget our old friend war.  War over resources has already begun, and it will only get worse.

Talk about the four horseman.

The Biker Gang

My friend and I are at a bar.  We're watching football on the big screen.  A biker gang comes in and the leader shouts out, "Football.  We ain't watching no football.  We're watching ultimate fighting, and if anybody doesn't like it they can get their head kicked in."

My friend looks at me and says, "I'm going to walk over to that blowhard, call him a pussy and spit in his face."

Am I better friend if I tell him, "What ever you say.  I'll back your play to the end."  Or am I a better friend if I tell him, "What, are you nuts?"  and grab his arm and hustle him out of there before he gets himself, and a few others killed.?

It may not be fair, it may not be right, and the Israelis may not like it, but Israel's survival is dependent on them coming to some sort of accommodation with their neighbors.  If we, the United States, are true friends to Israel, it's time to tell Bibi Netanyahu and the other leaders of the Israeli right wing, that it's time to go to the table and make some concessions.  It's time to pull down the settlements,  time to tear down the walls, and end the economic blockades.  It's also time to make it clear that we will not follow Israel into a regional war in the Middle East, and we will not help start World War 3.

Any nation that lives in a state of perpetual war will eventually loose a war.  We did in Vietnam, and we're a whole lot tougher than Israel.  We survived our loss, Israel might not.

Memorial Day

I've always had mixed feelings about Memorial Day. It's hard to imagine just how much worse our world would be if it wasn't for the United States military, Franklin Roosevelt and to a lesser extent, Harry Truman. Unlike most of the people I know who share my left wing political philosophy, I don't have anything against the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think those attacks preferable to an invasion of Japan...and as for those who argue that a negotiated peace, with the Emperor preserved on the throne of Japan, with his imperial powers intact, well they are just plain naive as to the true nature of Japanese militarism.
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But, I also think that our success in World War 2 has left far too many people in the United States thinking that wars are won on the battlefield, that the enemy surrenders to our will, and that all of our actions are true and just. War just isn't that simple. When I was a child, our high school history teacher taught us that in World War 1, our brave soldiers ended, at least for a couple of decades, the threat of German aggression. With age and scepticism, I find World War 1 as the last gasp of European imperialism a far more plausible explanation for that particular conflict. The sad fact is, most wars are far more morally ambiguous than World War 2, and many wars end, not in clear cut victory, but when both sides decide that it really isn't worth it to continue the fight.
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And that's one of the things that I don't like about Memorial Day. It's not just a time of remembrance. We don't just honor those who sacrificed their lives in war. We demand that our war dead did not die in vain. I'm sorry, but since the inception of Memorial Day, almost one million Americans have died in our wars, and many of them have died for nothing. Right now we are fighting two wars. While I realize that there may have been alternatives, I do view the invasion of Afghanistan as a reasonable response to 9/11. The Taliban may not have been aware, specifically, of the attacks before hand, but clearly the Taliban was aware that Al-Qaeda was using their country as a safe base for terrorism. Iraq, on the other hand was a war of choice. Not only have 4,000 plus Americans died in vain, but we've also crippled our economy for decades with the huge financial cost of dealing with a country that was little more than a minor irritant to us. On Memorial Day, it might be wise to remember the obscene stupidity of some of our wars, and not just the sacrifice made by some of our soldiers.

Hell Freezes Over

With no reliable way to check weather in the netherworld, I'll have to assume that Hell has indeed frozen over. Yes, it's true, conservative icon George Will has called for an American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Conventional wisdom has it that Lyndon Johnson knew that he had lost in Vietnam when he lost the support of Walter Cronkite. I've always felt that that was an oversimplification. The World War 2 generation had been saved by big government. Even Ronald Reagan's life was improved by the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt. Too, that generation saw it's destruction of the twin menaces of Nazism and Japanese militarism as the high point of it's many accomplishments. It wasn't the loss of Cronkite, it was the loss of a generation that trusted government to do the right thing and thought of military opposition of tyranny as a moral calling.
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So now Barack Obama has lost George Will. The symbol of conservative intellectualism (An oxymoron if I've ever heard one.), no longer believes in the war launched by our George, Dick Cheney and the whole neo-con crowd. Most Americans, I think, view victory in war in terms of World War 2. The Missouri sails into Tokyo harbor, the Emperor in his silly tail coat and top hat, crosses the deck and signs articles of unconditional surrender. Sorry to say, but most wars end in a far more ambiguous way. In a nutshell, both sides decide that it just isn't worth the effort anymore. Will isn't the first to feel that way, and he won't be the last. Iraq has cost us billions, and may end up costing us trillions of dollars as well as thousands of lives lost, and even more destroyed, with no resolution in our clear favor. Afghanistan is beginning to look like it will have the same outcome.
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I'm an admirer of Barack Obama, but that doesn't blind me to the fact that I think he's making the same mistakes in Afghanistan that we made during the cold war. For reasons without any basis in reality, we persisted in believing that things happening in the third world were all about us. What bin Laden did to New York was about us. A massive military attack on his headquarters was perfectly justified. We, after all, know far more about bringing death from the skies than bin Laden will ever imagine. But Taliban rule of Afghanistan was another thing. A few well placed missiles directed at Taliban leadership? Hell, why not. It would have been good for the Mullahs to understand that allowing their country to be used as a base for international terrorism was not a wise career choice. But years, maybe decades, fighting nationalists in the mountains of central Asia is pretty much a no win situation. Before we leave, we should make major contributions to Afghan infrastructure. We should leave schools, roads, dam, and hospitals standing as we march off. With any luck, the people of Afghanistan will want the Taliban gone, and in time it will happen. But an endless drain of American treasure and lives isn't worth it.