CAPTAIN QUEEG

CAPTAIN QUEEG GIVES A STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH
by H. Millard © 2007



President Bush seemed very tranquil in his state of the union address the other night.  Maybe that's because none of his relatives are in the war that he started.  It's not little Bushes coming back in boxes.  The boxes are filled with the mangled bodies of average Americans. Dead kids who "volunteered" to get out of their small towns, or because they wanted to feel like men, or because war seemed like an exciting video game. Young men think with hormones, not with brains. I know. I was once a young Marine. And, while I'm proud of my service, I know the feelings of those who volunteer young. 

 I know I could have died and it would have been for no reason just as the kids who are dying now are doing so for no reason.  And, a sadness overcomes me as I think these things. It is not a sadness for me, had I died, but for my kids who would not have lived, had I died.
 
If you're a low I.Q. citizen who is easily fooled by elites such as Bush, just puff up your chest and salute the flag. Pretend your kids are dying for a reason. Pretend that they'll be remembered for more than a minute by the elites. Pretend they're protecting America as Bush and his fat ass neo-con shills on talk radio and one lousy TV cable network want you to believe.
 
But don't ask me to pretend.  I was against this war before it started--I wrote many columns against going into this madness. Unlike many phony politicians and war pimps who supported this war then, but who now are against it, it was plain to me that this whole thing was absurd. Weapons of mass destruction?  It seemed goofy to me before the war.  Now, just about everybody knows it was an absurd claim.  Iraq a danger to America?  Plain silly.  I said it back then before the war and I say it now. I wrote that the stabilizing force in Iraq was Saddam Hussein and that without him the place would be what it is now.  How could I be so right and the people in D.C. so wrong? They had all the resources of the U.S. Government and all the intelligence agencies.  I only had common sense.  It looks like common sense won.
 
As of December 28, which is the last update on the statistics that I saw, 2,226 white kids, and most are kids, have been killed in Iraq.  Those kids were potential fathers and mothers of many more of our people.  Because they died, whole families of us will never be born.  Whole future tribes and whole future nations of our people have been aborted by bombs and now will never exist.  How many future leaders, geniuses and just ordinary folks are now never to be?
 
But, don't worry about your kids and your relatives who may be in this mess that is Bush's doing, Bush's daughters are having a nice time doing the bar scene and Bush and his wife are living the good life.   
 
As I was watching Mr. Bush give his state of the union speech this week I was struck by his flat emotional affect and his lack of concern about his failed policies and all the people who have died as a result.  The word "delusional" kept popping into my mind as I watched and listened. 
 
Bush probably isn't completely bonkers--at least he's probably not any more bonkers than the character of Captain Queeg played by Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny--but that's not saying much. 
 
The problem now is that it seems that Bush and his neo-con pals are gearing up to invade Iran.  That, dear friends, if it happens, may be the real start of WWIII.  That may be the trigger that really does lead us to a war like none that we've ever seen before and to a time when missiles rain down on American cities.
 
What do I base this opinion on?  Common sense, once again.  I hope I'm wrong.  I pray that I'm the one who is bonkers in this.
 
At any rate, here's the real problem for us, as I see it right now.  The rest of the world has watched in shock and awe as the world's only superpower has been losing a war in a tiny desert nation against people who lack modern weapons.  This can't have gone unnoticed in North Korea and China and it can't have gone unnoticed in many nations where various rebel forces--including many Muslim rebel forces--are even now trying to wrest control of governments in their countries.
 
If we now invade Iran, as Bush and the neo-cons seem intent on doing, the North Koreans will no doubt seriously consider invading South Korea, and China will no doubt seriously consider invading Taiwan while we're otherwise occupied. And, if we try to stop either of them, get ready for ICBM's to head our way from Asia. Get ready for foreign troops to put their boots on our streets.
 
But even if the North Koreans and the Chinese don't do what they want to do, and who would stop them?-- we will be stretched so thin if we invade Iran, that we'll probably lose Afghanistan and then Iraq and then Iran and then....
 
This Iraq mess has shown the world that the U.S. is not nearly the superpower that everyone thought we were.  That's not good for us, because we're hated all around the world as a bully and as a hypocritical nation that isn't even handed in our approach to others as shown by the way we favor Israel over Arab nations. 
 
We used to be feared. And it was fear of us that helped stabilize the world.  Iraq has shown that we're not to be feared, and our own two faced lying ways make us unlovable.  What's left?  Undying hatred of us.
 
Any number of nations would like to see us destroyed and might form their own coalition of the willing to destroy us now that they see how weak we are.
 
Thanks a lot George Bush. 
 
Isn't it time that some adults ran our government and started talking to the rest of the world instead of trying to bully them? And, isn't it time that we, as a nation, started acting the way we tell our grade school children that we act, but don't?
 
Isn't it time for America to be noble and fair and just as we once set out to be? Isn't it time we took care of America's problems and let other nations take care of theirs?

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messages of ennui and meaning in post-american america by H. Millard

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