Happy Birthday America

We liberals get a little hinky over Saddam you understand.

Yeah, he was a despicable, evil tyrant and really did deserve to taste his own blood prior to his mortal coil being yanked.  Yep, all of the above.   But he didn’t have fuck all to do with 911 so how did he become our problem?  Our responsibility?

Fine.  We drug him out of a hole and let his own people hang him.  All on television. Bonus.  I guess.  We had better reason to do that than break the entire goddamn country and now the entire sonafabitching region.  See, we liberals understand that it did not a single human being anywhere, any good at all.  None.  What happened, because of what we did, was way worse than if we’d done nothing whatsoever.  Hussein lacked the brute,  efficient capacity to kill as and ruin as many innocent, civilian Iraqis as we came to kill and ruin.  Millions of them.  The United States of America, in your name and mine, made Saddam Hussein look positively Fisher Price for no reason at all.

How come we did that?

It was in fact, deliberate, with hubris, stupidity and greed, as it’s impetus.  What I mean is, that it was precipitated by arrogant, greedy bastards with no concern whatsoever for the inevitable consequences.  Obvious consequences.  Dumbya’s daddy wrote in his own memoir what a mistake it would be and why.  Darth fucking Cheney spoke publicly about why we shouldn’t and what would happen if we did.  And it all came to pass.  All of it and worse, although the entrance was grand.  You remember, “Shock And Awe”?  How ninth grade was that?

I’m an agnostic, but I’d stick a red hot spit up Cheney’s ass and roast the dirty prick for all eternity if I could. Dumbsfeld too.  As far as Dumbya, well, you can’t fix stupid.

And now, nine years after the fact, and still in Afghanistan, having traded Generals but not policies, our definition of success is the same nebulous bullshit proffered in Iraq.  There is no analogue for success or victory.  The “We’ll stand down when they’re able to stand up” doctrine.   The most powerful military in the world fighting an enemy that doesn’t have tanks, planes, ships or even an army.  We are not fighting for our nation’s survival. We can leave, literally, anytime we want.

So why don’t we?

Why are we there?  Killing and being killed?  Why?

Silly, if it weren’t so achingly tragic.  Certainly no comedy for those who would dwell exclusively among numbers and projections.  An unmitigated horror for those of us in possession of both heart and mind.

Why?  Why are we there?  Someone please enlighten me.  We have thus far done nothing but make everything worse.  By almost every account, there is barely any Al Qaeda presence at all in Afghanistan.  True to form, we’re bombing the shit out of everybody regardless of affiliation, as in not Al Qaeda, while they, again not Al Qaeda, are still killing our fine young men and women every day.

So now, the very same General in charge as was in Iraq.   Credited with turning the whole thing around in Iraq with the “surge”.  Understand it had less to do if anything at all with that.  No, the phenomena was known as the Sunni/Anbar “Awakening”.

The “surge” was a pile of horseshit.

“The turnabout began last September [2006], when a federation of tribes in the Ramadi area came together as the Anbar Salvation Council to oppose the fundamentalist militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.” -NYT April, 2007

The “surge” wasn’t even icing on the shit cake, not even a cherry.  That sounds pretty cynical for sure, but what most don’t know is that we had begun to pay 80,000 Sunni members of that “Awakening”, $10 each a day not to fight us.  That right. That’s an ass pocket of cash to anyone in Iraq.  $800,000 a day we were paying them to not kill us.  You got it. Read it again.  The serendipitousness of the surge was merely that.  If not for the Sunni’s getting their brave and pissed off on, along with us paying them to leave us out of it, we’d still be there.  Killing and being killed.

Oh, sorry, we still are.  There.  Why is that?

And what kind of shithole is Iraq now and why isn’t it on the news?  Contemporary Iraq is best case scenario for Afghanistan and we won’t even come close to pulling that off.  We still have as many as 90,000 troops there. Bombs going off everyday.  Turkey enjoys killing Kurds freestyle.  Recent elections most likely a joke.  No doctors or professionals left in the country.  Poverty, disease above and availability of services including fresh water and electricity far below pre-war levels.  Was it Powell who warned that if you “break it, you buy it”?

Now, let’s talk about blood and treasure willingly spent by our government.   Over $10 billion a month.  At least as many private security contractors as troops, half remunerated with our tax dollars at six figures a year or better.  I’m sure closer to $20 billion a month between the two countries.  How many dead? Not just ours but theirs?  How many?  Don’t know do ya?   If it’s anything like Iraq, the ratio is shameful.  We wonder why they hate us.

And we are gonna screw this pooch way harder than we did Iraq.

