More War?

As Washington continues it's drumbeat for yet more war in Afghanistan, I really wish the people in charge would step back for a minute and examine what it is we are doing there and whether success is even possible.

This week President Obama announced that we will be sending more American soldiers in to Afghanistan. It's unclear exactly what the goal of these troop increases are though. On the one hand we are hearing that they will aide in training Afghan security forces. On the other hand Obama is making statements like these:

"The focus over the last seven years I think has been lost," Obama said. "What we want to do is to refocus attention on al Qaeda. We are going to root out their networks, their bases. We are going to make sure that they cannot attack U.S. citizens, U.S. soil, U.S. interests, and our allies' interests around the world."

That sounds like the troops will be used for a hot war with al Qaeda.

Recent polling shows that Americans are wary of more war in Afghanistan. For good reason.

While training Afghan security forces seems like a good idea, didn't we just go through this same debacle in Iraq. Month after month we were told Iraqi security forces would be ready to secure Iraq soon, and still thousands of American are there for security purposes. Why do we assume Afghanistan will end any better?

On the al Qaeda front, finding and eliminating al Qaeda operatives is a worthwhile goal, but do we need more troops to do it? Given that al Qaeda is an organization without borders, it seems unlikely that huge numbers of ground troops in Afghanistan are going to eliminate the problem. Bin Laden and company will just set up camp somewhere else. Wouldn't use of intelligence and highly trained special forces for localized operations against terrorists be more effective. Particularly in light of the fact that invasions of sovereign middle eastern countries may be doing more to grow al Qaeda than anything else we are doing.

We should be cognizant of history's lessons of war in Afghanistan. The British and Soviets found out the hard way that Afghanistan may be where empires go to die. Do we want to follow route?

Marketing Truth

This seems like the perfect way to wrap up this week.

I give you Bill Hicks on marketing.



Plus the ultimate Coke ad.

Where The Wild Things Are

Oh Man! I can't wait to see this!



Where The Wild Things Are was one of my favorite books as a kid. It seemed like most children's books were about happiness and light, but Sendak's slightly darker vision of childhood appealed to me a little more. Of course I was happy that in the end Max got to come home to a warm supper.

Here's a reading of the Sendak book if you're interested.



For what it's worth I know where at least four of the Wild Things are. They live with me.

(Via)

Chomsky On Politics

Here's Noam Chomsky talking about the US political system. Specifically the system's inherent protection of the rich and powerful. He's right, and if I may state the blatantly obvious, he's incredibly smart.

Imagine No Religion

It appears that the in the midst of declining attendance and tough economic times, the Catholic Church is closing parishes across the eastern and midwestern US.

According to CNN, the reduction has to do with the declining number of Catholics out there. Take this tidbit for instance:

"There are reportedly 67.1 million Catholics in the U.S., according to The Official Catholic Directory 2008. Compared to the 2007 number of 67.5, that's about a 400,000 decrease in one year. And the Pew Forum found that approximately a third of its survey respondents who were raised in the Roman Catholic Church no longer attend the church."

That's still a lot of Catholics, but that's also a huge decline in a single year.

Those types of numbers aren't just limited to the Catholic Church though. According to a recent USA Today poll, the third largest "religious affiliation" in the United States is "no religion," which comes in at 15% of those polled. (Up from 8% in 1990) By comparison, the second largest group behind Catholics was Baptists at 15.8%. (Down from 19.3% in 1990)

Of course the "no religion" group can, and probably does, include a lot of believers who have simply rejected any form of organized religion. The "spiritual but not religious" types. Even though that doesn't go far enough in my opinion, the increasing rejection of organized religion is on the whole a move in the right direction.

In the case of the Catholic Church, it's not hard to see why the numbers are declining. It's an organization that opposes many mainstream American values like equal rights for women and gays, birth control, choice on abortion and embryonic stem cell research. It's an organization allegedly dedicated to ending poverty, yet it has amassed wealth comparable to a fortune 500 company. (Back when such companies had wealth.) It's an organization allegedly dedicated to the protection of the weak, that allowed pedophiles access to children.

Eventually even the most ardent believer is going to look at that kind of track record and question whether the morals of the church are in line with basic human values. And that's without looking at the fact that it's whole belief structure lacks evidence.

Maybe the worm has started to turn on religion in the US. Still - we have a long way to go.

The Inquisition.

This one's for my kid.

Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!

Gitmo Prisoners Were Innocent

Every time I think we've reached rock bottom on revelations about misconduct during the Bush years, I discovery that there's at least another sub-basement to go.

This week it was revealed by Lawrence Wilkerson, a Republican former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, that Guantanamo is loaded with innocent people swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish terrorists from bystanders. Some of these men have been sitting there for six or seven years.

To make matters worse Wilkerson, who is also a retired Army Colonel, revealed:

"U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released."

So for years my government knew it was sweeping up innocent people, imprisoning them, and refusing to let them go. Moreover, according to Wilkerson, Rumsfeld and Cheney knew about the problem and refused to address it because it would be seen as a black spot on their leadership. Well thank goodness we kept Don's and Dick's names squeaky clean! After all, their leadership is universally regarded as a shining light of hope across the globe. If we marred their reputations they never would have been able to pull off all the good work they did while in office.

My country held - and probably tortured - innocent people. We are just suppose to be better than that. We may have internal disagreements about how to best protect ourselves from those who want to hurt us, but can't we all agree that imprisoning innocent people is not what America is about?

But, also, what about our own soldiers? One country's grunt is another country's "enemy combatant." Didn't the Bushies think about how this would impact treatment of captured Americans? We at least owe it to them to be an example of mercy and justice. They are the ones likely to bear the brunt if we aren't.

Here's Wilkerson on Maddow talking about the issue:



President Obama, how about getting the shutdown at Gitmo done and turning some attention to the prosecution of people who imprisoned innocent men?