60 years after the Nuremberg trials

Have we learned anything?

Or are we taking a step backwards?

You know, I get tired of the same old 'greatest generation' shtick, I really do. It grates on me actually, as no enemy has come close to task us on the same level since. All the enemies of my time have been insidious little pissants and not much more.

Nothing even approaching the fanaticism and horror of the Nazi's has come along since. Saddam is nothing compared to Hitler. Iraq is nothing compared to WW II Germany. The 'war' on terrorism is nothing compared to the scope and totality of WW II.

So was it, while certainly not easier, but at least somewhat more reasonable and logical to rise to the hights they did to combat an evil on that scale?

The Nuremberg trials were unprecedented, a whole world united in trying history's most heinous criminals for crimes largely unspeakable on an almost unimaginable scale.

The world as a whole has not learned from history. Never Again fails to rally when everything after simply pales in comparison. Rwnada is a black, black stain on humanity's conscious. After all, 600,000 is only 10% of 6,000,000, did it warrant total commitement and immediate action? Nay, let it play out, not our problem, not spilling over to us, not disrupting the worlds oil supply.

Today the US refuses to join the International Court for fear of losing sovreignity, even though more then enough safeguards are built into the law. Instead of leading the world in human and civil rights we let the UN HRC be taken over by despotic, tyranical regimes. We aren't even on the council anymore, and the Bush administration shows no real concern about ever being on it again. Guess it's inconvenient to argue human and civil rights when your're one of a handfull of countries who refuse ot ratify the land mine ban or the child labor agreement.

We lack a level of clarity and purpose our fathers before us and their fathrs before them had in spades. We know the truth now and it's made us cynical. Even the good guys can be bad, so why should we care about the bad guys as much? I mean, we're arguing over whether torture should be allowed or not. WE shouldn't even be having this discussion. It should be a no brainer. Instead the administration is pushing to officialy sanction what all world treaties agree consitute torture.

The more technology advances, the more we learn, the more we're exposed to, the more we deal with, the less we can work up the indignation to carry us through to a resolution of what we've learned.

Tsunami in Aisa, flod in New Orleans, quake in Pakistan, quake in Iran, world flu pandemics, world wide war against an enemy that doesn't exist in any traditional sense. No wonder we shut down, it's called denial, it's a basic human defense mechanism. Without it we'd be frozen with inaction over the supreme realization that we will die no matter what we do about it. A heavy burden for the only senient race on the planet to not only comprehend it but to express rage, acceptance and abviliance all at once about it.

But often we rise as a people to confront and beat back the insidious nature of our base mammalian selves and prevail for our ideals over our instincts. At least once, in WW II, we rose such not as just a people, but as a race. We held ourselves accountable for our crimes against ourselves in a truely remarkable fashion.

But was it an abberation? Was it simply the circumstances that took us to that lofty hight? Could we do it again? Would it take a threat on that same level again? Honestly the next time mankind rises as a race on that scale will be either when Jesus Christ decends from the Heavens to call us home, or we're invaded by aliens. If not for Rwanda, what less could move us, then?

I don't envy the 'greatest generation' the cost of their humility, however, even though I do admire it. And I also hold them responsible in no small part of belittling everything that came after. Too many WW II generations fathers did all they could to get their Vietnam generation sons out of the same selfless service to their country they so proudly wear on their sleeves. And today too many of those sons who were never tasked by service and sacrifice now call on others to do what their fathers did, even couching it in like, stark contrasts of black and white evil and good.

And so we try to emulate them, but on the cheap. We want to make the stand but we don't want to pay the price. No sacrifice. Go about your daily lives. Don't let the enemy win. Tax cuts during war time.

Sorry, that one slips out now and then. It really rankles me.

And so we are a product of our times, defined by our enemies, and failing as ever to learn from history. Rather then lead we trip up those in line. Rather by example instead we choose exemption of ourselves from the same calls of justice and right we impose on others, forever living in the shadow of the greatest sacrifice a generation has ever been called on to make, bereft of the kind of enemy that could raise us to the same level. Instead we wallow in our piety and point to past glories as justification and proof of our current actions, never asking of ourselves the same accountability our fathers held themselves to.

And that's my Sunday rant for today, November 20th, 2005, this day in history.

Have we already lost the 'war' on terror?

Back in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11th, 2001 attacks, president Bush implored Americans to not let the terrorists win; to go on with your daily lives, and, most famously, to go shopping or to a movie, to prove we were still going about our daily lives.

And yet at the same time we were told that everything had changed. What had changed? According to president Bush, not our daily rutine, that of shopping and seeing movies would be held intact, and that therefore we would not let the terrorists win.

