Do you really...?

Support the troops.

That, for me, is both a statement and a question. The question is not whether to support the troops, but rather in what way should we support the troops. Also, in what way do the troops support us?
It has become rote in this country to qualify any critical statement about the military or military spending with a statement indicating that you support the troops - I do it myself. I guess it's because people don't want to be seen as patriotic or insensitive of young men and women sacrificing their lives for their country. But are they sacrificing needlessly? What exactly are our troops killing and being killed for? Is it really a security issue? Is the colossal expenditure of our national budget that goes to the DOD (not to mention other security-related issues) really worth it? Aren't the soldiers supposed to be supporting the ideals of our country like Democracy, freedom, equality, and rights? But if you think about it, our country doesn't uphold these things.
We have a Congress that is completely inept at working together and a general populace that does give one iota about supporting their fellow countrymen. We as a country are still plagued by racism, sexism, sexual orientationism, agism, regionalism, and probably many other -isms. We love nothing more than slicing our country up by as many demographic factors we can think of, and then doling out opportunity, power, and money to those that are deemed most worthy.
The irony of the military support is a lot of young members of the military come from places and circumstances that the people who support them once they're troops couldn't care less about. They're from poor, rural areas where the lack of opportunity forces them to find something to open up doors for them, and the military is often this option. Also, the people with those stickers on their cars tend to be the very people who support the troops only, but not where those troops came from or the the economic circumstances that drew them to the military in the first place. This is why we see so many young men and women who have completed their military service left in the lurch by these "troop supporters", because now that they're back to being civilians they have nothing to offer - whether it be security or a political statement. Veterans are ignored by these "support the troops" folks. This is very similar to the anti-choice protesters who care so much about the life of an unborn fetus, but once that baby comes into the world they care nothing about refusing assistance for food, medical care, or education. It's all hypocritical, political bull$hit.

Okay, you're both wrong, now move on...

I won’t claim to have a deep knowledge of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This war (I’m not sure if we can classify it as such, but I’m not sure what else to call it – maybe occupation) has been going on since the State of Israel was established in 1948. Certainly the decision by the United Nations to place the displaced European Jews on land already occupied by the Palestinian people was questionable, but the situation for the Jews was more than dire, and therefore something had to be done; ergo, the establishment of the State of Israel.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, this didn’t sit well with the Palestinians or others in the Arab League, and it set of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. This first war displaced many Palestinian civilians and pit the Jordanians and Egyptians against the Israelis, priming for future wars to come. Unrest continued to occur, but nothing major, until 1967 when the Israelis, expecting an attack from several Arab states, launched a pre-emptive attack on Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The war, as stated by the name, was ostensibly over after just six days of fight, with Israel taking control of the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and occupying a larger portion of Jerusalem. The war indicated to the Arab world, and the world at large, that Israel was not to be trifle with. However, the war only increased tension in the region.

Finally, in 1978, Israel and Egypt met at the Camp David Accords, leading to the Israel Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979; this treaty gave the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt. However, Israel continued to have problems with other actors in the region, and specifically with the Palestinians (as represented by the PLO). In the early 2000s (after many fits and starts) Israel began to withdraw its settlements and occupation of the Gaza Strip, turning over authority (and giving autonomy to) the Palestinians living there. This move was not welcomed by all Israelis, and there was much pushback. However, after the elections of 2006, in which Hamas (a political party, with an army wing that is called a terrorist group by the Israelis) won a plurality of the vote, Israel no longer recognized the authority of the Palestinians to govern themselves in the region, and have basically been fighting with them since then.

The Palestinians in the Gaza and the Israelis along the border have been trading rocket sorties over the past few years, but there have been a few times when they’ve come to the brink of war. We’re now close again. The problem is that Israel, supported whole-heartedly by the United States – with both foreign aid in terms of money and weapons – has been guilty of such disproportionate response, that their claims of defense do not hold up. Hamas rockets fly over Israeli cities in small burst (and shot down by Israeli’s new missile defense system, the Iron Dome), and then Israel retaliates with a shelling that decimates buildings, killing dozens of civilians in Gaza. This is essentially a repeat of the conflict that arose in 2008, in which Hamas was firing rockets into Israel, and the Israelis sent F-16s across the border to destroy schools, mosques, etc., which they said Hamas was using for missile storage (and confirmed in certain cases). Regardless, the conflict was incredibly one-sided with regard to the death toll; more than 1,000 dead Palestinians, as compared to 13 dead Israelis.

I think we can come to the conclusion from the sordid history in Israel and Palestine that this is an incredibly complicated problem. There have been moments when an agreement was close – as in the 2000 Camp David summit where Ehud Barak offered to create a Palestinian State, but Yasser Arafat rejected it – but both sides have been guilty of derailing the process. What we need is a rational, fair, two-state solution that settles the issue of border control, autonomy and recognition for the Palestinians, but also a melting of the cold war that has been doing on for the last 60+ years.

