I’ve been trying to get back to my Drummers’ Series – but the heat of the semester is on – so I am busier than a…than a…than my old buddy Byung – who was always painting and never had time to “party.\”
Besides, this new My Lai thang deserves my attention…cuz whenever WE are incapable of defending the indefensible – we finally get-the-Hell-out-of-there — so I am hoping that we will be heading out in the very near future!
Of course I’m talking about one-of-our-own going berserk and gunning down 16 Afghani civilians – which begs the question: What in the Hell are we doing in Afghanistan anyway?! Why do we manage to make enemies wherever we go? Is it because we kill so many of the locals as we attempt to bring freedom, democracy, apple pie and the American Way to them (like we did to our Native Americans)? Why do we have to kill people to make them believe in democracy? Pretty soon, we will find ourselves in the same predicament that Nazi Germany did – duking it out against the-rest-of-the-world! I can only hope that our restoration efforts are as efficient and successful as Germany’s have been.
I mean, the Russians couldn’t hold onto the place – and WE created the Mujadeen (now the Taliban) to help chase the Russians out of “Dodge”! If the Russians couldn’t hold onto the place (they do live right next door), what makes US think WE can? How much longer can the Anglo-American stranglehold last before someone busts out? I’ve heard that Germany has been cozying up to the Russians as-of-late. Germany asked US to join them twice, and we refused. As Fish sang:
…Something has to give under this pressure
The cracks are already beginning to show…
I know that Bin Laden supposedly launched 9/11 from Afghanistan, and, we subsequently bombed the snot out of their mountain ranges before going after Saddam (our real target all along) – only to locate Osama, in Pakistan, years later – so…what-the-Hell are we still doing there?
I’ve heard the Afghanis have oil…I KNOW they have opium: is opium that precious that we need to hold onto the place – and risk more of our servicemen going berserk (I’m pretty sure that we can synthesize and manufacture a wonderful synthetic substitute – like we’ve done for heroin – with methadone)?!
We are strangers in a strange land folks – the New Romans – as I have repeatedly suggested. And as we should know (because History likes to repeat itself), when the Roman outposts got too far from Rome – the Roman garrison started inter-marrying with the locals and forgot to send Rome ITS tithes. Yep. Something’s got to give under this pressure.
There are so many days when I wish that I could somehow go-back-in-time and rewrite history: where I could appear at nodal points in the course of human events and redirect decisions to produce altogether different outcomes. Alas, I have no such power or ability – but to wish that men in positions of power (because I can’t believe that women ‘get off’ on death and destruction) would pull their fucking heads out of their fucking asses and make decisions for the common good…yes John, I imagine…