Hail! The conquering Hero!

For a pretend war...with real death!

Our children, and our children's children, deserve so much better for the future.

I hope they won't judge (some of) us too harshly.

From my 31 May 2007 article, "Responsibility and Accountability" come the following pictures and quote:

Look with appropriate horror upon the picture at left. The little girl clutching the blanket and shrieking is a Palestinian child whose family had just been butchered by artillery rounds while picnicing on a beach. The Israeli Defense Forces cynically sneered that the massacre was by Palestinians shooting at IDF gunboats that were attacking a legitimate target.

Whatever. That little girl could very well one day—one day very soon—be a suicide bomber who will walk into a lovely, modern, Western-style shopping mall in Tel Aviv and blow herself and a bunch of Israelis to Kingdom Come. Who here believes she will ask those who condemn the IDF killing machine to please leave before she sends herself and her victims to Hell?

Of course she won't ask. Her victims' politics will not matter and that's because her politics did not matter when her mom, dad, and siblings were sent to the fiery slaughterhouse. The Israelis, both those who support the ungodly acts of their government and those who absolutely do not, pay the price together.

So, too, will we. We will pay because we're Americans, and America was the nation that did the unspeakable damage in Iraq. We are Americans, so we will, in our individual lives, run the risk of our share of collective punishment. Take a good, hard look at the little girl [above]: she's an Iraqi wounded profoundly in an American military attack. So help me God, if that were my child, I would spend the rest of my days hunting down any member of the tribe that did what was done to her and her siblings.

But I am a member of the tribe that will be hunted. Collectively, we have no exit that does not involve a lot of our own blood, both now and for generations to come. If we continue this brutal, violent, unproductive monstrosity that is the American-Iraqi War—and despite the lies of cowardly Democrats to the contrary, we probably will, at least for quite a while longer—we will merely postpone, but only to some extent, our own days and generations of reckoning with the aftermath. When we leave, we shall in the event have let slip, and ever so quietly at first, the dogs of retributive war upon us for what we have done.

Guilty or not; supporter or opponent of the neo-cons; morally blind, flag-waving pseudo-patriot or hardened, America-hating Leftist; contemplative conservative or moderate liberal, we shall all stand before the bar of the rough justice of the ages that transcends our modern, delicate sensibilities.

The American victims of terrorist attacks have found that out as they have individually paid the ultimate price: while they bore no individual responsibility for the awful history of Western actions in the Middle East, yet there they were, paying dearly and in finality because that's how the cruelty of street justice would have it. The Hegelian theoretical chalkboard scrawl about historical inevitability is a real pain in the backside when it jumps off the philosophy department seminar table and into fire and shrapnel at the corner of Fifth and Main.

We're coming up on the third anniversary of River's last post.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

I hope she's still out there and her family has escaped the worst. Her long absence from her blog though, doesn't give me hope.

Now Obama wants to draw down combat operations in Iraq so that he can heat up the war against Afghanistan and increase the rate that we slaughter villagers. And yet, we haven't beaten the Iraqis into submission yet. The people of Iraq have not surrendered and agreed to be subjugated by the USA. They have not held a ceremony in which they accept their chains.

I think that it is inevitable that Obama or the next president will later have to take troops out of Afghanistan and put them back in Iraq.

But from the perspective of the White House, that would be acceptable. We aren't in these countries to bring them a better life. We're there because war is a profit center. And for this reason, our leaders would be stupid to win or lose these wars. Either outcome is harmful to profits.

And those making the big bucks are Muslim corporations out of the UAE and Kuwait, providing 'contracting' services.

Dark Wraith - 08/02/10 at 20:18:50

I know, Wraith. :-( I remember what you've said. But a tiny part of me still hopes for just a little bit of positivity. There isn't much to be had, ya know.

Don't like the gloomies.

Good afternoon, Moody Blue.

While I am preparing my next two articles, I should probably take a break to post some uplifting, motivational words.

