American Kid
28th September 2002, 04:04
The Kid, like his country, is at a crossroads.
Funniest thing about war, is there's rules.
Formal declarations must be made. Prisoners, combatants lucky enough to still be alive when the skirmish ends, are to be treated fairly and humanely. Civillians are not (or at least are supposed to not) be attacked.
It goes on and on. It makes all the barbaric violence and mass murder seem quite surreal, when sandwhiched between the eerie "gentleman-like" quality of the guidelines set forth by things like the Geneva Convention.
And there's a goddamn good chance it's all going to happen again very, very soon. The leaders of my country want to invade Iraq, and, annoyingly they're being quite.............secretive about certain things. Things apparently only the people who sit at the cool kids' table, people like Tony Blair, are allowed to know also.
It makes the Kid wonder, is there a reason we don't know certain things? Is it better off this way? If certain things were leaked to the New York Times and became common knowledge, would that jeopardize operations under way, which are paramount to the whole operations success?
It's all very complicated. And I don't know anyone in the CIA, so......
The Kid would also like to discuss his reluctance to contract smallpox. And his even greater reluctance, at that, to watch any one of his family or friends contract it either. This is a difficult thing, because, as great as the fear is, what are the realisitic odds?
?
The Kid doesn't have a fucking clue. It seems al quaeda is a greater "smallpox" threat than Saddam. From everything I've heard on TV, Saddam may have these weapons, but his missiles appear to be woefully inadequate, globally-speaking. In other words, if what we have are "missles", then what he has are "paper airplanes."
And let's talk about watching TV for a second. One person I seem to see seeing a lot of is Scott Ritter, everyone's favorite alpha male. I saw him on Frontline a few years ago, trying to argue his way into Iraqi weapons facilities. Ten times more entertaining than anything you'd see on Friends.
But anti-climactic as well, and sort of foreboding, as in the end, he never got in, and was kicked out of the entire country soon aftewards. He was understandably pissed off afterwards, and testified to the Senate the global threat Saddam and his "secret weapons" posed.
Now he's leaning to the other side a little.
But is he?
:) Ritter is an interesting guy. He's is vehemently opposed to this "war", but not on principle. Hell, he hates Saddam. He was even in Bagdad last week as a private citizen and was talkin' shit about him. No, I do not believe Ritter is in cahoots with Saddam, and/or Tariq Aziz, and/or the Iraqi intellignence.
Ritter basically likes to follow the rules.
He wants to perserve the entrigity of the UN Security Council. Which isn't such a bad thing. And that's his main concern, I think.
His loudest criticism of the US is our "unilateral" position we've taken (which, actually if you count Brittain, is "bi-lateral", but anyway). This is not secret. Especially to you guys. We are basically alone on this one.
This is sifinicant because it tests the integrity of the existence of the UN ITSELF. Or at least in respect to our (the US) relation to it. Which, in itself, is even more significant, us being the biggest, most powerful member of it. Will going ahead alone compromise it's relevance? Are we in danger of letting it becoming just another "League of Nations?"
No one wants in. The French. The Germans. Fuck it, EUROPE. No one. Hell, Schoeder's not even welcome in the White House, last I read. And even today Teddy Kennedy (my neighbor) was getting all red in the face over the lack of evidence the Bush administration has showed over this whole thing.
Now, the presence of a Kennedy in this discussion reminds the Kid of another famous "clan member", who was also adamantly opposed to our participation in an armed conflict, on a world wide scale, about sixty years ago.
And it reminds the Kid of another aspect of the way history is going to judge us all, when this thing is done and in the can. Because Joe Kennedy, everyone's favorite B-movie producing, boot-legger ambassador to the court of St. James, was an OUT-FUCKING-SPOKEN critic of our participation in WW2.
And now he's remembered as a coward, as someone who failed the English people, who in turn suffered under six years of relentless German bombardment, while his efforts to sabotage support for our intervention continued--succesfully.
If we go in there (Baghdad) we beat the shit out of them, kill him, and thereby liberate the oppressed people of Iraq, it's going to sting pretty bad if I find myself having been sitting on the other side of the fence, with my head covered under a picnic table.
Then again, if we go in there, it's a total failure, Saddam bombs the fuck out of Israel, Israel bombs the fuck out of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon bomb the fuck out of Israel, we bomb the fuck out of Syria and Lebanon, Egypt bombs the fuck out of us....etc.........I don't want to be found coming out on the other side, as having been a supporter of such fucking nonsense.
(and God knows how many "sleepers" Saddam has HERE, glued to CNN, just waiting for the first shell to drop)
Like I said, the Kid, like his country, is at a crossroads.
I'm afraid to end up like another Kennedy, or Neville, or Lindburgh,
but I don't want to end up as Nixon or Regan either.
