Time Rusted CompassTime Rusted CompassAn independent analysis of current events via opinion and photography Articles
On Blowback
2007-01-21 20:33:00 To understand, or rather to begin to attempt to comprehend, America?s position in the Middle East today, it is imperative to understand America?s focus on punishing enemies at the expense of a sober analysis of possible negative blowback. The obsession with bleeding the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980?s and with overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003 are disturbingly similar examples of the American penchant for instant gratification.In order to humiliate and weaken the Soviet Union, a goal that any defender of the most basic human liberties would be pressed to endorse, the CIA undertook the largest operation in its history by arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan. The obsession with creating a Vietnam for the Russians led the United States to arm and train its future assassins.Every penny, every blanket, and every bullet that American sent to the mujahedin during the 1980?s went through Pakistan. Americans were not allowed into Afghanistan; they did not meet with the ?freedom fighter... More About: Back
Coming and Going for all the Wrong Reasons
2007-01-18 02:30:00 The way we went to war in Iraq said some bad things about the American people, as well as our leadership. Naïve and myopic are words that come to mind. Naïve was the conviction that Iraqis would welcome any American dictate and policy, naïve was the conviction that the overthrow of the Ba?athist government would be the war, and that the ephemeral and studiously ignored aftermath would inevitably be easy, given the clear benevolence of American motives. Here enters the myopia which plagues us; it must be acknowledged that the real driving force behind the current ?anti-war? sentiment in the country is the feeling that the war has simply gone on for too long.The national ?debate? about the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003 was fueled by naiveté and myopia, leaving no room for a sober analysis of several issues. For example, President Bush was proposing that the United States do exactly what Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg for doing and exactly what Saddam Hussein did by invading Ku... More About: Reason , Reasons , Sons , Wrong , Ming
The Perils of Faith
2007-01-14 01:31:00 Among the endless ironies and unspeakable truths of the Global War on Terror, which in turn symbolizes so many of the dangers of globalization, is the similarity of the ?opposing? paradigms involved in this conflict. Let me be quick to state: this argument is not about to descend into sophomoric moral relativism; there is simply no useful comparison between Americans and radical Islamists when it comes to treatment of women, tolerance for minorities, etc. We are better than them, and shame on us if we hesitate to firmly say so. There is a disquieting parallel, however, one that is so immune from criticism that ?political correctness? does not begin to describe the deafening lack of discourse concerning it. To distill it to its simplest iteration, radical Islamists and most Americans are similar when viewed from afar; both groups order their very existence on expressions of faith. Faith is the biggest threat to mankind in the 21st century.After the 9/11 attacks, there was an intermin... More About: Peri
On "Islamo-fascism"
2007-01-11 02:32:00 Oversimplification is easy. More to the point, it is simple; in fact, it is over simple. As such, it is comfortable, welcoming, reinforcing, reassuring, redemptive, and much more. The problem is that oversimplification is not in our nation?s interest. This ought to be reason enough to reject the artificially monochromatic paradigm that our president is parroting as the latest justification for the war in Iraq.Is the United States at war? The United States is most certainly not at war, as war would have been defined by any previous generation of Americans. The idea of a war against an ideology, rather than a nation, is unprecedented for the republic, despite what the Bush administration may incessantly claim.The president repeatedly cites Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union as examples of previously vanquished threats that were fundamentally similar to the current threat from ?Islamo-fascism?.Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were similar in their chauvinistic racism, ji... More About: Fascism , Slam
States of Mind
2007-01-10 02:22:00 ?Black and hideous to me is the tragedy that gathers, and I?m sick beyond cure to have lived on to see it. You and I?should have been spared this wreck of our belief that through the long years we had seen civilization grow and the worst become impossible. The tide that bore us along was then all the while moving to this as its grand Niagara?yet what a blessing we didn?t know it. It seems to me to undo everything, everything that was ours, in the most horrible retroactive way---but I avert my face from the monstrous scene!? Henry James, 1914.Once the initial anguish and anger over the 9/11 attacks have lost their immediacy, if they have not already, our nation?s responses to those attacks will be seen as having immeasurably more historic weight than the attacks themselves. This, it seems fair to surmise, is exactly how the terrorists would have it; if a single horrific attack on the American mainland would lead to a reaction that would perhaps fatally undermine America?s standing in... More About: Mind , State , States , Stat
Saddam and Gerry
More articles from this author:2007-01-09 01:20:00 Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford faded into the ether last week, presaging the passage of two pivotal actors in the last 30 years of American history. Both men in some sense represented the flaws of American power, both as practiced in the republic and as projected overseas.The dominant paradigm of Gerald Ford, endlessly invoked following his death, is that of an honorable, apolitical man who steadied the republic in one of its most turbulent hours and who proved that ?we are a nation of laws, not of men?. We were buffeted with video clips of Ford asserting ?the Constitution works? after assuming office.Gerald Ford was the last of five men who have served as president without having been elected to the office, the others being John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Chester A. Arthur. These men are to be distinguished from the several accidental presidents who finished their predecessors? terms and were subsequently elected in their own right. Two disturbing facts divorce Fo... More About: Gerry , Saddam 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
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