Thursday, May 20, 2010

A new war for the Empire

At the end of an informative rant about the current economic woes of his birthplace Greece, Taki Theodoracopulos concludes, in his usual witty fashion:


Thinking about it, we Greeks are not all that bad. At least our leaders have not sent young men to die for the glory of Bush and Blair and Brown, despite enormous pressure to do so. So what’s a little stealing from the crooks of the EU, with a little help from Goldman Sachs, that is.

Yes, Greece could be a worse villain and in worse than just financial trouble. It could be acting like an Empire that has assumed the responsibility of monitoring the entire planet, along with the cosmos, sort of like the role the United States plays.

Let's see now. We only have three wars going on at the moment -- Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan -- with Iran on hold. But what's that over there in the East? That looks like Korea acting up again, with its North throwing missiles at the South. This is the signal for the Empire to hop to it. Oh boy, another war!

Surely, we can offer some of our inventive military equipment, troops, and other resources to bombing the stuffings out of Korea. Why not bomb both Koreas this time? After all, we should return and finish the job that was left incomplete in the 1950s, right? It's our moral duty.

We know we can count on those faithful Evangelical Christians to send more of their sons to die or be maimed. There are so many young American men still to be sent overseas to "protect our freedoms." What are they doing out of uniform anyway, sitting around playing with their iPods, watching TV, hiding out in college with musty, old books. Let's give them something substantial to do!

Let's send more units of soldiers as emissaries and give another part of the world reasons to hate us, as they are blown up by IEDs, or whatever the Koreans might think invaders deserve. We know those good capitalist Evangelicals will be thrilled to keep the prosthetic industry fat and prosperous, while assuring us that they Support the Troops. USA! USA! USA! Who can we go and kill today? Our own young men in another worthless conflict.

2 comments:

Adrianna said...

Nothing is more tiring to me as someone who is opposed to these worthless conflicts is having it thrown in my face that I "don't know how lucky I am."

For their information, my father is a veteran (and was permanently scarred by the experience) and I absolutely know what our troops sacrifice for us. That's exactly why we ought to not send them off to suffer and die for no good reason. What more atrocious waste of life and potential is there than to send young men off to die, who had their whole lives ahead of them, so politicians can pat themselves on the back for "doing something" (whatever that is) and "patriots" can wave their flags and "support our troops?"

They never comment on the reality that when our troops come home, they often do not get the benefits they were promised.

Countless veterans, including my father, want our troops out of these conflicts. The fact of the matter is, we can't solve these political conflicts with military power.

Lastly, I was utterly dismayed to find out how often military recruiters troll our local high schools. College fairs are held a few times a year. Military recruiters are in schools several times a month.

When will we say enough?

Elizabeth Wright said...

Adrianna wrote:
What more atrocious waste of life and potential is there than to send young men off to die, who had their whole lives ahead of them, ...

This is the part that makes me go crazy. I picture these 19- and 20-year-old men (boys, really) at home, living what would be their normal lives, but instead are being exterminated, or so badly deformed that there is little chance they will ever even mate as boyfriends and husbands. Or these kids are morally corrupted by the nasty crap they're forced to engage in against the residents of those countries. Besides the physical afflictions, I wonder if this moral corruption is what drives the suicides.

The fact of the matter is, we can't solve these political conflicts with military power.

And it's none of our business to try to solve them with any kind of power. It's ironic that this country made such a fuss about creating the Monroe Doctrine, to tell the rest of the world that this region is our territory, including all those Latin American countries, but no other country is allowed to be so bold. It seems to me that Korea is within the regional purview of China. Well, so be it. Just as the Latin American countries have to figure out ways to cope with the bully United States, those little countries closest to the bully China will have to figure out how to manage their destinies. It's none of our business.