Stumped

I’ve started to update this thing several times and each time I do, I stop and go about doing something else that seems to have a greater priority. Like trying to pay my rent (which has been tough lately – work’s been slow for the last couple of months and things came to a head this week. At least I have my health, right? *cough*).

Anyway, I read the transcript of Rumsfeld’s “town hall” with troops in Kuwait, which happened yesterday or so. The “left” press is saying how frustrated they are at his condescending tone and so forth. I think his point was valid (he said you have to go to war with the army you’ve got, not the one you want) more or less. Although I can’t for the life of me figure out how the most advanced country in the world is unable to manufacture enough armored vehicles to keep our troops safe(r).

WHAT PISSES ME OFF is the continued insistence that our action in Iraq has anything to do with OUR freedom. To say to the men and women being shipped off to whatever their mission is at this point (sitting on powder kegs? containing our diplomatic mess?) that it has anything to do with protecting the United States is so beyond ludicrous to me. It’s actually offensive.

We WANT to believe our government is telling us the truth, but I think those days are so far gone. Equally stunning was the story about Pat Tillman’s friendly fire death. Not that he was a casualty of friendly fire – sadly that happens as a result of war. What is so aggregious (yet again) is that the military kept this information from his family, from Sen. McCain and countless others FOR WEEKS. Not only did they keep it under wraps, they exaggerated and distorted the facts to make us think he died under dramatic circumstances befitting a hero’s death. He was shot by panicked members of his own group (split in half by a remote commander despite vigorous reservations by his lieutenant). But that’s BAD NEWS and we can’t have BAD NEWS being delivered to the country. We might start asking questions and raising concerns. And we can’t have that.

Here’s the breakdown from my perspective: The Bush Administration is stock full of people who are oil and defense executives who are prosecuting a full-scale war based (originally) on the flimsiest of evidence that we (here in the United States) were actually threatened by the (supposed) Weapons of Mass Destruction. Somewhere along the line, the story shifted from WMD to “the world is now a safer place without Saddam”.

Well, I’m calling Bullshit on that one. ‘Cause the world is in fact, not safer. We are now 150,000 strong in Iraq, blowing through massive amounts of money and munitions, pissing off the entire Muslim world AND MEANWHILE… NORTH KOREA isn’t exactly benign in its intentions.

Meanwhile, we’re so distracted with Iraq that we’re not paying attention to the billions of dollars being given to corporations (as tax breaks and defense contracts) to artificially inflate the economy’s “growth” – that’s like saying your neighbor’s rich when they max out all their credit buying gadgets and new cars and crap. We’re headed for some serious wake-up callin’… You thought the dot-com bubble was bad?

And don’t get me started on the Administration’s statements over the legitimacy of the Ukrainian elections (for those of you who’ve removed yourself from the mediastream, Ukrainians have been PEACEFULLY PROTESTING (an act which will get you arrested here in the US) the results of their election. The US has said it has concerns about the election irregularities. No mention of problems in Ohio, Fla, North Carolina, though… Noooooh….)

Maybe my inability to post has been the logjam of frustration and utter disbelief about what’s been happening. And maybe I just needed to write it out, so I can let it pass. Like a kidney stone or something.