Masopher's Mind

After the second world war, when Europe collapsed in the most dramatic fashion since the fall of Rome: When Russian and American tanks roamed freely along Austrian, German, French and English roads, something unique happened. More so than Hitler’s horrific rise, it dawned on Russian and American leaders one thought even more monsterous: The world was theirs to take.

For Americans it may have been a desire to spread the plum candy liberal democracy of being able to spin a wheel and get money, for Russians it may have been a hard working sombre but highly educated man wiping his brow after a day working in “the peoples” field but in both of these imaginations they totally disregarded the core concept of free will and self determination.

After decimating the Japanese empire with nuclear weapons, there really were no alternative ideologies left to give pause to the onslaught of liberal capitalism and communism, except for each other, and so; with German scientists at their command, America and the Soviet Union began to mutually threaten the world with Armageddon.

Once they reached the stage of MAD (mutual assured destruction) other weapons were soon employed the most potent of all being….the simple lie.

When a child discovers the art of misrepresenting the facts it is a glorious event. The child lies just to see what its all about. It lies because lying is possible. It lies for attention, it lies so it doesn’t look bad, it lies to avoid stress the child lies because its parents lie. Mom and dad lie to them about beings that give them stuff for being good in case of the fat red man, free as in the case of the bunny or in exchange for something, like the tooth fairy. One can see why lies were appealing to thinkers in Moscow and Washington DC.

The lie has always existed in state affairs. Propagation of truth is always mixed judiciously with exaggerations and opinions as the propagator sees it and would like to be seen. Weilded correctly, the truth is a devastating weapon. My former professor, a military IO (information operations) man, once said that the best weapon is the truth. I agree, but unfortunately the truth is an expensive weapon in a society of morally corrupt individuals and even though one drop of truth has the potency of 100 Hiroshimas, a thousand lies are just as effective and easier to make.

France, a badly broken and belittled belligerent in the bellicose of the early 20th century was first to jump onto this fact. Perhaps fostered in the courts of Louis and Napoleon, the DeGaullists, desperate to denounce the dualism in the world spread rumours (perhaps via their cousins in Britain and Moscow) which helped to ratchet up the rhetoric and tensions between the two super powers. Once they obtained their own nuclear deterrents (and began proliferating technology to Syria, Saddam’s Iraq and Libya) they perhaps began to feel slighly more at ease. At ease, because they too can now trigger the deaths of millions.

The lies, cloaked truths, creation and spread of secrets was perhaps the most devastating weapon used in the cold war. Devastating because unlike the weapons of science, the weapons of the “humanities” were used indiscriminately.

20 years after the fall of the iron curtain, we live with a nuclear legacy that continues to endanger the lives of billions of people who don’t give a shit about the choice between capitalists raping us or communists enslaving us. In truth we probably want neither, nor do any of us care for nuclear weapons. Now all 6 billion of us have to deal with a few thousand Islamists grabbing those same weapons and exterminating us in their war against a few hundred imperialists.

American President, Barrack Obama has admirably made great steps on the trudge back to “Global zero”.  It will take 30 years just to get rid of half of the current capability. We will have to deal with cold war nukes for a long time to come but the lies that were also created and continue to be created will last even longer.

A statement so flawed that it, like many other “news items”, is scarcely worth my time. But I’ll rant for a bit because I am glad to see the current successes of Operation Moshtarak and hope for much more. That is the way that wars are ended by achieving goals.

In 2007 an Irishman called Michael Semple was thrown out of Afghanistan when the Kharzai government found out he was talking to the Taliban, trying to broker a deal between the British government and the second tier or Pashtun warriors. While Mullah Oman and his cohorts are considered to be official enemies, beyond conversation Britain planned to undercut the Talibans leadership and in fact undercut the Kharzai government by dealing with the men with real power in Pashtunistan.

This didn’t work because the real Taliban and real mujahadeen gave them the same answer they gave the Soviets. They will not stop fighting until every NATO troop leaves in either body bags or C130s (or Antanovs etc.) I spoke on this as well; there is no talking to the Taliban, they want to mistreat women, kill infidels, harbour murderous jihadis, sell opium, run a backward society and they want the world to be run the same way. There is no compromise with right and wrong.

News media talk about perceptions as if they are divorced from the bad perception NATO has. Ever dead soldier becomes a newsflash every coward and whimpering simpleton becomes a news story. In the Pacific, and on the French shore and countryside hundred of thousands of young men died fighting a war that they were thrown into and they received our support. Now a few hundred die and the pusillanimous  voices that have been allowed to grow too loud want to “talk” because the “Taliban” are seen to be winning. They are seen to be winning because the press actively makes it look that way. This is done easily by promoting the nay sayers highlighting the faults, overshadowing the supporters and ignoring the successes.

Talking is a defeat firstly because it it works it confirms that the Taliban are already gone, because the Taliban don’t talk. If it doesn’t then it is just another defeat for the United States not only against extreme idealism but against the liberal pinko press.

If simple tenants such as the use of force can no longer be used by modern governments then other governments and ideologies who can act without the restraints of its soft headed, self-doubting, self-destructive media will begin to lead the world down very dark and confusing paths.

The darkness and confusion is already present. Three years ago,talking was off the table, now it is back on the table and with gusto. The media is allowed to guesstimate and exaggerate based on reports from Afghani commanders instead of their own countrymen. Withdrawing in disgrace from another inferiorly armed country has become not only an option but a standard and signature maneuver. Helplessness to the “power” of China is a theme played out while we demand the inferior and entirely disposable products it produces. The communist tenants of equality stark against the real inequality and poverty is what these “intelligent” people hope for. They are not seeking equality, they are hoping that instead of a society run by manufacturers of wealth, producers of goods and forgers of new paths, the society will be run by soft headed thinkers of grand ideas and ignorers of reality. They are seeking a society ruled by themselves.

President Obama had his state of the union speech this week. Republicans sneered at it Democrats applauded it. With minor losses in the house, Democrats are feeling a sense of vulnerability and talk of concessions has broken out in the ranks. But Obama, great politician that he is, puts a great face on the situation. The worst recession, the most complex PAIR of wars, civil right, freedom, American principles on the back foot: Obama’s task is the most significant and yet could appear the least important. Americans are walking on thin air with the ground 1000 feet below like Elmer Fudd in the old “Looney Toons” cartoons. Obama’s task is to fill the void that Americans are traversing before they realize just how oblivious they are to the danger and gravity takes it’s toll. And this is why even if Obama is successful no one will realize it. Keeping the shakey country together while it’s citizens blithely go about their business could take everything out of Obama’s presidency. Success mean little but failiure could mean everything.
1 year into his presidency and Obama seems to have reached the highmark of his popularity. His healthcare bill is sputtering against heavy senatorial and lobbyist pressure, his hand held out to Iran has been slapped away and he is ramping up the Afghan war while at the same time capitulating to the Taliban. China has ignored pleas for the environment and the financial sector has ignored pleas for reform. It looks dire. There is not one desperate issue, there are several, none of which the rest of the democrats seem to be able to help with. Obamas problems is lack of leadership not lack of his own; as a leader he is a giant among them but for precisely that. Obama is the Atlas upon which the Americans and citizens of the world sit, only by his fall can his Herculean effort be recognized.
But we shall see, he has not delivered a first round knockout to his many opponents but he is a thinker, a strategist and there are still at least three rounds of good old fashion rope-a-dope left for this prizefighter.