Republican Chickens Coming Home to Roost?
Today is Sunday, 26 April 2009.
A popular term among political commentators is “imperial overreach”. We are seeing the reality in spades in Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban last week seems to have taken effective control of the district of Buner, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. This comes after the Pakistani Government and Army (not always synonymous!), by agreement, forfeited control of the neighbouring Swat region to the Taliban in February, who are imposing what they call Sharia Law, or authentic Muslim law. (More on the question of Sharia Law in a later column.)
By comparison, imagine the USA/USE government ceding control of northern New Jersey to the armed militants of The Church of Jesus of 1776 And LORD’s Dictatorship, who boast a record of torturing and butchering opponents, and whose avowed goal is re-establishing the divinely-anointed conditions of 33 C.E./A.D. throughout the world.
“Jihadist” groups such as the Afghan (and Pakistani) Taliban would most likely not exist in their present form, had they not been partially created, and largely funded, by the recklessly adventurist Repugnican regime of Reagan, which envisioned them as surrogate fighters against the USSR. When the USA/USE largely lost interest after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the latter became a failed state which finally fell prey to the Taliban. American interest was not really aroused again until after 11 September 2001.
A lovely example of what can happen when an empire overreaches, and attempts to control events in another nation to its benefit, and the detriment of the nation’s people.
One of the most obvious problems, given that many commentators are warning that the Pakistani state could begin to fragment as early as Memorial Day, are the nuclear weapons and infrastructure currently controlled by the Pakistani army. (Which latter has a miserable record in combat against India, but has done quite handsomely in corrupt moneymaking and exploiting its own population.) Most reliable estimates place the Pakistani arsenal at 30-55 devices.
One can only assume that certain interested nations have made contingency plans to seize these devices, should the Pakistani government and army begin to dissolve. These nations would include the USA/USE, Russian Federation, China, India, and possibly France. (Many nongovernmental organizations undoubtedly have their own designs on the devices.) One can only imagine, with the greatest fear, what might ensue if more than one nation attempted a snatch, and military festivities ensued.
Republican chickens, it seems, may again be coming home to roost.
_________________________________________________________
Sorry to have been off the air for several days. Nature is currently quite beautiful, but pollen has never agreed with me (save in the vital agricultural sense).
A popular term among political commentators is “imperial overreach”. We are seeing the reality in spades in Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban last week seems to have taken effective control of the district of Buner, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. This comes after the Pakistani Government and Army (not always synonymous!), by agreement, forfeited control of the neighbouring Swat region to the Taliban in February, who are imposing what they call Sharia Law, or authentic Muslim law. (More on the question of Sharia Law in a later column.)
By comparison, imagine the USA/USE government ceding control of northern New Jersey to the armed militants of The Church of Jesus of 1776 And LORD’s Dictatorship, who boast a record of torturing and butchering opponents, and whose avowed goal is re-establishing the divinely-anointed conditions of 33 C.E./A.D. throughout the world.
“Jihadist” groups such as the Afghan (and Pakistani) Taliban would most likely not exist in their present form, had they not been partially created, and largely funded, by the recklessly adventurist Repugnican regime of Reagan, which envisioned them as surrogate fighters against the USSR. When the USA/USE largely lost interest after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the latter became a failed state which finally fell prey to the Taliban. American interest was not really aroused again until after 11 September 2001.
A lovely example of what can happen when an empire overreaches, and attempts to control events in another nation to its benefit, and the detriment of the nation’s people.
One of the most obvious problems, given that many commentators are warning that the Pakistani state could begin to fragment as early as Memorial Day, are the nuclear weapons and infrastructure currently controlled by the Pakistani army. (Which latter has a miserable record in combat against India, but has done quite handsomely in corrupt moneymaking and exploiting its own population.) Most reliable estimates place the Pakistani arsenal at 30-55 devices.
One can only assume that certain interested nations have made contingency plans to seize these devices, should the Pakistani government and army begin to dissolve. These nations would include the USA/USE, Russian Federation, China, India, and possibly France. (Many nongovernmental organizations undoubtedly have their own designs on the devices.) One can only imagine, with the greatest fear, what might ensue if more than one nation attempted a snatch, and military festivities ensued.
Republican chickens, it seems, may again be coming home to roost.
_________________________________________________________
Sorry to have been off the air for several days. Nature is currently quite beautiful, but pollen has never agreed with me (save in the vital agricultural sense).
posted by HH at 8:05 PM
2 Comments:
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
approx 1904 or 1905 (see Spanish American War and the war to suppress the Phillipine Insurgency)
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory -- must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
or...
The American Eagle in its majesty ever vigilant - ne'er a roosting chicken...
As clarification of the intent of my prior post, this musing from Benjamin Franklin...
I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him.... Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest. . . of America.. . . For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.
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