'Psychopathy and Consumerism':

 

There is something terribly wrong with this juxtaposition of gleeful Americans with fistfuls of dollars storming the department store barricades and the slaughter by the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including old people, children and babies. The war was started by the U.S., but most Americans feel absolutely no sense of personal responsibility for it.

Well, we have leadership whose techniques for rallying the home front in crisis include voting through tax cuts and telling everyone to go shopping. Should any of this be a surprise?

To answer the question, I do know one guy in our mail room who was called over as part of his Reserve obligation. He's back now. That's about it.

 

One of my best friends is a Ranger. He just came back from Iraq, and has been to Afghanistan also.

 

We've talked some about the Iraq War here, but today's Bob Herbert column contends that media images this week suggest that most Americans are more concerned about their holiday shopping than a war that's being fought in their name. (Excerpts below.)

So is he on to something? How many of you have a personal stake in the war, or have had your lives significantly disrupted by the Iraq debacle?

Pat Tillman, a Marine casualty in Afghanistan, was a college mate of mine, but I've had no family or other friends sent to Iraq. I don't feel that my personal life is much impacted by the war. How about you?

https://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/opinion/27herbert.html?hp

There is something terribly wrong with this juxtaposition of gleeful Americans with fistfuls of dollars storming the department store barricades and the slaughter by the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including old people, children and babies. The war was started by the U.S., but most Americans feel absolutely no sense of personal responsibility for it.
...

According to the United Nations, more than 7,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in September and October. Nearly 5,000 of those killings occurred in Baghdad, a staggering figure.

You're moving into a dangerous area with this topic, Bertie. A revelation may be at hand. "Webster was much possessed by death/and saw the skull beneath the skin." Once seen, it cannot be unseen.

 

Better to see than not. Visual acuity may prevent future bloodshed. Herbert's essay seems to indicate most of us don't have to see the gruesome reality, allowing us to contemplate more pleasant things, like Playstation 3.

BTW, I enjoyed my "Duchess of Malfi" in grad school.

You're moving into a dangerous area with this topic, Bertie. A revelation may be at hand. "Webster was much possessed by death/and saw the skull beneath the skin." Once seen, it cannot be unseen.

 

One of my son in laws just returned from a 15 month tour in Iraq, this past Spring and a former brother in law returned from flying choppers in Afganistan , about 11 months before that.

 

This is exactly the motivation for Rep. Rangel's draft legislation. Granted it's just a stunt...

-spence

 

I am personally moved that in this day and age when so many opportunities are available to young men and women that they would still volunteer to put their lives on the line for our freedom.

As for BertieW's perplexity at how we can go about our lives while Iraqis are dying I guess I can only respond by saying I haven't a clue why this puzzles him. Throughout every war we have every been involved in our lives and the country went about its business. Perhaps you could ask the same question about how we went about Christmas shopping when Saddam was butchering the Shia and Kurds. One could also ask the same question about what is going on in Darfur.

 

Let's be honest. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan directly effect anyone outside the small population of the military services and their family and friends. Some effect maybe be felt by the employers of Guardsmen and Reservist who are deployed. I think it is generous to say 1% of the US is directly effected by the wars, and maybe 5% indirectly. Thus, no real anti-war opposition. The little opposition there is, outside of a few like Cindy Sheehan, is merely an intellectual exercise.

How does Iraq effect me directly? Well, until NBG says "Well Flashy, you've had it pretty easy since you got home, its time for a trip to the desert", it doesn't really effect me.

Cheers
Flashy

 

If this is a war for civilisation, as Bush has characterised it, then why no massive call-up to engage the nation fully and win the war? The administration has gone to some pains to compare Saddam to Hitler, and this conflict with WWII, yet hardly anyone I know has broken a sweat about the situation. I've not been asked to sacrifice anything, certainly not my tax dollars, which is fine as far as that goes. But if we are to win this clash of civilisations, as it has been described, shouldn't we better do it somewhere other than the mall?

I am personally moved that in this day and age when so many opportunities are available to young men and women that they would still volunteer to put their lives on the line for our freedom.

As for BertieW's perplexity at how we can go about our lives while Iraqis are dying I guess I can only respond by saying I haven't a clue why this puzzles him. Throughout every war we have every been involved in our lives and the country went about its business. Perhaps you could ask the same question about how we went about Christmas shopping when Saddam was butchering the Shia and Kurds. One could also ask the same question about what is going on in Darfur.

 

If this is a war for civilisation, as Bush has characterised it, then why no massive call-up to engage the nation fully and win the war?

Didn't you get the memo? That was just campaign rhetoric

I happen to believe the threat is very real and our current policy is just digging a deeper hole. Michael Scheuer (Imperial Hubris) has it dead on, we need to behave like a real global leader to unite not divide, assess where our own shyte does indeed stink and fix it, and not let political correctness stand in the way when the bombs do need to fly.