P.S. IDF Spokesperson Avital Leibovich is very anti-Palestine, and justifies the killing of Palestinian civilians under the guise of defense. She feigns pity for the Israeli civilians that have to run to bomb shelters whenever they hear the air raid sirens, but cares nothing for the Palestinian civilians whose buildings are not hit with rockets, but blown up with bombs from IDF airplanes, and who have no bomb shelters to run to. This is not the type of person that should be formulating policy for the IDF.
Also, President Obama needs to recognize that he's missing half of the picture. If Israel has the right to defend itself, then so does Palestine. If the Palestinians interpret Israeli occupation in Gaza to be an act of war, then they see themselves justified in launching rocket attacks. Then escalation leads to escalation, and nobody wins in the end (although undoubtedly the Palestinians will end up with exponentially more casualties). The United States needs to be neutral in both its support and condemnation.

Invaders...

While watching This Week yesterday, Rick Santorum was on the show and discussing Afghanistan. First of all, I must say that I think always interesting when people who know absolutely nothing about foreign affairs get into a discussion about them. I don’t think Rick Santorum is stupid, but I do think he is less than educated about foreign affairs; and therefore, to question the president who has as much information as anyone can, is ridiculous. Does that mean the president is always right? No, of course not. But to question the president’s understand, when he’s looking at all of the facts, and you’re not, is silly.


However, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

Sorry, another tangent. I watched John McCain on Meet the Press, as well, and I have to say that John McCain has returned to the old John McCain that Democrats actually respected as a pragmatist. It’s too bad that his image is so tarnished with many Republicans and Democrats because of his presidential campaign. McCain made a hard right turn during his presidential run, with remnants of his views hanging around during the first year or so of the new Obama administration. And while I disagree with him on several issues, I’m starting to have respect for the man again as a politician that can rise above politics, and act in a rational and pragmatic way.

Alright, back to the lecture at hand.

During Santorum’s incomprehensible rant about Obama’s handling of the Afghanistan War, he made the comment that it was difficult because we were fighting against a “guerrilla insurgent force”. I think it’s ironic that someone trying to become a the leader of a nation that is an occupying force in another nation has the gall to call people that are fighting for their freedom and independence a “guerilla insurgent force”. I would say the United States is the insurgent force. And while the Taliban doesn’t seem to be a great alternative, and certainly the United States as a global power is trying to limit the influence and growth of international terrorism, Afghanistan is not our country. If Afghanistan doesn’t want us there, and they don’t want to move toward the type of government that we want them to be (puppet Democracy), then I say we let them go the way they want to go.
In the 10+ years we’ve been in Afghanistan, it doesn’t seem like we’ve made much progress. This is in no way to disparage “the troops”, because I would say the failure is due much more to planning, strategy, and politics, not due to the failure of our soldiers. It’s time to let history take over, and what happens in Afghanistan happens in Afghanistan. I know this may be harsh to say, because we went in and caused a problem, but the Afghans have been having problems for decades, and it doesn’t seem like anything we do – positive or negative – tends to have a lasting affect. People are going to get killed once we leave, but WE are responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians anyway. We should focus on humanitarian efforts, and completely pull out militarily.

Our Word is Our Weapon

A book suggestion. If you've never heard of the Zapatista Movement, or never heard of Subcomandate Marcos, who is the unofficial herald of the Zapatista Movement, take a few hours and pore over Our Word is Our Weapon, a selection of writings from the charismatic and enigmatic figure in the fight for indigenous rights in Mexico.
Subcomandate Marcos has become a wildly popular figurehead for the indigenous peoples of rural Mexico, whose message has resounded broadly throughout the world with all peoples that feel they are being exploited and unheard by their governments. The sentiments of the Zapatista are not that dissimilar from the movements of the "Arab Spring" or Occupy Wall Street, or even the Tea Party. The message is apolitical, but it's implications could and should be at least a wakeup call for corrupt politicans around the world, if not a call to movement for the rest of us.
While the tactics of the Zapatista have been called into question by authorities as disruptive and violent, the response is that they're simply doing whatever they must to gain the right to be heard. As with Marx's assertion that revolution, violent if necessary, will be required to bring about change because those in power will be unwilling to give it up without a fight. We in this country have taken to sitting back as armchair politicans, while our elected officials undermine our economy, our security and our very freedoms, while all we do is complain. The Zapatista have chosen to stop complaining about why their situation is the way it is and change it. And because the government was so used to dismissing its citizens, especially its indigenous citizens, it patronizingly dismissed the indigenous people of Mexico to its detriment.
We as a world need to heed the signs of the times. Hopefully the governments of the first world can and will improve, because if they don't, not only are they going to come undone themselves, but they're going to drive down the country's that they represent as a whole. We'll see chaos as the so-called military and economic superpowers are swallowed in a sea of worldwide economic collapse and general discontent. The military will mean nothing, because their no longer will be a specific "enemy" to target our weapons at, because WE will have become the rogue, the enemy, the failed state.
Our leaders need to head the warning signs, or we need to head them for them and toss them out, otherwise we're going to be looking at a world where economies, militaries, corporations and governments don't matter; it will be a Hobbesian struggle of every man [person] for themselves. Seems dark, and not plausible in the near future. But just how much can the rest of the world take; and just how much can we as citizens under these quasi-fascist, plutocratic, oligarchic, society stand, until we've reached our breaking point?
"I know not with what weapons WWIII will be fought, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones." ~ Albert Einstein