Because You Never Asked

(1/05)

     A bit more than a decade ago, I wrote an essay called "Pornography". A person known as the "Pandit" made an appearance in it. I don't have his exact words before me and I will not go back and find them. Perhaps with the use of such tactic, I can encourage the reader to do just that. What I will do is put forth the gist of his remarks as follows: The Pandit explained how it is useful, in defeating ideologically inferior foes, to listen and spend time with them, to get to know them better. That is why I will spend up to five minutes of time (the demagogic simplicity of the message makes any more than that counter-productive) with Bill O'Reilly.

     Two days ago, I bumped into O'Reilly speaking with Benjamin Netanyahu, ex-conservative Prime Minister of Israel and obvious ideological chum of Fox News's top gun. Quite logically, they were talking about the Middle East and the war in Iraq. The Israeli was bemoaning the fact that Western Europe was so reluctant to involve itself in the conflict. O'Reilly, with his trademark no-nonsense style, sprightly jumped in and said, "You mean they are cowards." Netanyahu, slightly uncomfortable with such a numb-nuts assessment of a complex problem, confined his response to an embarrassed smile. The great pundit, perhaps feeling the sophomoric foolishness of his remark, tried to rectify but only made it worse. "Oh, I don't mean England, but France and Germany." I've never considered Italy, one of the few European supporters of the latest gringo aggression, as a braver nation than France or Germany, but I suppose O'Reilly has it documented somewhere.

     In any event, with the Pandit's directive having now been fulfilled, that was all I could take of Bill O'Reilly for one night (week? month? forever?). These two minutes of Goebbels-like idiocy spawned this essay, in conjunction with a sociological development I shall discuss later on.

     In trying to decide just who the cowards are with regard to this latest Bush Oil War, O'Reilly has gotten it perfectly wrong. (O'Reilly shows much perfection in such pursuits.) In calling the French cowards, he is "dissing" a nation whose socio-political dynamism over the course of more than 1000 years was at the forefront in creating the Occidental giant that now dominates the world. France has always been ahead of the curve in the evolution of the more liberal, secular states that eventually led to the great nation the United States has become, the same nation George W. and his minions are trying to undermine. To call coward a nation that has produced the imperial manifestations of Charlemagne and Napoleon, the opulence and wealth of Louis XIV, the altruism and excess of the French Revolution, a colonial empire that spanned the globe, along with various war efforts that cost millions of lives, is something like calling Joe Frazier a coward for losing a few fights and then retiring. Much the same can be said for Germany, minus the enlightened liberalism, which finally arrived after the hard lessons learned from its imperial designs and defeats. But the Germans, unlike Bush's imperial Amerika, didn't look for the rest of the world's help in attacking militarily inferior 3^rd world dwarfs. The Germans took on the world, without help, without rationalizations, with no shame or excuses. This is the country O'Reilly calls coward for not participating in the latest Bush oil fiasco.

     The true cowards here are embodied in the country that perpetrated this disaster not only on the Iraqis, but themselves and the rest of the world. The tragedy is compounded because it comes at a particularly inappropriate moment in history, a moment when the traditional European imperial aggressors have matured into a more enlightened force for peaceful progress. The cowardly nature of American imperialism is diverse enough to make it hard to know where to begin. Let's start with a catalog of the lies used in sweeping the war's true reasons under the rug.

     Perhaps the best jumping off point would be --- drum roll please --- weapons of mass destruction. At this point, almost two years into the cowardly disaster, it is no longer necessary to talk about their existence. The "Big Lie" of the moment, professionally staged by our mainstream media sources, is that anyone ever thought they existed to begin with. This has upped the ante on the coward-meter, as the perpetrators of the war institute a blame game, pointing the finger away from themselves and towards our intelligence services. This is ironic, because such services seem to have done a pretty good job telling whoever wanted to listen that there were no --- drum roll please --- weapons . OK, enough. (I'd love to know what the Bush Gang has on the ex-head of the CIA, George Tenet, to make him take the fall.)

     The astute reader might ask, "Well, if they knew there were no WMD's, how did they expect to get away with all this?" Simple. They are cowards. Not one of the architects of this sick joke has ever been near a real battlefield, and that includes their Rush-Reilly-Hannity mouthpieces, as well as their blow hard Hollywood-Arnold egomaniacs. They went after a withered old man, a weakling, a sickly food source they thought would be easy prey. They expected a quick, clean, surgical kill, thus making all criticism of the act superfluous. (You can now add stupid to coward.) All the rest of the cowardly lies, regardless of their transparency, were not cause for worry for the same reason. This includes the "liberation" lie, the spreading of democracy and freedom lie, the ridding the world of a wicked dictator lie, etc. And for once, the Bush Gang had it right. No amount of lying would have been too much, too obvious, too immoral, on the heels of a quick victory. America likes winning more than it likes the truth.

     But the most cowardly lie of all is the one of omission: Oil. The "o" word is the "nigger" word of American geo-political debate. Nothing more demonstrates the accomplis-like criminality of Gringo big bucks media than their refusal to use the "o" word.

     All this cowardly lying, just to justify attacking an already defeated man, way past his prime, who was never more than a mediocre fighter to begin with.

     But remember, the French and Germans are the cowards here.

     The sociological development spoken of earlier in this essay has to do with those ribbons one sees with ever more frequency on the nation's automobiles. They are usually yellow (a perfect color), but as the war wears on, the creativity of patriotic "schmaltz" goes forward. Differing motifs of red, white and blue, or ribbons cleverly suggesting our flag or incorporating a cross, can now be seen. I recently saw a ribbon sporting a military green camouflage design. Regardless of the growing number of variations, they always say the same thing:

     "Support our Troops".

     And this is in perfect harmony with the cowardly nature of this war. It is such an unconscionable act of arrogance and immorality, that even those who support it are too squeamish to say what they really mean. "Support the War" becomes a difficult utterance in the face of such wicked stupidity. So they hide behind the more innocuous statement, a statement with virtually no meaning, because everyone supports our troops (with the exception of the policy makers who hung them out there to dry, the same people the "ribbon people" voted for.) War is serious stuff, so I'm not going to hold back here. It's a matter of life and death for so many innocent people. What the ribbon people really support is the death and mutilation of our troops. One has to ask if they need such support.

     Undoubtedly, the vast majority of the ribbon people would call me ungrateful for the sacrifice our troops are making. I counter by saying the following to the troops: "Please, it's OK, don't worry about me. I appreciate your bravery and military professionalism, but this Iraqi effort is not necessary in securing my well being. C'mon home. I'll be OK. Don't worry about it. Spring training starts in 3 weeks."

     I'm sure almost all of them would drink to that.

     Here's a rule of thumb for any decision to use military force: if people have to proclaim their support for such on the bumpers of their cars, then we should not do it. Can you imagine anyone riding around with messages of support for our troops during WWII? C'mon .