Something Happens

Is there something the matter with me? Why is it I cannot be relentlessly hopeful about the wonderful future that beckons us out there just as soon as Obama gets all this mess he's inherited cleaned up? Why is it that I'm getting the sneaking feeling that it won't be too long before Obama does something that's going to break trust with me permanently? Something that will put him in the same category as like when everybody in America was/is falling all over themselves about what a great American Colin Powell is, and I'm the only one in America that remembers he was part of the US Army's cover-up of the Mai Lai massacre. I fear that something like might be creeping in between me and Barack.

And on the same subject that came between me and Powell--accursed war. Mr Obama is beginning to look pretty shaky to me on the whole war question. And things like this little piece just reinforce my fears. Here's the way it starts: "It looks like the fat lady will become a Victoria’s Secret model before she sings the finale of our woebegone war in Iraq." The rest of it is commentary on this: strong, convincing commentary.

Something happens to these guys once they get to ride in the helicopter. They get to feeling all presidential. Obama, now that he's got the doomsday codes and all the top secret briefings about how every place in the world is important to America's national interests and how every disgruntled foreigner with an AK-47 is a danger to those national interests. That, and the top military brass and intelligence spooks whispering in his ear about how short-sighted and strategically unsound it would be to end our military involvements in the Middle East. Well something happens . . . you tell me: what in hell is sensible about drawing down in Iraq only to plus up by thousands our troops in a proven quagmire such as Afghanistan?

My bottom line has not changed for many years: get the U.S. military out of all its overseas ventures. End Iraq. End Afghanistan. Now. Put a stop to militarism. I don't want to hear anything about why we should be in either place. For a number of reasons. I'll just give two. First, it all depends on how you define our national interests. Two, whatever the Pentagon says is all lies anyway.