-spence

 

I have had a nephew in Iraq, and several sons/husbands of friends. I pray for our military each day. I served in the military.

Still, I go shopping from time to time and I know the families of those who are at war likely do the same. I don't think the military expect the nation to sit at home, have no parties, no celebrations, no frivolities of any type. Those at war have their own parties, however simple and small, when the time and opportunity presents itself. They laugh. They joke.

They likely spend little time on such self-righteous thoughts.

 

My brother-in-law spent a year in Afghanistan and more than a year n Iraq. He occasionally pops over to Iraq still for special assignments. I also have at least half a dozen friends, including two men who I stood for as their best man, who have spent time in Iraq. I think that maybe I know so many people who have served because of the disproportionate number of Southerners who serve. Most who have been to Iraq say the same thing, namely, there are a core group of "bad guys" (some Iraqi, most not) who do not want their to be any sort of stable government in Iraq, and then there are the vast majority of people wo live in constant fear that they or their families will be killed as a political statement. My brother-in-law told me about one fire fight he got into, in the Sunni triangle. His men had built a school, and the bad guys moved in while the children were in their and used the kids as human shields while fighting my brother-in-law's men. The fight ended with one American injured, no kids injured, and about a dozen "bad guys" dead or injured. The thing was, none of the "bad guys" were Iraqi. Most were from Syria. They just came to Iraq for thechance to shoot Americans.

 

I have a very close friend from back home over in Afghanistan with the Canadian Armed Forces (do not forget the US is not going this alone) and living by a large Air Force base and the biggest Army Intelligence training center in the country, it is hard not to have a friend that has been deployed in Tucson.

I was not yet born to remember the war that Kennedy and LBJ got the US into, but I wonder if we could have asked that same question back then? The height of the hippy movement was going on at that time, I am thinking much sex and many drugs were occuring while others were over dying in Asia. Even further back, the city of Rome seemed to have a pretty good time while the Legions were out dying. Maybe this is the way of things, when wars are fought on distant frontiers?

Bertie, somehow I just did not picture you as the type to have football jocks are friends. Goes to show how hard it is to judge people by the face they put forward on webboards

 

First, certainly my best wishes to those of you directly affected by the war, either with friends or family serving. I hope all come home safely and I salute the troops' courage to stand up in exceedingly difficult circumstances. I say this as one who has been opposed to this war since its start.

Cufflink is amplifying a point I think is important, and one that most of our free market advocates would surely appreciate. Just as some here have contended that something as prosaic as recycling will never amount to anything big unless there is a financial incentive to induce people to modify their behaviour, so too do I think this logic obtains with respect to other, arguably more serious matters, like the Iraq war.

Why should I care if my wallet is not affected by the outcome or if my personal life is not altered one bit by the mayhem so distant that it may as well be on another planet, or part of a videogame? Make the conflict matter (in various ways) to more people (i.e. skin in the game), then we can expect more innovative and effective solutions. That is, after all, how the free market works, right?

Was it someone here in the forum who recently mentioned the old joke about if you could catch AIDS by gripping a golf club we'd have a cure next week?

Incentives matter. I care about what's going on in Iraq, but there's nothing that is /compelling/ me to do so.

Of course, those of us watching the costs of this war and wondering how this staggering debt will affect our children are indeed given some incentive to action, but like all distant and delayed problems, it's easier to ignore the costs for (chimerical?) near-term "wins."

As long as the majority of Americans are not called upon to sacrifice a thing; as long as it's other people's sons and daughters who are dying; as long as we can turn off the inconvenient images of slaughter and blithely continue acquiring stuff as if all were well--the impetus for ending our involvement in Iraq will remain ineffectual. But tell us we'll need to pay a lot more in taxes for the war effort and you'll see how quickly we'll be out of there.

 

I've not been asked to sacrifice anything, certainly not my tax dollars, which is fine as far as that goes. But if we are to win this clash of civilisations, as it has been described, shouldn't we better do it somewhere other than the mall?

You're assessing the seriousness of the situation in terms of inputs rather than achievement. Simply throwing more money, equipment and troops is not always the answer.

 

True enough, especially divorced from viable strategy to secure stabilisation post-invasion. But how about in this case? Would you argue now for more troops and materiel in Iraq, or less? What do you think would help solve this deteriorating situation?

Early in the war, remember, we purported to use Shock and Awe tactics that were not followed up by effective strategy or, according to some experts (not named Rumsfeld), sufficient troop strength.

I've heard some so-called experts arguing that we would need another 100,000 troops to secure Bagdhad. It's unlikely that we'll even find the 20,000 that some others are looking to insert into the theatre.

You're assessing the seriousness of the situation in terms of inputs rather than achievement. Simply throwing more money, equipment and troops is not always the answer.