'Check Engine' Light

For the first time I see U.S. oil dependence as a real existential threat. The perfect storm is raging while we are agonizing over Charlie Sheen. Oil prices alone will crush our economy. We can now appreciate the efforts of previous administrations designed to keep it all together. ‘Containment’ had become an intricate game that demanded increasingly complex solutions. Clearly, our present administration does not know how to play.

We went to war in Iraq in response to 9/11. It was not something we could avoid. Admittedly, we ran the risk of destabilizing the region. It did not destabilize. We actually were on the right track. The countries of the Middle East were reminded to mind their manners. They did - for a time. When it became clear that America was crumbling from within and that we would not be able to sustain the drive, they began to bolt. The election of Barack Hussein Obama confirmed to the world that we were finished.

Now, voters' remorse. We don’t even have it in us to criticize our president’s handling of the job. We’re just desperately hanging on till the next election cycle, watching as we circle the drain. Our fear that we won’t last that long is already palpable.

Russia and China will survive. It’s not that our past presidents were so much smarter or capable than Putin or Hu Jintao. But at the very least it was a more or less even match. Now, ‘the U.S. is out of the game’. We’ve left the stadium and taken our ball.

There is one attribute that elevates the leaders of China and Russia (and those of most other nations) to the status of players on the global gridiron: patriotism. Most leaders take pride in their countries. They may have different ways of expressing it; different approaches; different ideologies, etc. But, in almost every case, they do what they do to give their nations a chance to survive. Even Kim Yong-Il rattles his bones of a nation to fair advantage. There are only two notable exceptions: Iran and the U.S.

Iran is so locked into an eschatological vision, it pays no heed to possible consequences. This, while current U.S. leadership wildly pursues some utopian ideological throw-back to some unworkable drug-induced version of a coma. Both are so arrogant as to ignore any and all warning signals.

I’ve been driving for years with my ‘check engine’ light on. So far so good. I haven’t had problems. It’d be a bit different if I still had to ferry kids to and from soccer practice. Or, if I were running a country with over 300 million people in it.

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The Invention Of the Wheel

It’s nice watching the young people enjoying themselves; celebrating the invention of the wheel. We, of course, having been around long enough to have made a few turns ourselves, know that it doesn’t necessarily last. Still, it’s good seeing the joy, the enthusiasm; and the young'uns' capacity for hope and (dare I say it?) change.

I still believe that undue credit has been given the internet. They’re saying now that social networks were largely responsible for Egypt’s revolution. I tend to doubt it for reasons I have given previously. I think that the overriding factor that has apparently sent the whole world for a toss is America turning its back on whatever everyone assumed were its global responsibilities. Obama has made it clear that he no longer intends to play by the old rules (which in and of itself has arguably amounted to no more than containment).

Anyone, in a position of power, has known for years that we were about to run out of canning jars; that the putrid brews we’ve allowed to fester have long since turned toxic and the tops were about to blow; that that day was never far off. All the more important to have a leader who has our best interests in mind to help steer, inform and inspire us as we stumble across the rocky parts.

Unfortunately, here in America, just the opposite has happened. I hope to God someone has been plotting all along to emerge soon with something even a trifle more compelling than shariah and/or communism.

In the Valley of Elah

There have been a whole crop of Hollywood movies released recently that were declared to be ‘anti-war’ - hence, anti-Bush - ("Rendition", "In the Valley of Elah", "Body of Lies", etc.). Such films had been successfully dubbed "anti-American" by the 'vast right-wing conspiracy’ and, as a consequence, have done rather poorly at the box office; some went directly to DVD. It is only recently that a few of these have arrived at our local library and I've had a chance to see them (without having to go too far out of my way).

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. These films are on the whole articulate, exciting, and very well made. Penn, Clooney, DiCaprio, Sarandon, etc., commonly associated with the Hollywood Left, are all first-rate actors. The scripts and direction are tight. There is an anti-war message, of course. But there is no doubt that these films are inspired which, for me, lifts them above the purely mechanical constructs of propaganda.

Even more significant is the fact that these films reflect the Zeitgeist. They ask the question, “What are we doing – and why?” No doubt, top to bottom, we have lost our way. We no longer understand war (which essentially amounts to “killing and breaking things”). We go to war trying not to kill; trying not to destroy. We go to war with the aim of ‘changing hearts and minds’; with an eye towards “nation building”. Then, we act surprised when we get our asses kicked.

Even more disturbing is what we’re doing to our military. By getting away from the essence of war, redefining it as a kind of charitable ‘meals on wheels’ operation, we effectively change the mission for which our military men and women have been trained. They then face a task (which even we have trouble articulating), without the slightest idea of how to approach it. Soldiers in today’s army don’t only have to worry about the enemy, but also about legal bureaucrats back home who want to score political points by hauling them into court.

Meanwhile, our sixth century enemy throw-backs have not yet been ‘enlightened’. They’re still quite comfortable fighting their wars under the old rules.

This is unacceptable. Either we fight to win; or we don’t fight at all. Either we are willing sacrifice the blood of our kids for some kind of tangible return, or we bring them back home. Containment is a job for the police. ‘Nation building’ is a job for churches and charities. The military ‘kills and breaks things’. That's all it does.

Our inability to grasp the nature and purpose of war is because we’ve abandoned the principle reason for it: PROFIT. We’ve cast ‘profit’ as a dirty word. Even if we are doing something for profit, we prefer not to articulate it as such. Typically we say we don’t go to war for oil – though that’s exactly what we’re doing. Then we catch ourselves and allow someone else to run off with the spoils. We’ve shed our blood and have nothing to show. But, at least our secular souls were saved. As we then root around to come up with an excuse for all the carnage of which we were clearly a part, we take comfort in the fact that once again the evil of all evils – our military – has been tarnished.