Most Americans can't learn from past mistakes

A headline caught my eye this morning. It was from the Associated Free Press' reporting on a recent survey that found that "Most Americans see Afghan fight worth US bloodshed". This seemed a little surprising to me as you would think that since most Americans finally have the grey matter to realize that invading Iraq, killing more than a million Iraqis, spending trillions of dollars, and losing thousands of American and coalition lives was a mistake, they would also be able to see what a boondoggle the mission in Afghanistan is.

Upon further reading of the poll, it becomes more clear why the results are what they are. The question wasn't really "is the Afghan fight worth more US bloodshed" but was in fact asked how many "are willing to have American soldiers 'fight and possibly die' to eliminate the threat of terrorists operating from Afghanistan." To the passerby this might seem like the same thing, but I bet if the question were rephrased to something more likely, such as how many "are willing to have American soldiers 'fight and possibly die' to keep trying to eliminate the threat of terrorists operating from Afghanistan without any certainty of victory" we'd probably have some very different survey results.

Even as someone opposed to the Afghan mission long before it was such a cool thing to do, I might say sure, if you can promise me total victory in Afghanistan (flourishing democracy, no terrorism, no insurgency, no violence against women, no more poverty, 711s, Wa-was, and Tim Horton's on every street corner) then maybe it's worth some American lives. For all the above mentioned items I might even say it's worth 500,000 American and coalition lives. But that's not what's going to happen. Not even close.

Instead, we are going to see another 10-20,000 NATO soldiers killed over the next decade or so as President Obama foolishly takes ownership of one of W's hubris inspired military blunders and submits to the never ending requests for supplemental troops, equipment, and money that will be required to sustain (not win) the conflict in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the hawks back home will lament our deficits in explaining why we cannot have universal healthcare or decent educational funding and they'll continue to piss away our soldiers and our treasury.

We must end the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, no matter what a cunningly worded survey question shows because at the end of the day, there can be no victory for an occupying country except withdrawal. Vietnam is a great example of this problem. Granted, Ameircan soldiers could have stayed in Vietnam for another 20 years. They could have butchered another 3 million Southeast Asians, and lost another 60,000 American soldiers. They could have pissed away trillions more dollars in bombs and upkeep, and shot a few more protesters at college campuses, but in the end, it was by leaving Vietnam that allowed that country to develop itself into the capitalism loving, wheeling and dealing people that they were always meant to be.

Perhaps Afghanistan is different, and it will descend into chaos and bloodshed if NATO forces leave, but it is doing that anyway, so why should NATO, and specifically America, play any role in contributing to that downward spiral? It's time to bring the troops home...all of them.

Fuck you McChrystal!

Pro-Life...unless that life differs politcally

I've been wanting to write about the death of Doctor George Tiller for some time now, and I've probably missed the boat as far as saying something that hasn't already been said given how fast our news cycles move these days, but I still feel it is important for as many voices as possible to denounce this heinous killing of, as Jeremy Scahill said on Real Time with Bill Maher, "a provider of women's health care." Despite having always been of the belief that women must have the right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy without any pre-conditions or constraints, it was really upon reading John Irving's The Cider House Rules that cemented that belief that for this country to truly be considered free, women need to have full control of their own bodies and there need to be doctors able to perform these operations in modern, safe, and hygenic environments.

The fallacy of the pro-life movement is that even if abortion is banned outright throughout the 50 states, that does not mean that abortion will end as a practice. What will happen instead, is that abortion will be pushed underground and performed by people without the training, or the professional conduct of today's ob-gyns who perform these procedures. Anyone who claims to care about life should be appalled at the possibility of America's return to the days of back-alley abortion clinics and other horrors of our oh so glorious past.

As has been reported by any journalist worth their paycheck (of which there are fewer and fewer every day) no providers of women's health care are taking women who are 9 months pregnant and giving them a late-term abortion. In the United States less than 2% of all abortions were conducted after the 21st week of gestation, and an estimated figure from 1997 suggests that less than 1% were done after the 27th week. For those bothering to listen to the doctors who perform these abortions, it becomes clear that these are done not because the patient suddenly feels like taking a trip to Europe and doesn't want a baby along, but are done because of some very serious health problems with the fetus or a potential danger to the mother.

The "right-to-life" movement has been sickeningly been pretending to denounce the death of Dr. Tiller while in the same breath excusing it because of his willingness to perform abortions. This deceptive double-speak is mostly to blame for the crazies like Scott Roeder who actually go out and commit these atrocities. And while I believe that we need the inalienable rights of free speech in this country, I think it is false, and disingenuous for those spewing the most hateful and uncompromising vitriol to pretend that the death Dr. Tiller, and the terror it spreads among women seeking abortions or doctors providing health care to women, isn't exactly what they want to see happen.

While I disagree with many of the terror statutes being used to hold prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base, or any of the other black sites the CIA has, Mr. Roeder is the textbook definition of a terrorist and should be shipped out to one of those facilities. In his Falwell/Robertson/Limbaugh/O'Reilly motivated killing of Dr. Tiller, he has killed more Americans than many of the detainees in Gitmo over did and he has terrorized more people than Omar Khadr, the last remaining westerner still held at Camp X-ray.

Americans need to stop being fooled by monikers. Focus on the Family and the American Family Association don't give a shit about families. The Patriot Act isn't patriotic. Pro-lifers do not care about life or they would work harder at making things better for the lives that are already here on this earth rather than focusing all of their energies on the lives that do not yet exist.

60 Minutes - When did you lose your spine?

I just watched a feature on 60 Minutes about Saudi Arabia's approach to dealing with inmates released from Guantanamo.  While it showed some of the progress being made by the Saudis' attempts to rehabilitate the former Gitmo detainees, the underlying tone of the piece was very hostile and David Martin's questioning seems to completely ignore the fact that many of the detainees that have been guests of Gitmo were sold the Americans by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan with no actual links to terrorism or the Taliban.  Those people were then held in terrible conditions and subjected to torture and other intensive interrogation that would undoubtedly make an inmate harbor angry feelings towards his former captors.  The fact that our detention policies have created angry young men is not a blank check to then throw away the key and we should be doing our best to encourage similar programs to those of the Saudi government's so that these young men can be released and rehabilitated as soon as possible.  The longer we keep them in Guantanamo and abuse them, the more likely they will in fact become terrorists when released.

Cheney says...oh wait who cares?

In a recent interview with CNN former Vice President Dick "the dick" Cheney asserts that President Obama has made America more vulnerable to a terrorist attack because he's treating the war on terror as a law enforcement issue.  Whether or not the very minor changes President Obama has enacted are actually making us more vulnerable or not, let us ask the more important question.  What really makes us more likely to be hit by a terrorist attack?  Not torturing people with little to no actionable intelligence, or creating tons more terrorists by inciting anger in the muslim world?  

Throughout the Bush II administration terrorist recruiting has been handed a number of boons from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to the revelation of torture of detainees.  These specific and enumerable acts have contributed far more to recruitment of potential terrorists than anything President Obama has done in his 60 in office.  Not only that, but Vice President Cheney's office also hampered the CIA (supposedly one of our frontlines against terrorists) by reveling Valerie Plame to the world as a CIA agent.

Now, the even more important question is why is CNN interview Cheney and giving him a mouthpiece to spew his unpleasantness?  After the damage the Bush administration did the country both financially and in regards to our image throughout the world, nothing Bush or Cheney have to say should be given any attention.  We've suffered through their moronic idealogy and actions for the past eight years and we should be spared any further injury that their words can cause.