Out Of Touch WIth Reality

 

The Cake Walk of War

Great article on how the war and death mongerers might be better off if they re-established some connection with the reality of life for the vast majority of the populace which is afflicted by their decisions.

Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-03-130913.html

...Surely a certain decadent nadir has been reached when their foremost concern involves the veracity and sanctity of the imparted message. You'd think the Red Line was pinned down on Iwo Jima with a two-day supply of water. No matter, a command is sent down from some high-up place: "Summon the kids (well, our kids anyway). The message must be preserved at all costs!" A contemptible equivalency has been struck: Losing a limb, ours, is a reasonable price to avert losing face, theirs. Never mind that the Red Line isn't a cornered battalion, but merely a botched metaphor wrapped in a rhetorical gaffe. It happens also to be the exoteric casus belli.

This quote is revealing: " ... to communicate with [the Iranians] we have to be very clear, very forthright." - White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough

You'd think if America wanted to send a very clear, forthright message to the Chilean people, there are better ways to do it than bombing Nigeria. How about Antarctica? It's closer and less populous.

I would submit that Iran is, far and away, the most forthright target to send the Iranians a forthright message. These non sequiturs are compelled by veiled objectives. Then too, had we wanted to push Iraq decisively into the Iranian orbit, there were far less costly and bloody ways to go about it than Gulf War 2. Maybe my brain is not cut out for all this strategy stuff, but from this low chair, McDonough's argument suffers all at once from logical indirection, geographic inexactitude and disingenuous message-talk. We're also back to hopelessly mixed metaphors of sending bulletins with bombs, communicating with shrapnel etc, when Mr McDonough should know that messages don't kill people. Bullets kill people...

Good sketch of the madness of later empires.

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