October 21, 2003
THIS IS AN ORTHODOX BLOG
- beiL
- beiL
Yes. No. Maybe. I have to pee.
But I really do have to pee.
- Lieb
But I really do have to pee.
- Lieb
I saw Kofi Annan speak today, and although I'm still crunching numbers on this one, the odds are that I'm way better than you.
- Lieb
- Lieb
October 06, 2003
It's 9:26. I'm eating beef jerky. I had some things to talk about but I don't remember exactly what they all were. I'm listening to Beck and the kind of abusive shit he's doing to all manner of instruments and recording equipment is not helping me focus my thoughts.
Whatever.
I am not a Bush supporter. I am not against war. I think, and there is such a cataclysmic subjective contortion of rational thought required to approach the question it's almost not even worth mentioning, that if I had been alive and conscious in 1940 I would have been an interventionist. I do think George Bush is a liar and a crook. I don't think those are unusual qualities for a career politician or a career businessman and I wouldn't rate him as an especially outrageous or dangerous one when compared with the other liars of this century, or even the past fifty years. More on that in a minute.
I'm certain there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I doubt there ever were very many and if some actually remained as of April 20th I'm positive they are long gone by now. I think all that is obvious and there's just not much more to say about it. If you're young and you're interested in politics, this might be the first time you see your leaders on television and realize that people in power lie and that they don't give a shit about you because they don't know who you are and never will. This might be the first time you realize that the people who have power over you have their own friends and debts and vices and compromises and selfish evil little hearts, and even the greatest and most compassionate statemen, though they may love the rabble, are above it and every night they have meals and conversations and share cigars with people who have also ascended over the hoi polloi. They may want mankind to prosper but you, in an individual sense, will never ever matter to them, and if by your suffering or the death of your family a thousand others could live in more freedom or breathe the better air, the measure of your life is a trifle. You might feel angry and disgusted and cheated and you might feel like this is wrong, this is wrong, someone should fix this. These thoughts will change you and you'll never be the same, but I don't know what will happen to you as a result. You might one day grow selfish and indignant and very prudently decide that, having been fucked all your life, your only recourse is to take as big of a piece of the pie as you can hoard or steal and wait out the end of your life in as much comfort as you can afford. You might develop a dissociative love for the process of law and a faith that even though humans are corrupt, the philosophies they birth are pure and impartial and if they can be upheld to the letter the scales of justice will surely balance. Or you might decide that everything is fucked, which it is, and let's just end it. I have no answers.
I don't have any moral hangups about war. I don't think anyone deserves to die, but I don't feel able to begrudge anyone the ability to defend themselves. I don't believe anyone deserves to die, but I don't think anyone really has a "right" to live insofar as there is no way to protect or uphold that right. People die. I'm going to die and so are you. If everyone in the world holds hands and simultaneously affirms that I have a right to live, it's not going to mean anything when I get hit by lightning or drop dead of a brain embolism tomorrow. That sucks but it is, unfortunately, the human condition.
I don't believe anyone deserves to die, but I don't have a problem with terrorism because I have a hard time seeing innocents. I love the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" in a court of law, but in war no one takes the time to find out whether everyone who dies is guilty of anything. That doesn't make any sense and I don't think there's a general on earth who would advocate that. Moving on.
I do not believe for a single second that everyone in the World Trade Center was innocent. I think certainly many people in the Pentagon on September 11th were not innocent. I don't necessarily mean innocent of a crime, although guilt in that sense is still possible. I am talking about being unconnected to, or not responsible for, the fate that befalls you. I think it's highly unlikely everyone on board every bus that blows up in an Israeli street is innocent. I think it's statistically probable that if a Palestinian walks into a diner in Tel Aviv and blows himself up, he's going to kill someone who hates Arabs enough to kill them, or someone who has been part of a militant settler movement and has already killed an Arab, or someone who has given money or support or a place to sleep to someone else who kills Arabs. I think if an Al Qaeda mujahideen blows up the Pentagon, it's almost certain they're going to kill someone who was involved with, tasked with, directs, controls, or gives comfort or support to someone whose job it is to hunt down and kill Al Qaeda soldiers.
They're also going to kill a lot of people who had nothing to do with those things. I think that's terrible. I think it's terrible when an Israeli helicopter fires a rocket into a crowd of people and kills a dozen people in addition to the man who is in Hamas they were aiming at. I think it's terrible every time a JDAM levels a farm or a school along with a storehouse full of AK-47s and Stinger missiles. I think "collateral damage" in war is a shame no matter who it applies to. It sucks more than cancer and I wish it didn't happen but it does, and since both sides seem to accept it as the cost of doing business I'm willing to accept that as sanctioned by the rules and move on.
