Evening Reading

Ah, DEMOCRACY, the tyranny of the majority! OK, so 83% of Americans support sending the United States Murder Corps off to somewhere (does it even matter where?) to murder some people...

[You can call it "revenge", "retribution", "justice", whatever the fuck you want, the point is that our men in camo will be MURDERING people. What are the chances that any given bullet or cruise missile would kill Osama Bin Laden? or anyone involved in the attack? or even anyone who *knew* about the attack? My guess is you'd need a lot of zeros between the decimal and the ...01%. The justification that "it's us or them" doesn't work either: that guy over the hill you're shooting at never did anything to you, and YOU'RE the one that flew to HIS country with a lust for blood.]

...But that necessarily means that 17% either oppose it or aren't sure. Let's simplify and say that no one is undecided. Let's also say that out of the US population of about 280M, 150M are "adults" (definition irrelevant, number is arbitrary). Soooo, doing the math, that means that over 25 MILLION PEOPLE are OPPOSED to US military action. And in a system of majority rule, what are they're desires worth? ZILCH. When whoever it is gets on the tube yelling to who-knows-who that "the American people" stand behind military action, he convieniently fails to mention those 25 MILLION PEOPLE who support no such thing.


Furthermore, it dawns on none of these people that military retaliation can be nothing but COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Why are these terrorists mad at the US? One word:

IMPERIALISM

The United States has a military presence in dozens of nations worldwide. We actively choose sides in nearly every hotspot on the globe. President Clinton deployed US troops TWENTY-THREE times (more than Nixon and Reagan combined) during his stay in the White House. The Palestinians see themselves at war with Israel, and they see the USA as a close ally of that enemy. And they're right. Though we don't provide them with direct support, we are on good terms with them while we shun the Palestinians, and we sell them lots and lots of arms. There is no mistaking that we have taken the Israeli side in their conflict.
Now, much as I like blaming the US gov't for anything I can, I'm not blaming them for tuesday's tragedies, because I'm not a fool. Terrorists are men too, and they have free will. They chose to attack us, and in doing so they assume the full mantle of responsibility for their actions. However, it is impossible to deny that they we provoked them. Who in their right minds can contend that if the US didn't stick its meddlesome foreign policy nose into disputes between other nations that the Middle East would bear us no ill will?

The proper response is not to lash out in a mad rage against whoever we conclude was responsible, because that will only make them angrier and more committed in their hatred of us. The only way to stem the tide of anti-US terrorism is to withdraw the United States Murder Corps from the far corners of the globe, stop taking sides in other nations' problems, and generally mind our own fucking business.


MoNsTeR

hmmm, Defense Department wants 50,000 reservists

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/reserves/


hope they don't decide to start up the draft...