Once again American taxpayers are getting a chance to see all the shiny toys and weapons that their billions have paid for, while generals give slide shows of how accurate they are. Such great television! Isn't war fun -- it's just like playing a video game. (Meanwhile, in the AfPak theater of operations, the highest-tech weapon of all, the drone, kills boys gathering firewood. But that's yesterday's news.)
It is infuriating to watch all the air-time that BBC and CNN are giving the Gadhafy regime. Why do they even bother to listen to its lies? On a purely technical level you have to admire how well the Gadhafy regime has learned to convert the Media into a lapdog. Apparently they have been studying the American government during this era of 7 and 24 news, when a successful news biz or career depends on access to government officials everyday.
They say that a culture is defined by the questions it never even thinks to ask. If so, how does that apply here? Obviously, only a crank or kook would bother to ask whether the United Nations' own charter authorizes military action against internal, civil wars in member countries. Only kookier cranks ask why Congress no longer declares war; in this case there wasn't even a funding enabler bill passed.
But what is the most fundamental societal belief that never gets talked about, during these reality-television wars? Life and death, freedom, democracy, torture, and all the other shibboleths are only superficialities. My answer is: zero down payment. Put it on the ol' national credit card.
How about an instant surcharge tax at the gasoline pump to pay for it day by day? The issue of cost would never come up to any sane, well-adjusted, mainstream American. So off we go, merrily bombing our way into our fourth tax and sacrifice-free, sub-prime war in the Middle East.
It is infuriating to watch all the air-time that BBC and CNN are giving the Gadhafy regime. Why do they even bother to listen to its lies? On a purely technical level you have to admire how well the Gadhafy regime has learned to convert the Media into a lapdog. Apparently they have been studying the American government during this era of 7 and 24 news, when a successful news biz or career depends on access to government officials everyday.
They say that a culture is defined by the questions it never even thinks to ask. If so, how does that apply here? Obviously, only a crank or kook would bother to ask whether the United Nations' own charter authorizes military action against internal, civil wars in member countries. Only kookier cranks ask why Congress no longer declares war; in this case there wasn't even a funding enabler bill passed.
But what is the most fundamental societal belief that never gets talked about, during these reality-television wars? Life and death, freedom, democracy, torture, and all the other shibboleths are only superficialities. My answer is: zero down payment. Put it on the ol' national credit card.
How about an instant surcharge tax at the gasoline pump to pay for it day by day? The issue of cost would never come up to any sane, well-adjusted, mainstream American. So off we go, merrily bombing our way into our fourth tax and sacrifice-free, sub-prime war in the Middle East.
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