I think to presume that every individual in the WTC was completely and utterly unconnected with the fate they met is unbeliveable. I think to imagine that none of the money, all that money, which flowed in and out of that place in digital streams, or slept undeneath it in silent steel vaults, was not stained in some way, did not fund, purchase, spring from, or make possible the efforts of nations (which existed before September 11th) to combat or uproot or kill Islamic fundamentalists is ludicrous. I can't indict anyone specifically but I feel that the numbers are on my side. I'm not talking about intent here. Intent means fuck all to a dead person and people will keep on dying regardless of everyone's loudly proclaimed best intentions. I'm really only interested in culpability, which unlike intent is factually demonstratable.
I'm not saying that no one is innocent. I am saying that not everyone is innocent and most people attribute innocence to anyone who is not in uniform, which is just not the way things work these days. I didn't make the rules but they have been spelled out very plainly. We're at war now and the rules of wartime apply. There are two camps, the terrorists and the other one. You must be a part of one camp and you can't be a part of neither camp. If you aid or support one camp you will be held accountable by the other camp. Pre-emption is the better part of self-defense, and you can't wait to be struck to strike back. That's fine, and I understand the pendulum must swing both ways. If I send money to Israel, I had better fucking be aware of the consequences of that action, and if I send the money to Hezbollah instead I had also better be very fucking aware what's coming after me because of it. It doesn't matter what happens to the money. John Ashcroft does not give a flying fuck whether the money helps Hezbollah build a school or hospital for refugees (they do that) or buys the TNT for a suicide bomber (they do that as well). Muhammed Omar doesn't give a shit if my money lets a little girl who got hit by a car-bomb have a blood transfusion or buys a rifle and a clip for an illegal settler and his family. It doesn't matter if I'm really a Zionist or if there are even any Zionists left on the whole planet. My actions determine my affiliation and no matter what, there's a fairly good chance something bad is going to happen to me.
As I said, I don't want anyone dead and I don't think anyone deserves to die. But I won't begrudge people the act of self-defense (of which pre-emption is a necessary component), and as far as I can tell everyone here is playing by the same rules. So fair game.
Anyway. I said I'd say more about Bush being a liar, which he is, but I'm kind of tired of writing about this so I'll come back to it another time. All I'll say is the conspiracy theorist in me loves the post-9/11 existence. There are so many lies to look at and the big one is unfolding right under our noses. With any luck, it's all going to end very very badly for every man, woman, and child.
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker.
You may not realize this, but beef jerky is a relatively healthy snack.
And just in case you were wondering if humankind has a monopoly on depravity and evil, we don't. Did you think Donnie Pfaster was not once an ape?
- Lieb
Whatever.
I am not a Bush supporter. I am not against war. I think, and there is such a cataclysmic subjective contortion of rational thought required to approach the question it's almost not even worth mentioning, that if I had been alive and conscious in 1940 I would have been an interventionist. I do think George Bush is a liar and a crook. I don't think those are unusual qualities for a career politician or a career businessman and I wouldn't rate him as an especially outrageous or dangerous one when compared with the other liars of this century, or even the past fifty years. More on that in a minute.
I'm certain there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I doubt there ever were very many and if some actually remained as of April 20th I'm positive they are long gone by now. I think all that is obvious and there's just not much more to say about it. If you're young and you're interested in politics, this might be the first time you see your leaders on television and realize that people in power lie and that they don't give a shit about you because they don't know who you are and never will. This might be the first time you realize that the people who have power over you have their own friends and debts and vices and compromises and selfish evil little hearts, and even the greatest and most compassionate statemen, though they may love the rabble, are above it and every night they have meals and conversations and share cigars with people who have also ascended over the hoi polloi. They may want mankind to prosper but you, in an individual sense, will never ever matter to them, and if by your suffering or the death of your family a thousand others could live in more freedom or breathe the better air, the measure of your life is a trifle. You might feel angry and disgusted and cheated and you might feel like this is wrong, this is wrong, someone should fix this. These thoughts will change you and you'll never be the same, but I don't know what will happen to you as a result. You might one day grow selfish and indignant and very prudently decide that, having been fucked all your life, your only recourse is to take as big of a piece of the pie as you can hoard or steal and wait out the end of your life in as much comfort as you can afford. You might develop a dissociative love for the process of law and a faith that even though humans are corrupt, the philosophies they birth are pure and impartial and if they can be upheld to the letter the scales of justice will surely balance. Or you might decide that everything is fucked, which it is, and let's just end it. I have no answers.
