The Babes of War...
So, you wake up and turn on the TV, the radio, the internet, and discover that one country invaded another country somewhere on the globe. (Don’t they always... dropping in like uninvited guests.)... and within days when you venture the opinion that maybe we shouldn’t get involved, or at least not in a real big way, or if you call for everyone to ‘slow down’ and let’s look at the ineptness and corruption of our own leaders who have been in charge up to this point... You get accused of ‘siding with the enemy,’ ‘treasonous lying,’ or being an enemy lover.
This happened to former democrat presidential contender and current National Guard Colonel, Tulsi Gabbard. A member of the Hawaiian Army Reserve, Gabbard served in a war zone, Iraq. And, while I don’t believe that an American citizen must have served in a war zone to comment on pending or current wars, none other than Senator Mitt Romney, an American brand who reportedly managed to get six deferments from going to his generation’s forever-war, Vietnam, is gung-ho to go into Ukraine (not him, but young soldiers) and maybe even Russia. Romney and Keith Olberman, and the ‘ladies’ on The View, are all calling for the military to arrest and try people like Tulsi Gabbard, for Treason, or having a different opinion. YouTube joined in, taking down a Fox News interview with Tulsi Gabbard for being ‘offensive,’ because she said war in Ukraine was good for the military industrial complex. I guess we ought to go back and ban videos of President Eisenhower saying the same thing, or President Kennedy warning us about the CIA (before they assassinated him.)
The quick buildup of war fever is very troubling to me because I’ve seen it before. There was a recent article about Ukraine, about babies being victimized by the war. Babies, children, women, house pets, even men, suffer and die in wars. Stating that does not mean that I’m ‘okay’ with it. I’m simply trying to add a little perspective, to throw some cold water on the media and their child-like excitement.
I witnessed the war-fever pity campaign that resulted in Black Hawk Down, America’s invasion and misadventure in Somalia. That one started out with babies. I remember. Every day on TV there were videos of poor black babies, their faces covered with flies, their bellies bloated. “We have to do something,” was the mantra (just like now). The problem was that the Somali war lords were stockpiling and selling all the food the UN sent to Somalia and it wasn’t getting to the people. The outcry from Americans became so great that President Clinton ‘acted,’ sending in U.S. Army forces to abduct the Somali warlord. They went in and got pinned down. Then Americans were faced with awful footage of downed American soldiers’ bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu while other Americans were hunted down like dogs by Somali soldiers. The pinned down soldiers pleaded with President Clinton to send in some tanks (they could have been flown in within hours), but Clinton did not want images of American tanks shooting at black Somali citizens and refused, resulting in more dead and wounded Americans.
Then we had the Kuwait invasion, First Blood, Part I. It was babies again, but there was no video, just ‘reports’ and ‘news’ and you had to take the government’s and the media’s word that it was true. I remember arguing with a co-worker about this, that maybe we ought to take a breath and try and not get caught up in the war hysteria. This person was not arguing out of logic, but rather out of pure emotion, and soon the charges of “What’s the matter with you... You don’t care that they’re ripping preemies out of their incubators and smashing them on the floor, you heartless ghoul!” started to fly. The whole country was as inflamed by evil Saddam as he was and if you weren’t, that meant you were just as evil as Saddam, and so off to war we went. It turned out that the ‘news’ of preemies being smashed on the floor of the hospitals in Kuwait was a lie, but that didn’t matter once the missiles were flying and the ‘smart’ bombs going down the chimneys to the hoots and hollers of American patriots ensconced in their Barco-Loungers in front of the TV. Twenty plus years of war followed, millions dead, wounded. Now, when asked why, people scratch their heads and shrug, saying, “What does that have to do with Russia?”
Well, maybe not everything, but you would think it would elicit a bit of caution on the part of our ‘leaders’ and our citizens, especially the ones that have no skin in the game.
However, a war with Russia would be a game changer. Russia is not Syria, or Iraq, or Panama, or Grenada, a push over for a ‘super-power.’ Russia IS a super-power. And if the folks that want a war get one, well, there is a possibility that they and a lot of Americans could get a chance to make the ultimate sacrifice and be flashed to a crisp in a nuclear blast. But... maybe I’m all wrong. Maybe a war with Russia, a big one, is necessary. After all, it’s about saving democracy, we’re told, you know, like what we have here. And we must stand up for American values, like free speech. Everyone gets to express their opinion in the public square--Facebook, Twitter (I’m banned in both, by the way)--except if your opinion is ‘hate speech.’ And we must stand up to the baby-killing Russians for the right of American women to abort our babies on demand right up to and including birth. And then there’s our new and wonderful education system, CRT, wherein our children are taught to judge each other based on skin color. And of course, our vulnerable Trans people and other sexual explorers (SC nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, says she ‘cannot define what a woman is’)... their rights to share the restrooms with our children and read to them in libraries shall not be abridged.
Okay, people. I’ll let you get back to your day. BTW, that book I told you I was publishing, Escape From the Future and Other Stories—well, it’s up on Amazon here. Please check it out. I think you’ll enjoy it.