Author: Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

A post/picture like this, everyday, might get the point across (though, here, it’s preaching to the choir). But as Mr. Cox suggests, something like this would have to be squeezed onto the boob tube somewhere between segments of  “Lost” or after those hilarious “Slap Chop” commercials in order to get the rapt attention of so-called “real America.”

I think it bears passing along. Thank you David Glenn Cox for saying it plain.

From Cox:

I want you to look very closely at this picture and try and keep it in your minds eye. This was a perfectly healthy twenty two-year-old young man who in the service of his country got half of his head blown off. I think that’s important, I think that’s newsworthy. Let me tell you how newsworthy I think it is. I think that it’s more important than chocolate cake recipes and far more important than comic book reviews. It is more important than who fell and whose swell at the winter Olympic games.

It is far more important than any self-serving load of crap banged out by Pseudo doctor Amy. It is more important than American Idol or Lost or any other mindless goat droppings the public chooses to chew on. This is some American mother’s son, her little boy, he may be gay or straight or transgender but his life is fucked forever.

How did this come to happen to this poor mother’s son? It came to happen because the people in the media who are supposed to foster a public debate on such public issues as war instead used their franchise to promote articles about chocolate cake and comic book reviews. They see their free press as free to choose not to look when bad thinks happen. They feel no need to explain to his parents or to anyone that the war that blew off half of this poor boys head was based on out and out lies.

It was a war perpetrated by people who hoped to gain from it be it in oil or pipelines or service contracts and like the media they don’t care that this mother’s son is mangled and mutilated. Do you care? I’ve been married twice for a combined twenty-five years and in that time I doubt my wives ever baked a chocolate cake. I don’t read comic books or watch goat crap TV but you see I’ve got a son about this boy’s age. My heart aches and my mind fills with rage because the people that have the power and authority to show this picture would rather talk about American Idol and from where I sit that makes them an accomplice to a war crime.

Because not content to ignore the current victims they support more crimes and call for more wars. Several years ago in Iraq parents waited for their children at a bus stop. An errant coalition missile struck the bus stop and blew the elementary school age children to pieces. Needless to say this wasn’t widely reported but the parents in a frenzy began fighting over the body parts of their children. Little arms and legs, little headless torsos identifiable only by the shirt or dress they were wearing. Imagine the horror, imagine the type of people who could do such a thing. How do they live with themselves? How do they sleep at night?

They do it by watching Lost and American Idol and by eating chocolate cake. They read comic books and watch sports. It makes life easy because the media will not intrude on their fantasy world but instead will promote the fantasy. Oh, but who won the gold metal in curling and who was eliminated on American Idol.

Iraq war Coalition Deaths 4,696

Injured 30,000

Iraqi civilian deaths and injured, 1,366,650

Afghanistan coalition Deaths 1,659

American taxpayers bill as of today $964,044,305,874

The number of words that President Obama expended on the war in Afghanistan during the much anticipated State of the Union address last night:  exactly 92. Considering that the President’s entire speech was 7,308 words, you could have missed his fleeting reference to the foreign land for which some 100,000 American men and women are  pledged to fight if you decided at that very moment to say, sneeze, and then run to the bathroom quickly for a tissue.

Here are the 92 words (and no, quality in this case, does not make up for quantity):

And in Afghanistan, we’re increasing our troops and training Afghan security forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. We will reward good governance, work to reduce corruption and support the rights of all Afghans — men and women alike. We’re joined by allies and partners who have increased their own commitments, and who will come together tomorrow in London to reaffirm our common purpose. There will be difficult days ahead. But I am absolutely confident we will succeed.

The reason why Obama wanted to whistle by the reference to “London” like a man by the graveyard seems obvious. A year ago, Obama pledged to fight “the good war,” committing more troops and a “civilian surge” to rebuild Afghan institutions.   Less than two months ago, Obama stood before an audience of West Point cadets and rambled through a “comprehensive” war strategy that involved, again, a commitment of more troops and a (somewhat vague) notion of a reconstruction component. He also  added an 18-month “soft” timeline for withdrawal, signaling that the “good war” had its limitations. Now, in all reports leading up to “London,” or today’s confab of U.S and international partners over what to do about Afghanistan, the buzz is all about how to raise the dough to pay off the Taliban so we can all get the hell out.

