Welcome to Katalusis for progressive views on politics, religion, environmental issues,
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from the University Club in St. Paul, MN.)
Showing posts with label Afghanistan and Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan and Iraq. Show all posts
Posting hours after bin Laden’s death was announced on May 2, I suggested the notorious one may have won the battle he led against the Western world. Bob Burnett, Berkely writer and retired Silicon Valley executive would agree. Burnett writes:
The death of Osama bin Laden is an opportunity to reflect upon the deterioration of the United States since the attacks on September 11, 2001. We've entered into an endless state of war and our economy teeters on the brink of collapse. And, as a people, we've developed a distinctive derangement.
America's craziness developed in four stages over an eleven-month period: First, on November 7, 2000, there was a controversial presidential election. On December 9th the US Supreme Court intervened, and, as a result, George W. Bush became president. Bush had had an undistinguished business and political career and was the least qualified presidential candidate in eighty years.
Osama bin Laden is dead, we are told this morning, and he has been buried at an undisclosed location at sea.
Yes, the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the most wanted man in the world was shot in the head, and he is gone now, but one has to wonder whether or not he lost the battle he led for so long against the western world.
Even as we celebrate we ought not forget that although we lost 3,000 lives on 9/11, since then hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where our military continues to be engaged, as well as elsewhere in the middle east.
And let us not forget our war dead and the hundreds of our soldiers who will suffer from severe injuries for the rest of their lives.
There are other losses – it’s that whole “blood and treasure” thing. In addition to funding two wars, millions of our taxpayer dollars continue to be tied up in homeland security measures put in place since 2001.
With the above facts in mind, one reads in a more sober mood, the story of the operation that took bin Laden down in Pakistan early this morning. Andrew Malcolm at the Top of the Ticket (LA Times):
So, in the end it was not a cold, dank Afghan cave that sheltered the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden.
It was a huge million-dollar enclave in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with far too much security and 18-foot high walls, way taller than necessary to protect the two couriers who allegedly lived there alone. (See raw video footage below.)
That in the end is what brought the sudden end to Bin Laden's life with a U.S. bullet into his head, among other places, after a circuitous 10-year hunt for the spiritual leader of the global Al Qaeda terrorist franchise and the master plotter of the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
The hunt began to narrow several years ago when interrogations of Guantanamo Bay detainees produced the nicknames of a pair of highly trusted couriers, used by the captured 9/11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Bin Laden, who had learned his electronic communications could be monitored by the U.S.
It took nearly two years of CIA analysis to determine the men's real names and to begintracking them, ultimately to and from the housing compound that was built in 2005. The compound, according to senior administration officials, was eight times larger than others in the area.
Its occupants burned their trash, rather than putting it out for collection. And strangely, although apparently wealthy from no visible income sources, the occupants had no telephone or Internet links to the outside world.
According to a variety of sources, the raid on the compound was authorized last Friday by President Obama just before he left for Alabama and Florida.
The carefully rehearsed operation struck about 1:30 a.m. Monday local time.
Doonesbury character Mark Slackmeyer at his mike offers a summary in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip this morning of who Americans are as a people by looking at two sets of facts:
Fact #1: Nine years ago we were attacked. 3000 people died.
In response we started two long, bloody wars and built a vast homeland security apparatus – all at a cost of trillions!
Fact #2: Now consider this. During those same nine years, 270,000 Americans were killed by gunfire at home.
Our response: We weakened our gun laws.
Thoughtful Americans would add a couple more facts:
Fact #3: In order to pay for our costly wars and homeland security apparatus, we chose not to raise taxes or cut back on the millions we gave to support dictatorships around the world.
Instead of raising taxes on the wealthy or closing tax loopholes to force corporations to pay their fair share in paying for our wars, etc., the government borrowed billions and raided the Social Security trust fund.
Fact #4: Today, America’s political leaders from both major parties are concerned about the huge deficit they’ve created by the above practices.
In response, 2011 budget proposals submitted by Obama feature deep cuts in the federal energy assistance program for poor people, and both Republicans and Democrats are hinting at gutting Social Security and Medicare in attempts to offset the scary deficit.
In the last panel of Gary Trudeau’s comic strip this morning, Slackmeyer’s guest on his radio show, an illegal alien, apparently from outer space, responds: “Fail. Cannot comprehend.”
Here in St. Paul, Minn. this Sunday morning, I’m with the little green creature - I also find incomprehensible who Americans are in terms of our government’s actions since 9/11.
As one who takes my faith seriously and practices daily spiritual disciplines such as mindfulness meditation, it’s been my lot over the past two years to tell euphoric Obama supporters from time to time that I don’t need a charismatic politician to give me hope; my hope springs from deep within myself.
So it was with some amusement and a good deal of satisfaction this afternoon (don't know how I missed this earlier) that I came across Naomi Klein’s Lexicon of Disappointment for Obamafanland in which she offers a few variations on the word hope.
Klein writes:
Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.
This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.
The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in-between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves. To do that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment. Here is a start.
Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a serious hopeover."
Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very moment when it could actually become a reality. Sample sentence: "I was so psyched when Obama said he is closing Guantánamo. But now they are fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no legal rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster--I want to get off!"
Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling--usually by exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency. Sample sentences: "I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again. A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion designers, and that sort of helped."
Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend, goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the buzz. (Closely related to hopesickness but more severe, usually affecting middle-aged males.) Sample sentence: "Joe told me he actually believes Obama deliberately brought in Summers so that he would blow the bailout, and then Obama would have the excuse he needs to do what he really wants: nationalize the banks and turn them into credit unions. What a hope fiend!"
Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers onto Obama and is now inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: "I really believed Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of slavery in this country and start a serious national conversation about race. But now he never seems to mention race, and he's using twisted legal arguments to keep us from even confronting the crimes of the Bush years. Every time I hear him say 'move forward,' I'm hopebroken all over again."
Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama's most passionate evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: "At least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we've got the same wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption, but everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It's time for a full-on hopelash."
In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last. I didn't have to read long. The book opens with the words: "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up."
And that pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture toward the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it--in the factories, neighborhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence.
Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labor movement can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance, that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories, capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a renewable energy system. "Being realistic means taking hope out of speeches," he wrote, "and putting it in the hands of workers."
Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon.
Hoperoots. Sample sentence: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots"
At the Huffington Post, Klein invited readers to contribute to a more complete lexicon, and she received 700 or so comments. Read more.
