Re: mystery solved

Scottie,

You write, concerning the Bushies now in office:

"People are all a bit more paradoxical & difficult than that, John."

These people may be. Their policies are not. And that's part of the
problem. Cut taxes for the wealthy and cut programs for the poor and for
education. Build expensive outdated weapons systems for space and reward
their friends with lucrative contracts. Conduct first strikes
"pre-emptively," but only against small, non-nuclear countries that pose no
military threat. Cut civil liberties in name of "security" by allowing the
Justice department to avoid due process. Meanwhile, take the federal debt to
staggering new proportions and leave it for our children to pay off. There's
nothing very paradoxical or difficult or complicated about any of it, and in
the long term it's all disastrous because it breeds economic instability at
home and resentment and hate abroad.

And for all the talk about freedom, it's the warlords in Afghanistan that we
are now funding, not the "government" we put in place after our bombs fell.
In fact, the new leaders of that government came to Washington last month
begging for support of some kind and were told quietly and politely that
there was nothing that could be done, what with there being this war and this
growing deficit and all. These men that we placed in control of a country we
"liberated" were reduced to writing an editorial for the New York Times
begging America to stop funding the warlords that are robbing people in the
streets and murdering villagers at random and to help the government we left
there to try and establish some sort of non-violent rule. Unfortunately, no
one was listening here. We were too fascinated by the scenes in Baghdad. And
so Afghanistan is quickly returning to the violent totalitarian tribal mess
it was before we arrived and we are funding the violent, totalitarian side
(again). Eventually the same thing will happen in Iraq. And, eventually,
the Afghan warlords we are now supporting because they are helping us fight
guerillas in the mountains will have to be taken out (they are already
stepping up the violence against their own people and the opium business
dramatically, and that's sure to piss of the Bushies at some point). And the
cycle will all begin again. And Iraq's fate is written in the same
historical loop.

Anyway, enough of this. It's pointless here and despite the fact that our
leader is a spoiled dufus with little or no real historical insight or
economic responsibility who thinks he is on a mission from God, the beauty of
the system is that he can only run up the debt and march around the world for
five more years at most.

I just feel sorry for those who are going to get stuck having to lead this
country when the bill arrives.

All the best,

--John

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Received on Sat Apr 19 06:24:47 2003