Curiosity Over Pride (FYI: To comment, send an e-mail to scifidink@gmail.com)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Talibans against GI Joes

Sorry dinky, but I do provocation so well that I just can't resist.
It is one of my reasons for staying alive, and about 90% of the time it keeps me out of melancolic depressions, so...

This morning I vaguely listened to the planetary pseudo religious ritual of mass information, and heard something about the Talibans sticking it to our boys again.
In spite of Barack's decision to inflate the number of G.I. Joes in Afghanistan.

This info got me musing again, to the effect that there is no way in hell that WE, nor any other Western power are going to triumph in Afghanistan, not now, not in the near future, not in the far future either. The way the English tried way back when, and failed. The way the Soviets tried a little less far back and failed.
And this despite the fact that WE have crushing military superiority that the Talibans cannot compete with.

WHY IS THIS ? WHAT ARE WE SCREWING UP ? (OR WHAT IS SCREWING US UP ?)

The answer will seem unexpected to you, and unbelievable...

We are losing, and we will CONTINUE to lose precisely because...
GOD is NOT on our side.

I can see Dink spluttering and fuming, Thai saying "what the hell, this lady is a Bushie in disguise", etc etc, but bear with me a little bit and you will understand why... Nietzsche is the most maligned and misunderstood modern philosopher around, and why manichaen, simplistic thinking will NOT help you understand this issue.

Way back in the 1400's, when the English had colonized big portions of France, when they legally held that they were the legitimate heirs to the French throne, an unknown, but definitely not base born young woman sent a message to Charles VII, a monarch who was unsure about his own legitimacy (his mother was an incredible whore, and had children by lots of different lovers, not by her husband) saying that she would come to his aid to boot the English out of France, ensure that he was crowned in Reims, and affirm his legitimacy. She maintained that this would be possible because... GOD was on Charles' and HER side, and not on the English side.
When you start looking closely at the period history surrounding Jeanne d'Arc, who should be called Jeanne La Pucelle (the Virgin), you realize that the French were no less lying, thieving, raping, and pillaging than the English, and there was no LOGICAL reason why God should be on THEIR side.
It would be extremely naive (in the best tradition of Greek philosophy) to imagine that the GOD problem hangs on the question of whether God exists or not.
No, this is really not essential.
What IS essential is... do you BELIEVE in him or not, and if you do, are you ready to go out and... fight in HIS name ? And if you believe in him, and are ready to go out and fight in his name, how are you going to go about convincing your enemy that HE is on YOUR side ? (The Jewish approach to the problem)

Now, back to Talibans vs G.I. Joes.
Are you honestly going to tell me that G.I. Joe has the assurance (insurance ?) these days that when he goes out into battle, and lays his life on the line, that GOD is on his side ?
Na. He doesn't have that insurance at all.
At best, he is going out to fight for abstract, hollowly resounding words like "liberty", "justice", "democracy".
But... just what is an ABSTRACTION worth when you're weighing it against... GOD, my friends ?
What is it worth ?
In... HIS eyes ? In his enemy's eyes ? (And believe you me, the enemy Taliban has GOD on HIS side...)
Our not so far ancestors ended WW1 on the note "don't tell me how sweet it is to drop with the line "how sweet it is to lay down one's life for one's country (pro patria mori, Wallace Stevens, I think...)"
No laying down one's life for God, no laying down one's life for country.
Just WHAT do we have left to lay our lives down for ??

GOD is definitely NOT on our side...


6 comments:

Thai said...

Yet more viewpoint/aspect issues so who really knows.

Indeed, there are so many viewpoint/aspect issues when it comes to war and national policy that they all become merged in a kind of fractal kaleidoscope iteratively melding sub-issues becoming still larger "meta" issues, etc...

"Yes", God is definitely one thread in this tapestry; with God go all the other aspect/viewpoint issues of the God building block.

But there are so many others such as:

A. Do we really need to stay a long time vs. get out early and still win?
B. Can we win and not use force?
C. How do we define "win"?
D. Will modern media unavailable to the USSR and UK play a complementary or destructive role to American military interests in the region.
E. Etc...

(I could list hundreds of threads in this fractal cloth but obviously won't in the interest of brevity)

All I can say is there is a reason languages are dying all over the world, and yet not all will die out.

Debra said...

Over here in France, languages may HAVE died, but they are being resurrected quite as fast.
The world offered by Hypervisor and Thales does not look very attractive to people, with our without international institutions to "help" people swallow that pill..

Thai said...

Funny how we are not rational animals and how a rose by any other name does not smell as sweet.

Let me say I too have mixed feelings about these types of systems.

But I will play the devil's advocate for you for a moment to make a point:

I cannot see how anyone would fear a security system like this yet not fear a nationalized, centralized health care system.

Those who don't really do anything they shouldn't are not really worried about the abused of something like this. It would not make sense for the powers that rule the system to go after them as they would be replacing those people with something identical.

Tweedledum - Tweedledee

Thai said...

To which another person would reply "but what is it they should or should not be doing and who defines this"

To which I would reply "Exactly! From whose viewpoint/aspect?" ;-)

Debra said...

Thai... the dangers of a centralized, computer aided health care system did NOT escape me.
Remember you are talking to a person who understands why Goethe did not want to wear glasses.
On my loony forum we have a universal saying.
"While we certainly have the cunts that we decry, we need to constantly remember that.. there is always somebody out there for whom WE are the cunt."
Always.
That's why I detest the Hypervisor idea, and find it VERY dangerous. And why I think that most Americans are really naively, alarmingly complacent on this subject. Like... they just can't BELIEVE that they are happily skipping down the road to fascism. (Some of us over here, and some of us over there think that the country has already reached the end of that road, moreover...)
Alongside of a bunch of Red State rednecks, Thai...
I remember several years ago, one of my very intelligent analyst friends told me that she would vote for the European constitution, because... since the far right, nazi type French party was voting against it, she COULDN'T vote in their direction.
Big mistake in my book.
Big mistake.

Dink said...

God I miss barbecued pork.
Goddamn you, dinky... ;-)


PULL IT TOGETHER, WOMAN!! Invoking your foul-tempered deity against me over bbq'd (and hooved) animals surely is some sort of sin. REPENT!

@ Thai,
Take all the time off blogging that you need to cover for your Haiti crew. Thats got to be an emotionally devasting gig they're diving into to. I'm in awe.

Re: "God is not on your side".

Neither is Cthulu. At least the universe is mercifully indifferent. So we got that going for us (nod to Caddyshack).

The Most Fabulous Objects In The World

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  • Time Bandits

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