-AK
(Edited by American Kid at 4:19 am on Sep. 28, 2002)
Funniest thing about war, is there's rules.
Formal declarations must be made. Prisoners, combatants lucky enough to still be alive when the skirmish ends, are to be treated fairly and humanely. Civillians are not (or at least are supposed to not) be attacked.
It goes on and on. It makes all the barbaric violence and mass murder seem quite surreal, when sandwhiched between the eerie "gentleman-like" quality of the guidelines set forth by things like the Geneva Convention.
And there's a goddamn good chance it's all going to happen again very, very soon. The leaders of my country want to invade Iraq, and, annoyingly they're being quite.............secretive about certain things. Things apparently only the people who sit at the cool kids' table, people like Tony Blair, are allowed to know also.
It makes the Kid wonder, is there a reason we don't know certain things? Is it better off this way? If certain things were leaked to the New York Times and became common knowledge, would that jeopardize operations under way, which are paramount to the whole operations success?
It's all very complicated. And I don't know anyone in the CIA, so......
The Kid would also like to discuss his reluctance to contract smallpox. And his even greater reluctance, at that, to watch any one of his family or friends contract it either. This is a difficult thing, because, as great as the fear is, what are the realisitic odds?
?
The Kid doesn't have a fucking clue. It seems al quaeda is a greater "smallpox" threat than Saddam. From everything I've heard on TV, Saddam may have these weapons, but his missiles appear to be woefully inadequate, globally-speaking. In other words, if what we have are "missles", then what he has are "paper airplanes."
And let's talk about watching TV for a second. One person I seem to see seeing a lot of is Scott Ritter, everyone's favorite alpha male. I saw him on Frontline a few years ago, trying to argue his way into Iraqi weapons facilities. Ten times more entertaining than anything you'd see on Friends.
But anti-climactic as well, and sort of foreboding, as in the end, he never got in, and was kicked out of the entire country soon aftewards. He was understandably pissed off afterwards, and testified to the Senate the global threat Saddam and his "secret weapons" posed.
Now he's leaning to the other side a little.
But is he?
:) Ritter is an interesting guy. He's is vehemently opposed to this "war", but not on principle. Hell, he hates Saddam. He was even in Bagdad last week as a private citizen and was talkin' shit about him. No, I do not believe Ritter is in cahoots with Saddam, and/or Tariq Aziz, and/or the Iraqi intellignence.
Ritter basically likes to follow the rules.
He wants to perserve the entrigity of the UN Security Council. Which isn't such a bad thing. And that's his main concern, I think.
His loudest criticism of the US is our "unilateral" position we've taken (which, actually if you count Brittain, is "bi-lateral", but anyway). This is not secret. Especially to you guys. We are basically alone on this one.
This is sifinicant because it tests the integrity of the existence of the UN ITSELF. Or at least in respect to our (the US) relation to it. Which, in itself, is even more significant, us being the biggest, most powerful member of it. Will going ahead alone compromise it's relevance? Are we in danger of letting it becoming just another "League of Nations?"
No one wants in. The French. The Germans. Fuck it, EUROPE. No one. Hell, Schoeder's not even welcome in the White House, last I read. And even today Teddy Kennedy (my neighbor) was getting all red in the face over the lack of evidence the Bush administration has showed over this whole thing.
Now, the presence of a Kennedy in this discussion reminds the Kid of another famous "clan member", who was also adamantly opposed to our participation in an armed conflict, on a world wide scale, about sixty years ago.
And it reminds the Kid of another aspect of the way history is going to judge us all, when this thing is done and in the can. Because Joe Kennedy, everyone's favorite B-movie producing, boot-legger ambassador to the court of St. James, was an OUT-FUCKING-SPOKEN critic of our participation in WW2.
And now he's remembered as a coward, as someone who failed the English people, who in turn suffered under six years of relentless German bombardment, while his efforts to sabotage support for our intervention continued--succesfully.
If we go in there (Baghdad) we beat the shit out of them, kill him, and thereby liberate the oppressed people of Iraq, it's going to sting pretty bad if I find myself having been sitting on the other side of the fence, with my head covered under a picnic table.
Then again, if we go in there, it's a total failure, Saddam bombs the fuck out of Israel, Israel bombs the fuck out of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon bomb the fuck out of Israel, we bomb the fuck out of Syria and Lebanon, Egypt bombs the fuck out of us....etc.........I don't want to be found coming out on the other side, as having been a supporter of such fucking nonsense.
(and God knows how many "sleepers" Saddam has HERE, glued to CNN, just waiting for the first shell to drop)
Like I said, the Kid, like his country, is at a crossroads.
I'm afraid to end up like another Kennedy, or Neville, or Lindburgh,
but I don't want to end up as Nixon or Regan either.
-AK
(Edited by American Kid at 4:19 am on Sep. 28, 2002)