Mr. Obama, you are rapidly becoming merely the lesser of two evils because of this outrageous agglomeration.  That is to say, I’m glad it’s not McCain/Palin handling it, but I’m beginning to have trouble making a distinction.  Enough is enough.  The problems we could solve here at home with the the blood and money we spill abroad……..

So Barack, this is human tragedy on a scale that does not belong in this century and I know you’re too smart not to know it.  Americans are far more likely to die of a goddamn bee sting than a terrorist attack.   The “terrorists” have proven themselves to be astonishingly incompetent.  It’s all a lie, and you sir, are abundantly cognizant of that.  Remember, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”?  Truer words have never been spoken.  C’mon, the shoe bomber?  The Underwear bomber?   The war on terror is as big a bullshit facade as the war on drugs.  What gives?  What are you doing?

You sir, are beginning to appear deliberately venal in the prosecution of this war.  Somebody is getting filthy rich but it sure as hell isn’t the people you were elected to look out for.

I supported you.  I believed in you.  I’m a Democrat.  A progressive.  A patriot.  We both know that the last justifiable war we participated in was WWII and that was over sixty years ago.

We both know that every war since then has been about sending the poor and less advantaged to die defending the interests of the rich.  We both know that’s what war is and always has been.

I’m not happy with the direction or scope of health care, financial reforms and a myriad of other things, but it is here, on this issue that you are losing me.  Soon, I and so many like me, will throw up our hands and resign ourselves to the ranks of the disenfranchised and disaffected.  We will stop caring.

You want to shake shit up?  You want change?  This right here is the best place to start.  End it.  Now.  Bring our people home and bring our money and resources to bear on what we really need.   The homeless.  The able and willing but still unemployed.  Our rapidly decaying infrastructure.  45,000 a year dying for lack of health care.  People losing their homes and their lives.  Our crumbling joke of an education system.  All these things we so desperately need and deserve, so easily solved by ending this utter nonsense that you could not give me a plausible reason for were you able to share a beer with me across a kitchen table, because we both know there isn’t one.

Not a reason, and soon not a beer or a kitchen table.

Our people Mr. Obama, our country, our swiftly vanishing pride.

I understand you didn’t start it, despite what that useless goofcock Michael Steele said, but you sure as hell can finish it.  Not next year, not five or ten years from now, but now.  Right now.

I don’t know whether to feel more sorry for the American families losing fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters or the tens of thousand returning home broken, shattered, both mentally and physically.

Know what’s gonna happen?  It’s all building up to something.  Something that can only end in fire.  This obtuse and utterly senseless course we pursue will likely end with all the mountains and all the sand and all the people, vaporized into glass.  Nuclear war.  Thousands of years from now, bits of them will be discovered preserved, like insects in amber.  Jews, Muslims, Palestinians and millions of secularists who never had a dog in this fight, or worse, didn’t until we pushed it to the brink.  That’s what’s going to happen.

It’s inevitable.  What scares and disgusts me Mr. Obama, is you know it too.

Drinks for my friends.

37 Responses to “Happy Birthday America”

  • All too true. Sad, but true.

  • Michael Douglass:

    I know. I’m pissed off and depressed.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMbIuwn_w8M

    True, True, I wanted to add… I feel this is a spiritual war.
    Good vs Evil.

    Watch the video above, 666 has been found… “on the great seal”

    This is in your face.

    Just how they do it… Now we know who They are.

  • Michael Douglass:

    Thanks for contributing…..I’ll watch when I have time…..

  • if we look back on history when the number gets high on the number of people , wars are started it,s not just the united states that goes in to war for what. most people think it,s for oil that is not the only reason (could not be the reason).we have oil in our on back yard look at what happened and they still want and will drill oil in the states look again back on history we don,t need the oil it,s called money in the politicians back pockit to get what there states want. united states owes countries money and they owe us and by going to war they trade off, be it for money or for the work that is brought in or out into there countries of the united states. the united states is know for policelicing the world and they demand that the united states do something because the united states will jump or be jumped on.united states have to flex there so called power. look around we are not free most of the reason people come to this country is we are not fighting on this soil at this monent.thant you goverment.i still say they do not belong there. was this country started on freedom we havr lost most if not 99% of it.get the assholes out.

  • Michael Douglass:

    I’m often amazed at the people that cannot compose a coherent paragraph. It’s called spell check, look into it. Sheezus.

    • KathyS:

      Someone posted this on Facebook and I am very happy to “meet’ you. You have voiced a great deal of the concerns and rants that I have been saying for some time now. (Even down to the reply from the person who had no correct punctuation and spelling skills – my 4th grade Nun would have been appalled!!!). Anyway, thank you for your comments. I felt a satisfaction reading them. I felt not so alone in my thoughts about all this war, killing, corporate greed and hatred.

