Kissinger:

"... and the American culture of avoiding hardship..."

Say huh?

What an upstart crow.

Perhaps if he had arrived in this country prior to 1938 he might have a greater appreciation for all the sacrifices and hard work invested by various folk in this country...

1938 was over 50 years ago. Like the “world’s greatest generation” crap, I’m sick of the depression era mythology too. 50 years IS a long time. The nobility class IS larger now, the bottom dwellers are getting further behind. Until you liberals can figure out how to convince the stupid loser class that they are getting screwed, you’ll have a tough time winning any elections. However, perhaps these stupid peasants don’t mind having their kids killed for the nobility, as long as they’ve got gas and Walmart trinket stores to shop in. No story, no peasants – and you can't win without the stupid peasants.

In a world such as ours is, where such silly things as “grounds for going to war” no longer embody real legal meaning and are totally void in terms of principles and guidelines concerning humanity and our responsibility to all that such a concept entails then what does one mean by “winning” or seeing it through until the end? The Vietnam War was a war founded upon a lie and so is the present Iraq war. We still live in a country where “four dead in Ohio” is a song written during the Vietnam War expressing the extent and means the government was willing to employ against “the people” so as to protect the lie of Vietnam but where those responsible for implementing and perpetuating this lie are allowed to speak as authorities for the proper way to conduct the war effort and can even suggest such absurdities as “victory” where in truth the mere fact we went to war to begin with is to admit defeat. 4 Dead in Ohio was the kind of price paid by those who followed their constitutional right to free assembly and were murdered by the National Guard for standing up for that right to express their opposition to the illegal Vietnam War. Still, to be willing to pay the price of death by facing off against the oppressive Nixon regime is what it takes to maintain the mechanics of democracy, and to make clear to all Americans the way in which the country is governed is not by “free expression” and constitutional rights but by “freedom of oppression”. When that message sits in people’s minds, they react and the status quo quiver, because suddenly they are vulnerable and might even have to take responsibility for their actions. Democracy means to be engaged continuously in a special kind of war against your opponent, you have to make the opposition’s point of view defunct, and it is the sworn duty of your opponent to make your concepts defunct and I imagine it is the compromise between these extremes that gives rise to greater incite and balance. Unfortunately today no balance exists. What is clear is that the Kissinger attitude ought to be a defunct one. It failed 30 years ago and it will fail again in the present. Morally winning the war in Vietnam meant getting the hell out of there because we should have never been there to begin with and this is equally true with Iraq.

Had there been some validity to the Vietnam War or the Iraq War to begin with then perhaps a philosophy of not budging an inch might carry some meaning. But in both of these wars there are no grounds for the actions taken. They are wars anchored in a kind of cancer that plagues this nation of ours. It is a sickness extending beyond the boundaries of bigotry and race that motivated Martin Luther King to march on Washington and to declare, “I have a dream”. This cancer lies rooted in powerful men who have failed to comprehend the world in terms of responsibility and moral obligation. Instead they are sickly men possessed by blind ambition and who are willing and above all else allowed by our government to use the American people to act against their better nature and instead to serve the petty interests of a select few and not the interests of the nation as a whole much less to respect the unique role the US plays and has pledged to play in the balance of global power. These “evil” men are willing to use any method thinkable to obtain their will and this is clearly witnessed in the lie surrounding the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin that suckered the US into the Vietnam War or more recently those non existent WMD in Iraq that would be used against us or sold to terrorists who would use them against us. These acts, and the freedom allotted to such men to carry out these criminal acts against not just the American people but against humanity itself reflect on the general weakness of our nation and just how close we are to an out and out dictatorship ruled by a perverted elite that hide themselves behind the façade of Christianity.

What is obvious is that these men are in no way ‘realists’ nor pragmatists, nor nationalists, nor idealists but are rather a gang of small-minded opportunists who are allowed to take actions, which in both the short and long run directly threaten real national security as well as global security. In this sense it is possible to view them as being unpatriotic and committing acts of treason. Had they just been realists then we would never have attacked Iraq. A realist (I suppose because I am no expert, just a fed up American citizen spilling his beans), no matter how crude, seeks to better his state’s position and advantage by means of power and does this by weakening his opponents. In order to do this, means that the opponent’s position of power must be analyzed. When it comes to these terrorists, the question of questions would seem to revolve around what their weakness is and what is their strength in terms of power? Their weakness apparently resides in the kind of power found in stability. They cannot rise up within the confines of stability because in such a setting they would have to threaten with deadly force precisely those people that they want to coerce into following them. In other words the more stable things are the more injury terrorists acts do to their cause. At present, terrorism is effective because it can be viewed by a majority of those residing in the Muslim world as a legitimate response to the kinds of actions taken by the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Hence the meaning of winning hearts and minds must mean seeking out those avenues that enhance stability and this cannot be created by way of instigating war. It means that one is forced to grab Israel by the back of the neck and say knock it off or pay me what you owe me, get rid of your nukes or face economic sanctions, but it also means that US must open up meaningful dialogue with Palestinian fractions and in particular Hamas and even Hezbollah and create a Palestinian state and this cannot be achieved without Israel. So Hamas and Hezbollah must realize that if what they want is war they can get one, but if what they really want is recognition and to build a way to lasting peace together with internationally recognized statehood then they must show signs of good faith and responsibility by stepping up to the plate and playing ball, which means an official recognition of Israel’s right to existence and an end to suicide bombing.

