Category Archives: War

We Killed Anwar al-Awlaki, shit!

Americana, War

 

The New York Times has an editorial saying that killing Anwar al-Awlaki is a justified act of war. The editorial is worth reading  saying in part

The United States did not claim the power to kill Mr. Awlaki because of his political views or because he was a mere member of a Qaeda affiliate against which Congress had authorized the use of force. It claimed the power to kill him, rather, because he was an operational leader of a Qaeda affiliate that had been involved in terrorist plots on American soil and because he was hiding in a country that lacked the capacity to arrest him and bring him to justice.

Of course the New York Times editorials usually say that what the president did was justified whether it is killing an American citizen we don’t like or invading Iraq. Anyway, it seems to me that Obama is doing a crackerjack job of what Bush the Younger bollixed. I wish that made it right but it doesn’t. We are fighting a war against a bunch of wackos that we should be rounding up and trying in court just like the Symbionese Liberation Army.

How much different the world would be if Bush had declared 9-11 the biggest criminal act in history and committed to tracking the criminals down and bring them to justice. Maybe we wouldn’t have fought two stupid, un-winnable, wars at the cost of bankrupting ourselves.

Instead, we have a war on terror. So maybe that is three, stupid, un-winnable wars.

Imagine killing somebody

Americana, War

Just think about it for a second. Over the last, say, 65 years – I’m hoping and going with the premise that I didn’t want to kill anybody before I was six – I have wanted to kill many people. Not for long enough to actually imagine what it would be like, more of a That fucker should be shot. kind of killing. But, imagine killing somebody. A man, say, in a dirt poor third world country.

Somebody who doesn’t want the United States there. Maybe they have kids and a wife who depend on them. So you are not just killing them, you are fucking up a whole family. But, hopefully, they don’t have a dependent family. But, surely, they do have a mother and a father who have invested their hopes and dreams in him. Maybe they named him Ibrahim – Abraham – after the founder of their religion, maybe they named him Anthony. What difference does it make? Just think about killing them. Make it easy on yourself, make the killing from a distance with a high powered rifle.

Now watch this video.  I think that it is a simulation – a training film – but, maybe not. Either way, this is what it is like to kill a person today.

 

An aside about Cluster Bombs

Americana, Current Affairs, Uncategorized, War

I have never understood cluster bombs and why they are such a problem. Now, after a visit to the Hawthorn Ordnance Museum, I do understand.  That might not be the good news. Be warned, if you don’t understand, your ignorance might be bliss; once you do understand, you might not like our fellow Americans as much . While in the airplane, the bomb looks pretty much like a run of the mill people killing device. However, it is innocuously labeled Dispenser, Aircraft so as it will not to be confused with a regular bomb.

The dispenser is rigged to come apart after it is dropped.  Inside are hundreds of tennis ball size bomblets that are then spread across the countryside. They have little aerodynamic wing stubs that start the bomblets rotating once they leave the container.

This act of rotating arms the bomblet so, when it hits the ground, they will explode. Of course, they all go in slightly different directions to cover as wide an area as possible. Because most of the dispensers are dropped from low flying fighter aircraft, many of the bomblets don’t have a chance to arm themselves before they hit the ground. So, in Vietnam, in Laos, in Cambodia, there are just millions of these things still lying around on the ground, or in the grass, or in bushes, all unexploded. Waiting for a farmer to hit them with a plow or a child to pick them up and give them a good shake. Years later, many of them are still there. Waiting.

According to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in The Fog of War, after the firebombing of Tokyo, former Army Air Force General Curtis LeMay said to him, It is a good thing that we are going to win this war, otherwise we would be tried as war criminals. He was probably right. As far as I am concerned, the guys who dropped these all over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, should also be tried as war criminals.

That is one of the problems with war, once in a war, people will do anything to win. The United States is really no exception. We don’t wear suicide vests or club people to death, we don’t have to, we have cluster bombs and drones.

Power corrupts department

Americana, Obama, Politics, Psychological Musings, Uncategorized, War

 

Maybe I invested too much in Obama changing Washington, maybe it can not be done, maybe nobody can do it, and, maybe, Obama just isn’t even trying. When he was a candidate, he ran on Change, he ran on Transparency, he ran on the Rule of Law.When asked about Bush and Iraq, he said

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Now, in regards to Libya, where we spent a shit-load of money sending cruise missiles – 110 on the first day – and where we sent actual, piloted, A-10 ground attack aircraft to attack Khadafi’s forces, and where we are still involved; the Obama Administration says

The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of ‘hostilities’ contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision. U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition….

This sounds like one of the Bush Administration’s convoluted justifications and, if they had said it, we liberals would have gone nuts. Now we just sit quietly. It is sad. The Imperial Presidency just keep getting more Imperial. Sometime in 2008 I am not sure where, maybe on the PBS News Hour, Brooks and somebody, probably Shields, were discussing Obama. Brooks talked about Obama and Reinhold Niebuhr and Niebuhr’s theory on power and how it corrupts. Brooks quoted Obama as saying something along the line of  Power corrupts and the hope was that he would get a lot of good done before he got corrupted. Apparently not.

 

 

Today – One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago – the Civil War started

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, War

After the last shot was fired, the United States was changed forever.  Up to now – 150 years ago – the United States had always been referred to in the plural as in The United States are not Europe; after the Civil War, the United States will be refereed to in the singular as in The United States is not Europe . In his first inaugural address, Lincoln used the word Union twenty times, he did not use the word Nation once. The Civil War made the Union a Nation.