  • dan:

    what’s with people who wanna use the comment space to bitch about peoples spelling and paragraph construction???
    its not a writing class or an essay competition … its a person doing their best to express their ideas.. i found it ez to read and understand, as far as i care thats whats important…. i liked what he /she had to say.. you are petty to judge someone on form rather than content

  • MD,

    But if we don’t kill them over there where it’s legal, where are we going to kill “them”?

    War is patriotism; ignorance is strength; killing is peace!

    Heck, we don’t have anything else to spend the money on anyway.

    Well done!

    Peace,
    Tex Shelters

  • Michael Douglass:

    Ha! Tex, well said.Thanks for stopping by.

  • The Prophet:

    Ah, so this is one of those blogs where the blogger thanks people who agree with him while insulting those who disagree. I’d like to point out that your paragraphs, while coherent, weren’t perfect. You threw in random commas all over the place!

    Anyway, I do agree with most of the views you expressed. However, I think that by calling people “Dumbya” and “Dumbsfeld” you sound unintelligent and especially unclever. You also might find it difficult to capture the attention of anyone who doesn’t agree with you. Did you write this to inform or to stroke and seek praise for your own ideas?

    And since you inquired, the war on drugs exists because money is made off of it (privatized prisons, police, etc.). The war on terror continues for probably the same reason (Haliburton, oil, etc.).

    Obama is just as bad as all of the presidents for the past 40 years. In this one party system masquerading as a two party system, the media makes you pick your side: OIL or BANKS? You can thank the Reagan administration for that.

    Lastly, I don’t think this will end with fire; I believe it will end with water. Rise above or let the sea drown you with.

    • Michael Douglass:

      You’re entitled to your opinion.

      Having said that, your paragraphs don’t exactly blow my skirt up. Never start a sentence, much less a paragraph with the word ‘and’. It’s clumsy and unseemly. Oh, and “Rise above or let the sea drown you with.”?

      While we’re on the subject, bring some coherent intelligence and you’re free to disagree all day long. I’m only too happy to engage you. If not, well, an idiot can only sound like genius to another idiot. I just call it like I see it.

      See how I abused those commas?

      I wrote it because it’s what I think and how I feel. Get it?

      “Dumbya” and “Dumbsfeld” are nicknames that convey humor. You should look into it.

      Thanks for reading and commenting.

      • same guy:

        The sea references literature over the past century that uses water imagery to show the coming of a new age of consciousness: Eliot, Pound, Stevie Smith, and many others use it.

        “And” was hardly the start of a paragraph. Moreover, a response to your blog doesn’t require the kind of formality you think it does. My reply was just that: a blog response. Additionally, if you’d like to be picky (and it seems you would), allow me to point out that you started a “paragraph” with “and” just as I did. It looks as though we’re both clumsy and unseemly.

        My criticism, like yours of Janet, was one of grammar and communicability, not formality. And, if you want a formal essay or dissertation on this subject, I can provide you with one of those. I have a BA in English and an MA in philosophy.

        Thanks for playing!

      • same guy:

        After a second consideration of your quoting me with a question mark tacked at the end, I realized that it may have been an attempt to point out that I ended a sentence with a preposition. If so, get over it; it happens all the time. The object of the preposition is rather clear, and if you cannot understand it you are a denser moron than Janett.

        • Michael Douglass:

          I was merely responding in kind, quibbling because you were. I’m really not interested in a grammatical pissing match; it’s not what I’m here for.

          If you’d like to comment on content, so be it. I hardly want or need a formal essay. I’ve written for years (paid and unpaid) and get along just fine. This can hardly be a good use of your time and I promise you it’s a waste of mine.

          There’s a profound difference between the way Janet writes and just about everyone else. The only degree of formality I would prefer but do not require is…..well, try not to sound like a moron. Janet sounds like a moron.

          Having said that, I do thank you for your time and welcome your thoughts as long as they are germane to topic.

          • same guy:

            Agreed. Thanks for the blog. It was a good read.

            However, I am serious about the whole “Dumbsfeld” thing. You aren’t going to get a very wide audience if you keep using “humorous” nicknames like that. You’ll only get people either calling you a libtard or thanking and agreeing with you. If you remove them, therefore making the blog less biased, I think you’ll get some better debaters in here that you or your readers can enlighten (or call jackasses) 🙂

  • bptr:

    “We drug him out of a hole”???
    The past tense of “drag” is “DRAGGED”!!!!
    Maybe you should learn English before you try to write.

  • Michael Douglass:

    “The past tense of “drag” is “DRAGGED”!!!!”

    It’s colloquial and you’re a cunt. There’s a forest in them trees somewhere! Piss up a rope.

    That’s the best you have considering the gravity of the topic?