In addition it means having some balls as well as the will to use them constructively. George Bush doesn’t have any balls and I guess this because bullies seldom do. Creating conditions that relieve the pressure in the Middle East has nothing to do with weakness but with finding real solutions that can increase regional vitality as well as economic growth and that means using the whole region—building a union of states who need to comprehend that mutual cooperation offers regional affluence, minimizes the risk of war and in international affairs increases their credibility as a unit, as well as their power. I think the US acting in this way in the region could win. Instead of constraining and threatening Syria and Iran it means doing the opposite and working with them, not condemning them through Bushian dogmatism and childish descriptions like the “axis of evil” states and other derogatory concepts. We are talking about people! People and nations that have goals and aspirations and where we might play a role in seeing that such goals and aspirations are achieved, i.e. by being the global leader. That is how one makes friends and it is also how one breaks down barriers. I think the region would really like that kind of mobility but at the same time it means breaking down the anti-Israeli rhetoric that both Syria and Iran like to throw and vice verse (Israel also like name calling). The main point is that all action that results in increased chaos strengthens the position of the terrorists and consequently weakens the status quo and when I say this I mean in the existing states throughout the Middle East who are members of the international community. That fact places a constraint on those who hold power. (Those who hold power must comprehend that to maintain power means to control and to use wisely the instruments that produce stability).

In Vietnam on the other hand the key to victory would have been to understand what exactly the North Vietnamese wanted and then to think about whether their goals were incompatible with ours. Today we see that what the Vietnamese wanted was not the “cause” of communistic rhetoric, in the sense of a global armed insurrection and to “crush the tentacles of imperialist aggression”, but rather to improve the living conditions for all of their people and to be the true heirs and rulers of their nation—to in fact create a democratic government. In essence they were, in spite of their communistic leanings, a nation easily compatible with our own interests in economical terms and in no way an enemy. It is ideological demonization that was in fact our enemy. The anti-communist rhetoric instituted by the McCarthy era to fend off the input of communism was so fanatically implemented that it worked against its original purpose. The ideological strength of communism lies in its concept of sharing, equality and belonging and what it managed to suppress and keep hidden from the masses is its dictatorial means of maintaining power. (In the long run it will fail to maintain stability because it rules by dictatorial means and must allocate larger and large portions of the GNP to quelling what is deemed subversive elements hence it will fail to properly allocates goods and services to the people). Still for a great many people on our planet where the rule of law is oppression, extreme poverty and a general sense of powerlessness; communism appealed and offered a chance to fight for a sense of freedom. But as Bob Marley sings, “Now that we are free, what are we going to do, with all of you.” By making “communism” the opponent, the US ceased to have realist solutions or even pragmatic solutions and instead became a dogmatist in its own right, as it created a kind of inquisition of its own. The secret elements of this inquisition have never been removed and in terms of national security it means “ideological” national security not “real” or “actual” national security.

Against the popular image ingrained in the American consciousness the United States in truth is no longer a leader in the world. It ought to be a leader but the responsible leadership necessary to lead the world is nowhere to be to found. Instead the US has rather become (under the leadership of the Bush administration) the number one deterrent to common sense. Common Sense demands that world work together as a unified whole to solve global problems. The best forum designed to coordinate this kind of activity is the UN and the reward for this cooperation is nothing more and nothing less than the survival of the species. Among the problems which threaten the world as a whole are things like a proper system of allocation of global resources where the ideology must be oriented around alleviating and conquering poverty, or something as primary and commonsensical as the elimination and ban of all atomic weapons for all nations including the US, or combating pollution and taking serious the contamination of the oceans and global warming as human induced phenomenon, or say tackling human rights violations or resolving regional disputes through the UN forum. Yet when we look at such issues what we are witness to is the fact that the leading proponent of its right to have atomic weapons is the US while it denies anyone else the same right and goes so far as to threaten to nuke those it suspects. Or the leading proponent that global warming and pollution are nothing but scientific myths is the Bush administration that is firmly seated in Washington, and the major violator of the UN and most likely to blame it for all that is wrong in the world is none other than the USA and what is the Bush administration’s position on torture and human rights—that they alone can murder, torture, detain with out due process anyone of their choosing. That and a library of issues bring the US and its present leadership into direct conflict with the world in general. To say that the Vietnam War was “won” in 1972 seems at best optimistic and that had we “prevailed” victory was ours is pure fantasy. Still just look at Vietnam today and I think what we see is the potential for a true friend and important ally and that Kissinger ought to put a button it and not offend the honour of the Vietnamese people, who today stand as a free and independent nation because their friendship may prove to be an important one in the course of the 21st century.

Whoops it happened again. Once the old coffee flap jaw Jack takes over pages of hogwash seem to unfold.