Stay tuned.

Kitten Cuteness

I filmed this a few weeks ago.
http://weaseldog.blogspot.com/2010/07/smuggler-playing-in-his-tub.html

Uplifting? Motivational?

Ya mean like:
'Thank your sir! May I have another?"

Excellence, Weaseldog!

Would you mind if I offered this video as a feature at the Cheezburger Network on the LOLCats site? I think this might be pretty popular, especially if I tell the story of Smuggler.

I could even link to the shelter where Smuggler is making his home if you feel that the publicity would help in some way.

Sure, do it DW. And please do, link In-Sync's home page. They do need the publicity.

I simply don't find much cause for hope. The craziness grows day by day....I simply find myself hoping enough of our children and grandchildren SURVIVE TO piss on our graves.

That's a nice thought Labrys.

I plan to be cremated.

Not only will I take up no land in my post-life years, but I shall have the satisfaction in my choice of disposal methods to say, "NEENER-NEENER," to all who had planned to use my grave as an expressive urinal.

I am still undecided, I must stipulate, on the appropriate music that should be played during the baking of my carcass.

"Baby Light My Fire" by the Doors is too tawdry.

Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" is too obvious.

Ditto for Springsteen's "I'm on Fire."

The theme from "St. Elmo's Fire" is worn out.

Wagner's Magic Fire Music is too... Wagner.

"Fire Walk with Me" from Twin Peaks is too likely to invoke the weirdness of that TV show.

"My Ass Is on Fire," by Mr. Bungle, reminds me too much of medical issues I'd rather not discuss in mixed company (you know, people and scatology enthusiasts).

Hayden's Symphony No. 59, known as "Fire," is too darned frisky, light, and simplistic for my tastes.

Wait a minute.

I don't even like listening to music except on rare occasions.

Well, that settles that little detail about the cremation.

Now, all I have to worry about is whether to have my ashes scattered over the countryside of my youth or parceled and sent to all the modern folks in Washington who can't stand to live a single day without another law to snoop, to curtail freedom, to tell me what to do, how to live, and where to break wind. If I do the latter, each of those little packages will, of course, come with a curt note, which will read in its entirety... (get ready, dear readers)...

KISS MY ASH!

That'll teach 'em a thing or two.

Yes, indeed.

Yep! You betcha! Gonna make an ash of yourself after life, eh?
Notice I didn't say "too?" (Chortle!)

That's okay, Father Tyme.

It's the thought that counts, and I think you were thinking that thoughtful thought.

I read in High Times, in an article on the 5 best ways to toke up at parties without having to share your killer shit with the common riffraff, and the best one detailed telling the soon-to-be bogartees that we had mixed some of Ol' Uncle Daves powdered remains in the bowl, 'cause he'd ashed us to do this for him, in remembrance.

So, I need your urn when you've been properly turned out according to your final wishes, should I miraculously cheat death and somehow survive you. I won't need the actual ashes, of course, as I can find a suitable replacement for you at any charcoal BBQ grill or wood-fired stove. Just the sight of the urn should be enough to dissuade most of them from ashking twice, methinks.

"...a suitable replacement for you at any charcoal BBQ grill or wood-fired stove"?!

Okay, I suppose if the ashes had come from some cheap cut of beef brisket, cooked rare (given that no one ever said, "Well done" to my work product), with a light coating of Earl's House of Gruel BBQ Grind™, along with some Kansas City Trollop Catcher Bouquet for Beef (the dry-mix variety, not the bottled stuff).

I'm getting hungry.

I think I'll go make some chewy coffee.

"When you see a spider, climbing up a lonesome wall
When you see a spider, climbing up a lonesome wall
You can tell that spider's gonna get his ashes hauled." - Jimmy Rodgers

'Wildfire' for a song, seems appropriately morbid...

Hunk a hunk a burning love?

Never mind!

Animal.