I don't have any moral hangups about war. I don't think anyone deserves to die, but I don't feel able to begrudge anyone the ability to defend themselves. I don't believe anyone deserves to die, but I don't think anyone really has a "right" to live insofar as there is no way to protect or uphold that right. People die. I'm going to die and so are you. If everyone in the world holds hands and simultaneously affirms that I have a right to live, it's not going to mean anything when I get hit by lightning or drop dead of a brain embolism tomorrow. That sucks but it is, unfortunately, the human condition.
I don't believe anyone deserves to die, but I don't have a problem with terrorism because I have a hard time seeing innocents. I love the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" in a court of law, but in war no one takes the time to find out whether everyone who dies is guilty of anything. That doesn't make any sense and I don't think there's a general on earth who would advocate that. Moving on.
I do not believe for a single second that everyone in the World Trade Center was innocent. I think certainly many people in the Pentagon on September 11th were not innocent. I don't necessarily mean innocent of a crime, although guilt in that sense is still possible. I am talking about being unconnected to, or not responsible for, the fate that befalls you. I think it's highly unlikely everyone on board every bus that blows up in an Israeli street is innocent. I think it's statistically probable that if a Palestinian walks into a diner in Tel Aviv and blows himself up, he's going to kill someone who hates Arabs enough to kill them, or someone who has been part of a militant settler movement and has already killed an Arab, or someone who has given money or support or a place to sleep to someone else who kills Arabs. I think if an Al Qaeda mujahideen blows up the Pentagon, it's almost certain they're going to kill someone who was involved with, tasked with, directs, controls, or gives comfort or support to someone whose job it is to hunt down and kill Al Qaeda soldiers.
They're also going to kill a lot of people who had nothing to do with those things. I think that's terrible. I think it's terrible when an Israeli helicopter fires a rocket into a crowd of people and kills a dozen people in addition to the man who is in Hamas they were aiming at. I think it's terrible every time a JDAM levels a farm or a school along with a storehouse full of AK-47s and Stinger missiles. I think "collateral damage" in war is a shame no matter who it applies to. It sucks more than cancer and I wish it didn't happen but it does, and since both sides seem to accept it as the cost of doing business I'm willing to accept that as sanctioned by the rules and move on.
I think to presume that every individual in the WTC was completely and utterly unconnected with the fate they met is unbeliveable. I think to imagine that none of the money, all that money, which flowed in and out of that place in digital streams, or slept undeneath it in silent steel vaults, was not stained in some way, did not fund, purchase, spring from, or make possible the efforts of nations (which existed before September 11th) to combat or uproot or kill Islamic fundamentalists is ludicrous. I can't indict anyone specifically but I feel that the numbers are on my side. I'm not talking about intent here. Intent means fuck all to a dead person and people will keep on dying regardless of everyone's loudly proclaimed best intentions. I'm really only interested in culpability, which unlike intent is factually demonstratable.
I'm not saying that no one is innocent. I am saying that not everyone is innocent and most people attribute innocence to anyone who is not in uniform, which is just not the way things work these days. I didn't make the rules but they have been spelled out very plainly. We're at war now and the rules of wartime apply. There are two camps, the terrorists and the other one. You must be a part of one camp and you can't be a part of neither camp. If you aid or support one camp you will be held accountable by the other camp. Pre-emption is the better part of self-defense, and you can't wait to be struck to strike back. That's fine, and I understand the pendulum must swing both ways. If I send money to Israel, I had better fucking be aware of the consequences of that action, and if I send the money to Hezbollah instead I had also better be very fucking aware what's coming after me because of it. It doesn't matter what happens to the money. John Ashcroft does not give a flying fuck whether the money helps Hezbollah build a school or hospital for refugees (they do that) or buys the TNT for a suicide bomber (they do that as well). Muhammed Omar doesn't give a shit if my money lets a little girl who got hit by a car-bomb have a blood transfusion or buys a rifle and a clip for an illegal settler and his family. It doesn't matter if I'm really a Zionist or if there are even any Zionists left on the whole planet. My actions determine my affiliation and no matter what, there's a fairly good chance something bad is going to happen to me.
As I said, I don't want anyone dead and I don't think anyone deserves to die. But I won't begrudge people the act of self-defense (of which pre-emption is a necessary component), and as far as I can tell everyone here is playing by the same rules. So fair game.
Anyway. I said I'd say more about Bush being a liar, which he is, but I'm kind of tired of writing about this so I'll come back to it another time. All I'll say is the conspiracy theorist in me loves the post-9/11 existence. There are so many lies to look at and the big one is unfolding right under our noses. With any luck, it's all going to end very very badly for every man, woman, and child.
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker.
You may not realize this, but beef jerky is a relatively healthy snack.
And just in case you were wondering if humankind has a monopoly on depravity and evil, we don't. Did you think Donnie Pfaster was not once an ape?
- Lieb
