25 December 2008

The Vietnamization of Afghanistan

For some damn reason Jane Fonda, the traitorous swine, was all up in my gmail account, yapping about how great Code Pink was an anti-war organization:

Dear LT,
As an actor, I know the power of the screen. As an activist, I also know the power of taking a message off the screen and onto the streets. That's why I love CODEPINK--it not only utilizes the best of the visual media with its vibrant pink presence; the women of CODEPINK are also out in the world...
Apparently old hippies never die, they just get senile and spread their messages through the internet rather than half-baked drum sessions. But unlike Vietnam, the beginning of operations in Afghanistan were hardly controversial in 2001. The Taliban, a despicable regime, was harboring terrorists that perpetrated one of the greatest atrocities in American history. The authorization for the use of military force did not take long to pass in DC. But as Iraq winds down, and people look for ways to divert money from defense for the sake of keeping people on the public dole, expect opposition to Afghanistan to begin ramping up.

In some cases, leaders of large progressive policy groups don't even bother trying to rationalize why the war must have an end...not even a catchy tune that you can slap on a protest sign. They just say we need to give money to irresponsible citizens who splurged on McMansions. From Huffington Post:
With housing prices continuing to plummet, not helping them means the financial system is being buttressed on top of a time bomb...But perhaps we'd be wiser to leave bin Laden in his cave, abandon the entire wrong-headed misnomer of a "war on terror," and give up attempting to build a new democracy in a country on the other side of the world. Make aggressive global policing, intelligence sharing, and a crackdown on financial flows the core of our reaction to bin Laden, and focus our resources and attention on the crisis here at home, which remains truly terrifying to anyone who looks at it closely.
The mission in Afghanistan does not provide a direct paycheck into people's pocket, so as the public gets more desperate to go back to their excessive living of SUVs, reality TV, and subprime mortgages, they are going to be easily swayed by politicians making promises. Maybe the next administration will do the right thing and look for new tactics and diplomacy to put the mission back on track, but the American people are going to be bitching every step of the way during these hard times. The college protesters, progressive bloggers, and other layabouts who speak the loudest for the anti-war movement will be making a lot more sense to more and more Americans.

4 comments:

lorraine said...

Hi! To buy a house you can't afford and then to use it as an ATM and buy a Hummer is the American way. We've got to just let evil grow and develop so we can shop - right? I live in a house that I can afford but it doesn't have every thing I want(poor me)so I can keep going. If these people had a grain of knowledge of what we are up against they would be running in the streets to be protected at any cost. Ignorance is bliss isn't it? Not to mention a few years of it all happening "somewhere else". I hope the people in power take some time to really look at what we are fighting and come up with a consolidated plan to deal with it before it is too late. This is coming from a '60's kid. Love - Happy and prosperous New Year and keep up the good work. lorraine

Wek said...

Hanoi Jane. The John Walker Lindh of the Vietnam War. I'm such a sucker to read anything that includes Fonda. The "love-to-hate" sensation is unavoidable. That HuffPo article was a joke as well. Damn LT, I admire your high bullshit threshold to read that crap.

Mike said...

"Make aggressive global policing, intelligence sharing, and a crackdown on financial flows"

Like the system that Treasury had set up with worldwide support (which pretty much everyone agreed was completely legal and constitutional) that was putting a major dent in the financing of terrorist operations that the NYT decided to blow wide open...just because? "Crackdown on financial flows" like that? As you say, these people talk a good talk (let's get the troops out of Iraq so we can use them in Afghanistan!) but as soon as they get the first part of what they want, they ignore the second part and keep pushing.

olgreydog7 said...

I was chatting with my dad, not even Great Depression era mind you, and he had this to say about "hard times." He told me a story of when his step-dad got laid off for being injured, ahh, the days before workmans comp. They had to move into a one bedroom house, really more like a one room house with a dirtfloor on one side. They rented it from a farmer who used the dirt side to dry out his potatoes and onions. So a family of four lived on the other side. And I thought having to reduce the number of premium channels and get regualr, not HD, satalite tv was bad!