Friday, September 25, 2009

"A Sense Of Grievance"

I've brought up the issue of blowback many times. In April I posted:

As the means of mass destruction get ever-smaller and more accessible to individuals via vials and backpacks, blowback becomes an even more important issue. It only takes one person from the countless lives that have been damaged or destroyed during the long occupation of two countries. Factor in a culture that puts a premium on honor and grudges and revenge and generally takes a long view of history, and we might not find out for many years exactly how much danger we've put ourselves in.

It looks like like I was too optimistic on the timeline. As the future of our Afghanistan policy is debated, this issue should be at the top of the list -- and it's not.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

WE have any number of home grown folk who "use" backpacks too. It's not just our foreign policy that's under attack.

9/25/2009 2:15 PM  
Anonymous KAIMU said...

ALOHA !!

IT'S AN EMPIRE THING!

When you are the WORLD POLICE you are bound to upset a couple people here and there ...

Imagine an Iraqi fisherman seeing the US COAST GUARD. Imagine what he thinks as he watches the USCG BOUTWELLL cruise by or imagine a Somali fisherman getting boarded by the USCG.

Adm Allen's log is linked here ...
LINK: http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/blog/2009/07/welcome-home-boutwell.asp

Here is a video link to the USCG BOUTWELL WESTPAC. As one commenter said "Awesome"! He wasn't even thinking in terms of the cost to run a ship that size on the open seas. Many of you own a boat or a house so you know the "overhead" for maintaining those kinds of properties, but a USCG cutter? Multiply things 100,000%!

WESTPAC LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k608MTisELM&feature=related

Now imagine if you were on the half day boat out of Long Beach, California and you were pulled over by an Iraq Coast Guard ship. None of the men with guns spoke your language and none of them dressed or looked like you. Not too many of us would be happy about that incident. Then we would go back home and talk in a negative manner of the country that invaded our day.

The Founding Fathers knew the perils of WORLD POLICE and that is not in the US Constitution. Only an elected dolt paid for by LMT(Lockheed Martin) could come up with WORLD POLICE! Winning two World Wars and saving the past ruling Empire, the British one, must have given America military some high up "street creds". What could be more enticing to the likes of FDR and Truman and the rest since then than "owning the World". SO we fought off the superpower military of Britain in 1776 only to fall into the same old trap of Empire that they did.

If you have ever seen the chart of a British Pound from 1900 to 2009 you would understand the dilemma the US Dollar now faces.

Every time we elect politicians who not only stray from the US Constitution but eviscerate it we end up on the same path as other past empires.

If you examine what is backing the US Dollar you will conclude it is essentially nothing more than the "human condition" and to a great extent the worst aspects of it. That is all Empire really is in the end. After all is said and done that is what Empire is.

IT IS WHAT IT IS ...

9/26/2009 11:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No, no... Bush Admin TOLD US, we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here. Never mind home grown terrorism, or that Oklahoma thing.

I don't understand Afghanistan... the last time we were there, didn't we CREATE/train Osama Bin Laden.

This is often a reoccurring theme:

"You know, when September 11th happened, I think some of us had already said that a time would come when poverty would be sort of collapsed and converge into terrorism. And this is exactly what’s happened. The poorest people in this country today are being called terrorists.

And what you have is a huge swath of forest in eastern and central India, spreading from West Bengal through the states of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh. And in these forests live indigenous people. And also in these forests are the biggest deposits of bauxite and iron ore and so on, which huge multinational companies now want to get their hands on. So there’s an MoU on every mountain, on every forest and river in this area." Author Arundhati Roy on the Human Costs of India’s Economic Growth, the View of Obama from New Delhi, and Escalating US Attacks in Af-Pak

9/28/2009 1:42 PM  

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