Charade

It's still happening, in fact, it's getting worse.

Are you okay with the fact that our President is ignoring the war in Iraq more than ever? He's parading around Asia, acting quite the benevolent white supremo, the great Western Benefactor to Vietnam and others, while dozens or more people die per day in the nightmare he and his folks have wrought in the land between the rivers.

Let's make sure we don't miss the important word there: PEOPLE...are dying. People. These are not numbers, these are not increments on a voters poll, or cost to benefit ratios in the secret Halliburton balance sheets. No, people are dying and many who survive are losing limbs, skin, eyes, teeth, sanity, homes, livelihoods, peace of mind, children, grandparents, hometowns, neighborhoods, futures, possessions, savings, valuables....everything. We are taking everything from them, for what, precisely? So now the administration wants to "finish the job"...why? To save face politically. So only a few hundred thousand more Iraqis need die and a few millions more will lose everything else I've mentioned above.

Do you think this new democratic Congress is going to stop the war? They can't. I hope they try, and they may succeed in shortening it by a few months (and that is a difference not to be ignored when dozens are dying every day, I understand this) but you can keep your money off the table that our troops and those of the other coerced nations will be there for years to come. The machinations of the great American military octopus never act according to public opinion or by "doing what's right". Never. When it becomes consistently unprofitable, when the disaster of the war goes beyond the front pages and penetrates the homes of those who control the tentacles, then it will end, and not one minute before then. At this point the politicians have less power than they've had in almost a century. I guess with the Dems in office, at least they won't make things worse. Probably.

It is beyond tasteless that Bush has chosen now to visit Vietnam, it is also not an accident. This is last-ditch Rove-esque desperation: Let's stand tall in a "new and glorious" Vietnam, a country that clearly is where it is today because of the sturdy involvement of the self-sacrificing US army and the courageous politicians who put them there...right? Okay then. Never mind that we left the country far worse than when we invaded it...or that whatever success it enjoys now (which is suspect) is the result of decades of recuperation and rebuilding from the disaster of our creation in the 1970's. Never mind that the truth contradicts the presented image in sanguine, ugly scars: For at least the last two years of that war our politicians and military brain trust knew that the war was lost, and further that continued involvement would accomplish nothing except to increase the body count and cost the country further billions (a significant percentage of which always goes directly into the pockets of powerful western businessmen, a detail which must not be overlooked). So Bush thinks it's a good idea now to remain in Iraq when even Kissinger, hardly the dove, announces that military victory is impossible. Against this critical backdrop, he stumbles along in southeast Asia like the mindless political whore that he is, as if to show everyone that past American blunders are actually a reasonable yardstick to measure the certain success of our half-trillion-dollar engineered slaughter in Mesopotamia. Hmm, actually he's right!

Let's stick with the Vietnam theme for a moment. So, anyone think that perhaps that despite the carnage we should see it through in Iraq, that otherwise chaos would reign in the region? Chaos that somehow we have the capability to stop? As if chaos hadn't already been wrought by us in a theater of ongoing chaos for the last 1400 years. No increase in troops, tactics, or tanks or added hundreds of billions against taxpayer wishes (not only is it not the administration's or military establishment's children sent to die over there, but it sure as hell isn't a drop of their fortunes that are being spent to finance this catastrophe, just the futures of the rest of us, that's all) will bring victory or even a settled peace. "Cut and Run" sounds like a damn good idea to me right about now. It is your future, and your children's future, that is being spent like water over there...drastic reduction in college funds, social security, care for the elderly, education for children, anti-pollution measures and urban blight restoration projects. That's all gone now. Funding for the arts? Please. Research for stem-cell measures, or AIDS research? Gone. Of course hundreds of millions will still pour into our medical infrastructure, but only in the form of investment in profit-generating technology and methods, not in anything that can simply and cheaply help cure the diseased...nor of course in any sound form of socialized health care. But that's another subject for another blog. Let's tiptoe back to southeast Asia...

Every year in the Vietnam War, especially the final three, the body count increased at a mind-boggling rate. As Nixon vainly sought "Peace with Honor" (translation: Less Egg on Face of America's Politicians and war-hawks), hundreds of thousands died. The civilian cost in Vietnam was 2.2 million, and that's a conservative estimate. And what came of that? Defeat, desolation, misery...but not for us. We got to go home. Except for several hundred thousand of our servicemen and women. They came home in a pine box. Several large pine forests had to be cut down entirely to make the cheap coffins provided by an ungrateful American military establishment.

So, folks, that's what you've got to look forward to. Right now we're counting the dead (according to grudgingly released numbers by the army censors and I'm sure those aren't doctored, right?) by the tens and twenties, and stand aghast when we cross three thousand! Oh my gosh!

Just wait. If this is permitted to continue we're going to start seeing the number increase exponentially. By thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, and the civilian death toll (but do we really care about that? Have we ever really cared?) will skyrocket. This war has to stop now or this dreadful future may come to pass, and I'll hardly be the only one to have predicted it.

Just ask a Vietnam Vet.

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