So what had changed? Apparently, the role of the federal government in our lives and their ability to investigate Americans on a whim.

Bush wants to make the Patriot Act permenant. Permenant. Forever. For all time. Never changing. The norm from now on.

So, on one hand, we still go shopping and to movies, but on the other we will forever revocably alter the very underpinings of our freedom and civil rights. So the most important thing in Bush's new world order is to continue our consumre based capitalist system, and not our deocratic republic.

Which is more significant? The false veneer of stability of going to a movie and shopping, or the restricted rights and freedoms? I would have to classify changing our very foundation of democracy as on a bit higher plane then simply going shopping and to a movie.

Therefore, we have already *significantly* altered our way of life. The terrorists have forced us to alter our very concept of freedom. Haven't they, then, already won?

I'd rather have less shopping choice, and restricted movie access then to live under a government that can investigate any American anytime for any reason whenever they want to. Under current law, they don't even have to show why they want to wire tap someone or dig into their financial records. Any time, any reason, anywhere. That is the current law.

We have for the first time in our history openly condoned torture. Federal authorities have totaly unrestricted access to any Americans private personal information and never have to even say why. Also for the first time in our history as a nation we preemptively attacked a soverign nation with no overt provocation or tangible threat, that, by the way, happened to be based on totaly wrong intelligence.

Maybe they'll make it all into a movie.

We don't have to torture

We let the Iraqi Interior Ministry do it for us.

This is the greatest hubris of the whole 'bringing democracy to the Middle East whether they want it or not' mentality of neocons and the current administration; they don't want democracy!

If democracy means they have power and authority over their enemies, hell, they'll be all for it. If it means giving up power or sharing authority, hell no.

Did anyone, anywhere, ever truly believe we could force democracy onto Iraq from the outside?

The Sunnis didn't want it, they had it fine the way it was. The Shiites don't want it, they want what the Sunnis used to have. And the Kurds don't want it either, they want their own fucking country!!!!

By a number of masures, Saddam's Iraq was one of the more progressive Arab regimes in the ME. That doesn't speak well for Saddam, it speaks worse for all the other peices of shit ruling around him.

If you consider Iran to be a democracy, then in 5 or 10 years Iraq will be a resounding success, because that's exactly what it's going to look like.

For a far too high majority of Iraq's, tribe and religious sect play a much more significant role in their personal identity. Are they Iraq's first, or Shiites? Or even Muslims first?

Iraq was founded in 1920 when Britain carved up three distinct tribal regions and forced them together. And even then it was only about oil. Even the first king England installed was from a different fucking area! He wasn't even an 'Iraqi'!

Did you know at one time the Kurds in Iraq claimed Kuwait as part of their 'country'?

The British shat on Iraq from the day they created it. It was so bad in WW II that there was an attempted coup by pro Nazi officers in the then Irqi army. Pro Nazi Arabs. Nazi's. Arabs. For them. That's pretty bad. 3,000 Iraqi troops killed and 3,000 officers purged by the British over that little snafu.

This is where it gets interesting from our perspective;

In 1961, after Kuwait had gained independence from Britain, the Iraqi leader, General Kassem, claimed it as an integral part of Iraq and concentrated his troops on the frontier, with the intention of taking it by force. Britain was ready, however, and dispatched troops stationed in the Gulf region to dissuade the Iraqis from armed conflict. The crisis was settled temporarily by a coup in Baghdad that overthrew Kassem, and was organised - it would seem - with the help of the United States. Iraq agreed to recognise Kuwait, but continued to make claims for an adjustment of the borders - claims that were to be the cause of further trouble in the future.

The 1979 Islamic revolution in neighbouring Iran offered Saddam, so he believed, the opportunity to invade Iran when the country was in a weakened state. This invasion would stifle the potential threat of revolutionary Islam, assert Iraqi hegemony and readjust the borders between the two countries. In September 1980 Iraqi troops crossed into Iran, but the quick success Saddam had hoped for turned into a bloody conflict that lasted eight years. During this period the west, Germany, Britain, France and the United States all armed Iraq - in an effort to create a bulwark against the spread of the Islamic threat. Help was given to develop all kinds of weapons.

And yet, they hate us for our freedom.

They hate us for our freedom to be the oppressors and not the oppressed, more like it.

You people do realize that the CIA coup'ed the fuck out the democraticaly elected government of Iran in 1953, don't you? You know why? They wanted to privatize the oil industry.

Oil.

And yet they hate us for our freedom.

I won't even get into Saudi Arabia, they're their own special kind of fucked up there. People in the US in general have no idea how fucked up that country is. Yet we have unfailingly supported the royal family for decades. Because they are a freedom loving people? Oh, right, they have a SHITLOAD OF OIL!

