The Obligatory War Post
War

So it's started.

I spent last night in a bar trying to get drunk enough so that I couldn't read the news scroll running across the bottom of the television. This was mainly hindered by me having a week of the old nectar (but I'll journal that later).

When I got their at half eight or so the bar was nearly empty except for the bartender, and a few of the locals. We alternated between talking about how fucked up the situation is and trying to make jokes or engage in our normal banter to distract us from the reality of innocent kids being massacred by the most powerful military in the world.

Huh

This war isn't really about terrorism or weapons of mass destruction or bringing Democracy to the middle east. This war isn't even about oil. It's about nationalism. It's about the toughest country in the world wanting to be able to kill whoever, whenever, because it makes them feel big. The whole France-bashing thing is the biggest bunch of crybabyism I've ever heard in my life. Are Americans really so used to getting their own way all the time that they scream "unfair" whenever people don't let them win? Is this the reason the U.S. seems to continually attack weak third-world countries that can't fight back?

Two major wars in the span of little over a decade. desert storm, and desert storm, part two. and the possibility of a third war, the Korean war, part two. guess its sequel season, do Americans really like being known as the playground bullies that much? Unfortunately there’s nobody to stop them.

What is it good for?

So there I was a kid who had been brought up in a Catholic background but although I may have abandoned God and religion years ago but somehow absorbed the basic doctrine that life is sacred and should be protected. That's what the nationalists don't understand. They look at the News and they see the glory of the military. I look at it and I see dead Iraqis, no less deserving of life than the people who died on September 11th, 2001. How quickly everyone forgets the rage they felt on September 11th when CNN showed that clip of cheering Palestinians over and over and over again. Somehow, people manage to convince themselves, when it's us killing them, it's totally different.

Well, at least that’s what the politicians and news media try to peddle.

After a while me and Mel got talking about more sensible things such as the cute blonde in the corner, however it didn't change the fact that I had re-realized my country was taking party in a horrible atrocity under the name of "freeing" Iraqis (freeing them from what, being alive?) and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it, and what I ask will we have gained when this is all over?

Absolutely nothing