I've just rediscovered this blog - or, rather, re-discovered my password to it, yesterday. I don't know that I'll keep it up, but as I always seem to be searching for some farther and farther away (from what? or where?) corner of the internet to hang out and write, I just may.

Although, it's not as if I don't already have plenty of places to (not) write, so this may also just return to laying fallow, waiting for nothing to follow.

We'll see.

The things people do...


I was tossing around an idea that instead of the comparisons of this war in Iraq to Viet Nam, or Gulf War I -which are, of course, valid comparisons in many ways - that maybe a better comparison would be to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Not in military strategy, per se (thank the gods, as that was extremely brutal) but in... I guess what can be termed as people things, as opposed to war things.


War, of course, involves people and their histories, as well as the latest in Pentagon toys, and trials of new military strategy. One can always have bigger and better wars, or lighter, more lethal wars, or short and sharp wars, or.. well, it goes on and on. From rocks and slingshots to Tomohawk missiles, ways of waging war have "advanced" as "civilizations have advanced". But people, in general, have stayed the same. Inside, if not the outside trappings. And the instinct to band together against a common enemy is a strong one, even if you don't especially like the person at your side. And, consistently, as soon as the common enemy is defeated, the person at your side reverts to his or her former position as 'the opponent. ( I have seen this sort of thing dismissed as a 'tribal' view, or the purview of 'backwards' societies, such as Afghanistan, but in reality it occurs in all societies. After all, I can't think of any society which is not made up of 'tribes' of one sort or another... just under different, 'civilized' names).


Anyway, what is happening (or reported to be happening) in and around Iraq reminds me quite a bit of the Afghanistan situation, as was explained by the 'experts'. The U.S, said they, was able to invade Afghanistan and score significant victories with the help of the local anti-Taliban forces, because they were not there to occupy Afghanistan. They were just there to eliminate the Taliban and break up the Al Qeada stronghold. This is why the end result was not a bogged down, high coalition or local attritrition war, such as befell the Soviets in their Afghanistan venture. Mind you, the end of the US/Afghanistan story hasn't been written yet, and there is a distinct dearth of news coming out of there, since the ending of the war, and the installing of the new government. And what news has come out has not at all been uniformly good, or optimistic. However, taking the Bush Administration as it's word, and assuming the success in Afgahnistan is a given, that leaves now, and Iraq. (To be continued...)

I admit it, anonymously in the open, in full view of no one... I am me, and I am a blogaholic. There. It's done, and what a relief it is to get that off of my chest. I simply love blogs.. not only are many very witty and informative, you can follow links and more links to more and more blogs and more and more people and comments and... it all gives me hope.

If there are this many articulate, intelligent, well informed people around.. how did we get in the mess we are in now? But, at least there is now hope we can combat this right wing takeover of our airwaves, our government and of course our flag.

I wonder if there is such a thing as shared memories. Or ancestral memories. Probably not. I guess it's more of an experience thing... even if the experience is as a 'people' or group, rather than as an individual.

I think of all this while reading opinion pieces and views about the war. And it puzzles me... is it a matter of people just not learning from the past? Or not caring? Or maybe it's just that they think that *this* time, it will be different.

I've been reading "conservative" publications again, trying to get a sense of what some people are thinking, and why. Seems many are upset that the French and the Germans are going to want a piece of 'our' Iraq. After all, it is the US and the UK who are there fighting and dying in order to take over this country, so why should anyone else have a part of it? To the victor goes the spoils... so runs their thinking. They don't seem to see anything odd or shameful in the least in the thought of invading another country (regardless of the stated goals) and deciding how to carve it up and apportion it out. Or, if they do see it, apparently they just think it is their right. Our right. Whichever... Maybe there actually is such a thing as shared memories... theirs of the arrogant, imperialistic impulses of their forebears... and mine of the results.

I'm beginning to think that along with sausage and laws, one should not watch wars being made. Not because of the gore and carnage (on U.S TV, we see little), but because of the sometimes Keystone Cops quality of it. If it weren't for the very real terror those who are participating must feel, and the lives being lost and ruined, some of the events would make great M*A*S*H* episodes.

Well I have what seems like pages and pages of "test, test", which I can't get rid of. I will figure out how to eventually, of course. All new things need time to find their feet, I don't see why I expect myself to be any different. And this surely is a new thing for me... a completely self-absorbed journal of thoughts and views, which is also open to the world to see. This should be interesting... to me, at least. I don't expect anyone else to really care. I guess that is the entire point of random anonymity... exploring who you are, what causes you to be... in full view of people who could care less. Sort of like standing in Times Square, NYC, and yelling that the world is ending while eddys of people pass around you, oblivious, pursuing their own lives and not giving a hoot about yours. I wonder if that is actually the true liberation of thought and spirit.

It's possible that this experiment is already not turning out as planned if I am at the beginning comparing myself to street ranters, and they are coming out on the topside.