For what its worth, Osama bin Laden and his ilk were "guests" in Afghanistan, according to Muslim law. Plus, the United States had supported and armed bin Laden's fighters as religious guerrillas to turn the Soviet invasion/occupation of Afghanistan into "the Soviet Vietnam." Osama bin Laden, then, turned his hostility against the United States and bit us. One of his goals, which he wrote about, was to do what Ronald Reagan bragged about vis-a-vis the Soviet Union: Make Americans nuts so they bankrupt themselves!
"I'm resigned that these wars will finally enter the history books not only as defeats but also as stains on our national honor," Kudo says.
He quotes Michael Walzer from his book Just and Unjust Wars: "It still seems important to say of those who die in war that they did not die in vain. And when we can't say that, or think we can't, we mix our mourning with anger."
Kudo again: "I would add that we also mix it with shame. [But] shame is not a very American trait."
Indeed. If shame were an encouraged American trait, can one imagine Manifest Destiny, the winning of the west and the rise of American imperial expansion in the world? No. Reflection in these enterprises was virtually outlawed. Shameless killers were instrumental to pulling it all off. Making killers into cultural heroes is a preeminent American trait.
We can only hope Joe Biden is able to look into the future and envision a different path, a path that prepares the nation for a post-pandemic, post-depression reality that avoids shameless wars, especially one with Iran. There's a tragic failure of logic at work in the minds of men like Trump, Netanyahu and the Pompeo. They think if they use whatever underhanded methods they have in their quiver assassinations, bombings, cyber attacks and crippling sanctions to damage Iran's economy and cause suffering in the lives of individual Iranians, somehow that kind of belligerence is going to make us safe here in The Land of Plenty. That somehow such cold-blooded hostility is going to stop Iran from eventually obtaining a nuclear weapon. And the most illogical delusion, that somehow conventional weapons can't hurt us or won't be used against us.
This love-affair with Power that men like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salmon share is the key ingredient in the classic formula for tragedy that Aristotle famously wrote about and Shakespeare made into compelling theater. Power and arrogance too often lead human beings to make stupid decisions that lead inexorably to their death.
The trouble is, Trump & Company are playing tragedy with our lives.
I made a one-sided contract with Joe Biden: I agreed to hold my nose and vote for him -- and to encourage progressives to vote for him -- in order to get rid of the disease known as Donald Trump. The other part of my one-sided contract was that, once elected, the gloves were off. Some liberal friends have asked me, why pick on Biden so soon? Because smart progressives and supporters of diplomacy over war know who Joe Biden is and how susceptible he is to following the patriotic, gravitational pull of bi-partisan Power into things like the Drug War and the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We need to hear from President-Elect Biden. What will he do? What won't he do? Let's hope he agrees with former CIA chief Brennon that the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was a "reckless" and "criminal" act that Iran is justified to be outraged about. Let's hope our president-elect doesn't come to see the latest Trump/Netanyahu murder as entrapping him and his administration in a crazy, corporate-militarist bind that, as Captain Kudo put so well, further "stains our national honor."
"I'm resigned that these wars will finally enter the history books not only as defeats but also as stains on our national honor," Kudo says.
He quotes Michael Walzer from his book Just and Unjust Wars: "It still seems important to say of those who die in war that they did not die in vain. And when we can't say that, or think we can't, we mix our mourning with anger."
Kudo again: "I would add that we also mix it with shame. [But] shame is not a very American trait."
We can only hope Joe Biden is able to look into the future and envision a different path, a path that prepares the nation for a post-pandemic, post-depression reality that avoids shameless wars, especially one with Iran. There's a tragic failure of logic at work in the minds of men like Trump, Netanyahu and the Pompeo. They think if they use whatever underhanded methods they have in their quiver assassinations, bombings, cyber attacks and crippling sanctions to damage Iran's economy and cause suffering in the lives of individual Iranians, somehow that kind of belligerence is going to make us safe here in The Land of Plenty. That somehow such cold-blooded hostility is going to stop Iran from eventually obtaining a nuclear weapon. And the most illogical delusion, that somehow conventional weapons can't hurt us or won't be used against us.
This love-affair with Power that men like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salmon share is the key ingredient in the classic formula for tragedy that Aristotle famously wrote about and Shakespeare made into compelling theater. Power and arrogance too often lead human beings to make stupid decisions that lead inexorably to their death.
The trouble is, Trump & Company are playing tragedy with our lives.
I made a one-sided contract with Joe Biden: I agreed to hold my nose and vote for him -- and to encourage progressives to vote for him -- in order to get rid of the disease known as Donald Trump. The other part of my one-sided contract was that, once elected, the gloves were off. Some liberal friends have asked me, why pick on Biden so soon? Because smart progressives and supporters of diplomacy over war know who Joe Biden is and how susceptible he is to following the patriotic, gravitational pull of bi-partisan Power into things like the Drug War and the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We need to hear from President-Elect Biden. What will he do? What won't he do? Let's hope he agrees with former CIA chief Brennon that the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was a "reckless" and "criminal" act that Iran is justified to be outraged about. Let's hope our president-elect doesn't come to see the latest Trump/Netanyahu murder as entrapping him and his administration in a crazy, corporate-militarist bind that, as Captain Kudo put so well, further "stains our national honor."
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