  • Samantha:

    Okay, you guys are starting to sound like a bitter old married couple or a teenage high school couple. Stop it’s a little creepy :). But anyways, I enjoyed the artical and agree with you. My husband is in the air force and gets deployed soon. He doesn’t even know why we are over there but the money and the benefits gets us through. I have met many other wives and family members who weren’t so lucky as to have their soldier come home. I am terrified that he might die and I won’t even know what for. We have bigger threats in the U.S to worry about than what happens over there. We have gangs, pedafiles, rapists, murderers, depressed crazy people on our own soil to worry about. Do they not see that other Americans take the lives of other American way more than over there? Sure it is fucked up over there. But how can we take care of them if we can’t even take care of ourselves. We are falling apart, a crumbling nation all because people refuse to believe that we are or they want to blame it on an “apocalypse” when all it is, is ingnorance and pride. Sorry about any mispellings I really suck at spelling 🙂

  • http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ watch these and it may give an answer to your questions. AND, I share your frustration. 🙂 have a good day.

  • GI JOE:

    this is B.S. and your not americans or ought to drivin out of america, useless killing sux but theres a job to be done & our brave military is doing this job, put that beer down & enlist & be a man not pussy,s voice….don’t really care what you think about me did my time & i live in a free nation that i deserve don’t hide, do your part!

    • Michael Douglass:

      I assume your trying to say that if we disagree with the war, we’re not Americans and should be driven out of our own country. That’s just about as predictable as your lack of grammatical prowess and piss poor syntax.

  • kachonka:

    MD is a liberal. There is no reason to use any other insulting name for this character of liberalism.
    That is the worst it can get.

    Liberal!

    • Michael Douglass:

      Yep, I’m a liberal. And I not only not ashamed, I am proud to call my self liberal.

      “What did liberals do that was so offensive to the liberal party? I’ll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things ­ every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.” -West Wing season seven

  • yokle:

    Liberal douch sounds better.

  • gary:

    Michael,

    I don’t always agree with what you have to say. In fact, I am usually on the opposite side. On this point; however, I am in complete agreement. I keep coming back because I like the fact you put it out there the way you see and feel it. It’s the smart ass replies and other humor I enjoy the most. For me your best rants are the non-political ones.

    Gary

  • Michael Douglass:

    Well thanks Gary, I sincerely appreciate that.

  • Mary:

    Very well written..exactly how I feel but am unable to articulate as clearly and expressly as you.
    I am becoming increasingly disgusted with this “war on terror” as the minutes roll by, and have begun to lose faith in the man I elected to make things right.
    It started rather slowly….I began to internalize my frustration as I learned of his centrist decisions..then took his sticker off my car…and now I am verbalizing my vexation…chagrin…out loud! Whoda thunk it?
    I have been a stanch supporter, so relieved to have elected what I thought was a progressive forward thinking democrat to lead this country out of the mucky dog shit
    we were wallowing in…and here we are, 2 years later, branching off in all the wrong directions…and I hate to admit it! Admitting that Obama is failing, is admitting that I failed…
    This war/these wars have left me feeling angry, empty, sad, hopeless…we here virtually NOTHING from the news media concerning what is going on over there..we go on about our days, the little things that we take for granted..a nice cup of coffee..a good book..a cocktail…peace…what are the people in Afghanistan experiencing? Bombs? Shells? Explosives? Death? Loss? Despair?

  • FreedomLuvrGurl:

    He can’t bring about “CHANGE”, he can’t do anything he said he would. It was all lies. He was chosen, raised, and trained by puppet master Marxists and Commies to be the “opposite of Bush, face of CHANGE” puppet of the US Gov that the people would fall for and he is today to lead the world into one gov, one religion, one currency. It’s a centuries old agenda, well documented in history all the way back to ancient, really. Fressmasonry came to America in the form of the “founding fathers” and quietly birthed it as “the Masonic experiment”, concealing their true agenda from the public. Why do they want to “kill switch” the internet? Because they have publically declared it as enemy #1 against their agenda of a New World Order. Millions that didn’t know before know now, and are educating, sharing, and preparing… setting up defense… and they don’t like it one bit! LOOK IT UP! IT”S ALL HISTORICALLY CORRECT! They are making fast progress, urgency is needed… <3

    • Michael Douglass:

      “He was chosen, raised, and trained by puppet master Marxists and Commies……..” Look, I can’t disagree with everything you posit and I’ve made it clear I’m not thrilled, but you wouldn’t happen to be wearing a hat made of tinfoil would you?

  • Michael Douglass:

    I’m not quite ready to write him off but he is starting to chap my ass. And BTW, Rachel Maddow did a hell of a job covering Afghanistan from Afghanistan this week. Thanks for reading.

  • Michael Douglass…

    Did you find the two min to watch this video yet?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMbIuwn_w8M

    I was wondering what you think…

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