9/11

This anniversary snuck up on me. I happened to mouse over the date/time display on my computer and noticed that midnight had passed and suddenly it was that awful date – 9/11.

Strange to think that such a day could sneak up on you. But see, even for the people whose loved ones and friends died in 2001, life goes on. Not much of a life, perhaps. A vastly changed one, certainly. But still, it goes on.

The world undoubtedly changed forever that day seven years ago, and not for the better. 9/11 is the day we began our walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Unlike the words of Psalm 23, however, we do not “fear no evil”, for we have entered into the Age of Fear. The world has become a fearful place. No more fearsome, I think, than it ever was, but we are more fearful. At least, some of us are.

Fear can manifest in many ways. Anger and aggression are common responses, and that's the way the US chose to respond. By a fatal twist of history (some might say a fraudulent theft of an election), it just so happened that the White House was populated by George W. Bush and his band of refugees from the first Gulf War. These men were quick to seize the circumstances and whip the fear of the Murrican people to feverish heights. That fever has not yet entirely abated and the worldwide psyche has suffered because of it.

As I think of it now, isn't it a little odd that a nation as God-smacked as the US purports to be could not "fear no evil" and be comforted by the knowledge that the Lord was with them and had his rod and staff. Unfortunately, the US did not spare the rod, and the staff turned out to be the General Staff.

Whether the actions of the Bush administration were truly sincere I can't begin to guess. But they certainly were wrong-headed. And here we are in 2008, a mere seven years since the atrocity of 9/11, and the real power and prestige of the US has never been lower. Not even Viet Nam brought the US into such disrepute.

And lest we forget...the Murricans were the victims! Sad to see that the recovery process has not gone well. But then again, I see hope in the kind of enthusiasm that has been engendered in this presidential election year. Maybe it was hard to think about recovery while Bush was still in office. Maybe a change of president will bring a change of heart.

On this day seven years ago, my heart went out to the Murrican people. Today too.

The Original 9-11 Conspiracy Film

If you're interested in watching this, prepare yourself for the long haul. It's nearly 2 and a half hours long.

Support Our Troops

There has been a great deal of debate in both Canada and the US about "supporting the troops". People who are opposed to the war in Iraq or who, like myself, are ambivalent about Canada's presence in Afghanistan, have some difficulty making the nuanced argument about what "support" means. This statement by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic is the most succinct I've seen so far:

Obviously, the way you support the troops is contingent upon your analysis of the war. If you think the war is succeeding, then supporting the war is a way of supporting the troops. If you think the war is doomed to failure, though, proposing that more troops die in vain is not a way of supporting them.

Now that I think about it, though, even this presents difficulties. Telling the troops that they're dying in vain is demoralizing. Saying a war is "doomed" to failure is demoralizing. It means you're losing. The soldiers don't want to think they're losing. Losing is not an option.

So, I guess you need even more nuance. "We, your political leaders sent you into a war that didn't have a chance right from the start. Sorry. All the shame and blame belongs to us. Now the best we can do is get you out of there as soon as possible."

Update Aug.31/07 11:05am: And in a related item, Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com discusses how even political journalists cannot seem to disentangle the concept of "supporting the troops" from the idea of continuing the war.

Meanwhile, How's It Going In Afghanistan?

Harper's tells us that the UN announced on March 6 that the yield of heroin poppies rose by 25 percent last year.

Well, at least something is being reconstructed.

And in a not-directly related question: what is NATO doing so far from the North Atlantic which is part of its name? General Motors scrapped the Oldsmobile when it had outlived its usefulness. Get my drift?

Sum a Dem Call It Ganja

Proof that things can't be all bad in Afghanistan...
Click on the title to go to the original page.

Source: Reuters
Date: 12 October 2006

Canada troops battle 10-foot
Afghan marijuana plants

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. ... And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

Casualties in Afghanistan

A revealing statistic from this website, icasualties.org: since the US went into Afghanistan, the Americans have endured more than twice as many fatalities as all other Coalition forces combined: 357 vs. 159. Even in 2006, while Canadians reeled over their losses, the US forces sustained 5 more deaths than all other forces combined. The number of fatalities per year since 2001 has increased by more than 10 times.

If you pay any attention at all to the news, it seems as if the Canadian/Coalition forces keep going back into the same general area, fighting hard for awhile, announcing success, and then going back again shortly after, fighting hard, announcing success, and then going back again not long after, fighting hard, announcing success, and then going back again...

Sisyphus would have been proud.

Meanwhile, if you go to this website, the National Priorities Project, you can see how much the US is spending on the war in Iraq...more than 350 Billion dollars so far, and judging by the counter, adding up at about $2,000/second.

Wouldn't we all love to have a peace dividend?