Nothing we do, I repeat NOTHING we do will persuade or disuade the insurgents in Iraq to pick up or lay down their arms. They hate us, a generataional hate that they've been pushed down by for close toa century. You don't just wipe that kind of hate away with soft platitudes and a few fucking trinkets.

We sold saddam fucking anthrax! This is fact, people! Anthrax! Fucking gas gangrene! The fucking nerve gas he used on the Kurds we fucking sold him the agents for! OF COURSE HE HAD FUCKING WMD!

That the Kurds still sucked up to us clearly shows they're smarter then we are. They played us like a fiddle on Pappy's back porch while drinkin' mint julips and listening to the negro's singing in the cotton fields. Yes,they played us that bad.

No one has a clue in Iraq, or the Middle East, least of all me, but I'm smart enough to admit it.

Iraq at one time had the greatest university system in the Middle East, before Saddam came along. Even under Saddam Iraq had a sizable Christian minority that was largely left alone. Women went full face in public, they drove for Allah's sake! They even held positions of authority in the government and academia under Saddam. Don't remember if they could vote though, could they?

But the point being, is that while Saddam was bad, and he was, he was faaaar from the worst in the area. What he was, was the easiest to pick on. After knocking his books out of his hands every time he walked by in the hallway for 10 years, he was easy pickin's. And for the chickenshits in washington that have never had the misfortune of doing their patriotic duty and serving their country in a time of war and naitonal sacrifice, he was the perfect 'make my dick look big' adversary.

Well apparently the administrations dick is so big they tripped over it. Oops!

And yet they hate us for our freedom.

Every major claim of an immenant threat by Iraq was wrong.

Countries that actually posed an immenant threat like Iran and Syria and N Korea were largely ignored, to the point of the British having to pull off the Gadhafi disarmament.

Every major military and policy decision made in Iraq by the US in the first year of occupation/invasion was wrong.

How's that deBaathification coming along?

How's that Iraqi army coming along?

How's that Iraqi constitution that grants the Shiites and Kurds power to succede or lock out the Sunnis from any oil money coming along?

How's them flowers and sweets?

How's that missing $1.5 BILLION from vet's health care funding?

How's that kicking the disabled veteran's groups out of the joint session of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees?

How's the fucking Guard and Reserve?

Got mother fucking armor!!!?

Been to a movie lately? Do you get all puffy chested when you do? Or do you have better things to do?

Maybe they hate us for our freedom to ignore the truth.

The war in Iraq was based on wrong intelligence. Purposfully misrepresented or not, it was almost *all* wrong. The initial invasion went so fast the administrations colective dick swelled so much all the blood drained from their heads and they let all the future insurgents fade back into the populace.

Best quote of Iraq war ever, voiced by one US soldier rising on top of a tank to another soldier when an Iraqi civilian male waved to them from the side of the road: "Look, the Iraqi military is waving at us."

While it was probably meant more towards the fact that the Iraqi military did one quick ass fade when we invaded, it takes a slightly different meaning now, to say the least.

All pre war intel wrong, all basis of a threat wrong, occupation wrong, fighting insurgents wrong. What about Iraq has gone right?

For the first time in our countries history that we preemptively attacked a soverign nation with no overt provocation against us, and far too many of us don't really much care. He was a bad man. Doesn't matter, there are far worse.

That Saddam desreved to be taken out is something less then even a paltry rationalization for the larger fuck up of the bogus pre war intelligence.

Doesn't matter that Clinton thought the same. Clinton didn't invade. The GOP Congress wouldn't have let him anyway.

Doesn't matter that Democrats in Congress voted for or against anything. They didn't send the troops. They didn't conduct the invasion. They didn't write the occupation policy. Iraq is Bush's and Bush's alone.

The war in Iraq directly contradicts every major tenet of freedom and democracy our naiton was founded upon.

Maybe they really do hate us for our freedom.

New twist on the Niger email scam

Just got one from a dude 'in Taiwan' about some Iraqi official depositing $44 Million he needs my help in withdrawing. Just thought it was nice someone at least bothered to update the scam.

But the better of the two is one I just got supposedly from someone in England, Mark Anthony.

I shit you not, Mark Anthony.

This one goes even one more step in updating the story, as it uses Rafik Hariri, the ex Lebanese PM that was assinated a few months ago, and limits the deposit in question to $4 Million dollars. Oops, I mean, $4 Million Pounds Sterling.

The England/Hariri scam is fairly well written, without going so overblown as to be comical like so many of the African related one's were/are. But the kicker, after all the big words and exact Queens English spelling, he signs it as;
Mark Anthony
Unitad Kingdom.

Unitad Kingdom.

Is that over by France somewhere?