Iraq war anniversary
The ten-year anniversary of the start of the USA/Coalition war in Iraq has come and gone. I have been hearing a lot about it, mostly from the Beeb, aka Auntie, aka the BBC World Service. It’s funny how on this anniversary I get more information and analysis from the BBC than from US news media. They also seem to have a more respectable and nuanced conversation about it. But maybe that’s just the British accent that does it.
I remember being a senior in high school when the tanks were on the ground and the jets were in the air and the "embedded" journalists gave their action-packed dispatches from the desert and from the bombed-out cities. I recall watching CNN and network news for hours at a time, feeding on each new update, hanging on Dan Rather’s every word. I watched correspondents bring out maps and flashy graphics with troop movements and diagrams and analysis from former generals.
Eventually Dan Rather was fired for some scandal. The "Mission Accomplished" photo op became a national embarrassment, and a decade of gruesome roadside bombings followed. The news about Iraq became more deadly and less interesting to read. I once saw a burned-out car on the front page of the New York Times. When I looked closer I was surprised to realize the shape inside it was not a car seat but the charred head and neck of an Iraqi, with his or her mouth wide open in agony.
I asked an exchange student from France, "Qu’est-ce que tu penses de la guerre en Irak?" This was at the height of anti-French sentiment in the US, symbolized by the idiotic "freedom fries" campaign. How typical that our symbol of protest was embodied in a greasy fast food product. I had hoped for an honest response from her but she was too polie to say what she really thought about the latest American war. At the same time, anti-Americanism reached a new height, with considerable justification notwithstanding some regrettable excesses here and there. It turned out France was right. And they didn’t have to receive daily shipments of flag-draped coffins.
In fact, in the US, pictures of flag-draped coffins were treated as obscenity and respected news organizations self-censored. Self-censor seems like another term that came into common use during the war.
Only six months before watching that invasion, I sat in a high school classroom where my British literature teacher explained that he was providing us with the pro-invasion perspective. He said that as high schoolers we were bombarded with anti-war messages by the mainstream media. He believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that Al-Qaida was operating in the country under his protection.
He explained rather dramatically how there were people in the Middle East who, if they could push a button and kill you, me and every other American, they would do it in an instant. The girl behind me gasped and said, "Oh my god, why do they want to do that?" I recall a lot of such utterances from her. She happened to be a ginger.
Now, in 2013, Iran has become unhinged without a rival next door. The US is dealing with mentally ill and unemployed veterans and a bloated military. Afghanistan, Yemen, the Maghreb, and Pakistan remain havens for Al-Qaida. And the country is reeling from debt, partly due to the unfunded war.
If there is one thing that can prevent this kind of thing from happening again, it is a mandatory draft, without loopholes that allow the educated and the rich to dodge it. I credit Jesse Ventura for introducing me to that idea. Ventura, the author of the not-bestselling book "Democrips and Rebloodlicans," had several good ideas.
I don’t wish to be incomplete. There is one other thing that can prevent this kind of thing from happening again: drones. The military and the weapon makers seem to have taken lessons from Iraq and have decided that the next war will be fought by robotic remotely controlled aircraft. In my opinion American drones are almost certainly carrying nuclear weapons by now. And if the drones are not already carrying nuclear weapons, they soon will be.
Included: Hans, just a few days ago. I can’t believe he recovered from his foot infection. I had no idea rats could fight off any kind of illness. I didn’t think they had the immune system for it. I didn’t think they could compensate since they are so small. I have been giving him high-calorie foods and helping him groom. He seems to be free of acute illness but is definitely in long-term decline. I believe he is comfortable. He smells fine and is not losing hair. He clamors to get out of his cage when he hears me, just as ever. He still seems to crave attention and likes to be scratched behind his neck and all around his ears. He is a very elderly rat. I believe he has less than one week to live.
pseudoisaac 