Suddenly, the talk over freeing the Afghan people from the clutches of the Taliban has given way to parsing out or “peeling off” the so-good good Taliban from the bad — the U.S has already been successful in lifting U.N sanctions on 15 members of the former (that happened on Tuesday, in case no one noticed). In the meantime, the latest news is that the 65 member countries in attendance at the London conference could raise upwards of $1 billion for an elaborate “reintegration program” or “international trust fund,” as announced hours ago. The price of admission? Apparently, interested Taliban need only to pledge allegiance — maybe toss in a few conscripts — to Karzai’s government, which everyone knows is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

The whole idea is fraught with pitfalls and potholes and not just the antiwar types are saying so. Even the Army’s own social scientists on the ground have warned against the rush to win over “tribes” of which we know nothing about after eight years of war with money and promises. Afghan leaders are already questioning the plan. Taliban are rejecting it out of hand. But the most obvious flaw at this point is that we are initiating these deals from a position of weakness. Everyone knows it. While the “integration” scheme smacks of the “Sons of Iraq” hustle under Gen. David Petraeus, it is not clear whether the U.S and international forces will be demanding the “good” Taliban to fight with us, or whether we are literally just paying them to not make trouble, which would take the current Taliban protection racket to a enormously perverse level.

The sad thing is, this proves that not even the flawed liberal interventionist fantasies of the early Obama era had any heft. Like the rest of Obama’s presidency so far, his foreign policy persona turned out to be pretty reactionary and lightweight — despite all the campaign rhetoric about turning a corner on the catastrophic foreign policies of the previous administration. He could not rise above this bad war and will continue to make bad decisions, to the detriment of all concerned. First, he will have to face the American people and them them why, if paying off the Taliban is such a novel idea, he hadn’t initiated it right away, a year and 342 dead U.S servicemembers ago (not to mention the countless civilian lives and billions in current and protracted war costs).

One can’t blame him for wanting to whistle by the graveyard — but that’s one luxury he won’t be able to indulge in for long.

To answer Jim Bovard’s earlier question — will President Obama “out-BS” Bush? — I think no, after watching Obama tonight, it seems that Bush set a perverse standard that even an over-achiever like Obama can’t exceed.

But that didn’t seem to be Obama’s goal tonight. He was all about threading the needle, rather than pouring rhetorical Red Bull down our captive throats. The current president tonight showed great ambition to have it “both ways.” In other words, trying to please all of the people, all of the time … and we all know how that nugget goes.

First, unlike the increasingly annoying and completely unreflected talking heads at MSNBC, I did not think the President was utterly and completely  “pragmatic” or “practical,” exhorting no “soaring rhetoric” nor “bumper sticker” slogans like his predecessor. Sure, if one was listening only to the first 20 minutes  — but just as a few cadets in the audience were spied dozing off on the television feed, Obama was lapsing into old messianic territory — invoking the era of “Roosevelt” (coyly, without summoning “the Greatest Generation” or “The Great War” out loud) by declaring us all “heirs to a noble struggle for freedom” …

“And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.”

We all have “common purpose” and ostensibly that is the “struggle against violent extremism.” He continued: “America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict. We will have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”

Yet at the same time he is passing along this Bush-flavored burrito of global struggle, world policing, nation building and freedom spreading, he tells his audience there will be some soft 18-month deadline, time line, time horizon or whatever, in which to accomplish the major goals of “disrupting, dismantling and defeating” al Qaeda (he is careful not to be too specific about where in Afghanistan they are supposedly hiding, rather he repeats the threat of al Qaeda “safe havens” in Pakistan and in “the border regions” several times), bolstering the central government (for now, apparently, President Karzai will do) and training enough Afghan forces to turn over security so we can leave, starting in mid-2011! Right. And I have a new ring road from Kabul to Kandahar to sell you …

All this, and then he says, “I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, our or interests,” and rightly points out the nearly trillion-dollar price tag on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq before he even came to office last January. He invokes another old war horse, this time, for the frugal crowd, President Eisenhower.

“Indeed, I am mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who – in discussing our national security – said, ‘Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs’…

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.

Obama declares this after announcing he needs $30 billion for the immediate insertion of 30,000 troops into a landlocked country with limited supply routes and an air base much in need of expansion. The logistical costs will be ginormous, not to mention the costs associated with the so-called “civilian surge” in Afghanistan and the renewed “partnership” (read: additional aid) with Pakistan. God forbid he mention the escalating lifetime cost of caring for veterans once they come home. But Obama the pragmatist tells us not to squirm, he will ensure the spending will be “transparent” and “balanced” with domestic priorities.

Whew. Forget the B.S, Obama’s rhetorical method leaves one’s head spinning. But his own head must be positively hurting, with all that concentration on the eye of the needle.