Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Yes, Mr President
argh.... argh. ARGH!
I'm in major pain. someone call an ambulance. (ahh, good old NHS days, I miss them already) I just stubbed my toes on my mom's !$@!*ing violin stand. Dangerous things, what. ARRRGH. whine.
So given the dearth of anything remotely interesting happening in my life at the moment (aside from forgetting how to play Foolish Games by Jewel entirely. And as luck would have it, the last known and original copy of the score as scored by re-minisce is lurking somewhere out there down under in the possession of a certain Her that he'll probably never see again this lifetime) I've decided to rant a little about the Presidential candidates of the United States, ie the two most important men in the(ir) world.
Damn that smarts. Poor toes.
Certainly, sitting glued to the telly watching the presidential debates in LA (which isn't saying much, since I also sat glued to the telly watching old westerns, black and white classic chick flicks, Jerry Springer, and yes I must concede, sellavision - hey it happens when you haven't had a personal telly in the last seven years, okay??) Kerry came across the better man, after months of being painted as Mr Flip Flop. I was surprised to hear him espouse views which seemed rather sensible and moderate, and potentially even progressive - or perhaps it was simply Bush doing his broken-record routine (indecisive! indecisive! this country needs a commander in chief!) that made Kerry look good.
Bush came across to me at least as the spoilt brat cum warmonger who's more interested in playing international bully boy than in crisis resolution - mine is bigger than yours, suck it, momma! Whereas Kerry came across as the modern day political SNAG, all talk, and quite possibly no action (although rumour has it that the SNAGs are really quite pervy too...)
To Bush's credit, he's always been consistent - if you ain't with us, you're against us - but the thing is he's also extremely blind, and can't seem to realise when he's consistently wrong. The only reason the country needs a commander-in-chief is because of the war he manufactured - one has to wonder if he's implying that without the war he's really unfit to rule?
Perhaps that's the reason he blundered into a rather ill-advised war, on the faintest of pretexts : nonexistent WMDs and unproven links to terrorist organisations. Perhaps that's the reason why he chose war as a first, rather than last resort, and perhaps it even explains why, as senator Kerry pointed out, troops are deployed all around the oilfields and not the country's infrastructure, which is constantly being destroyed by terrorists today.
I cannot begin to empathise with the Iraqi civilians who daily have to suffer the consequences of Mr Bush's private war with Saddam - and now, with the ghost of Saddam. One really has to wonder if killing off / capturing the head honcho is really going to subdue the fierce loyalists of a proud, and rather militant middle eastern nation hell bent on obliterating the invading infidel. Methinks perhaps Bush and his administration forgot to factor in cultural differences into the equation - but then again, even the United States of America has a chain of command, with the Speaker of the house assuming stewardship should the President and Vice President fall... and so on. Perhaps Bush and his bully boys simply underestimated their opposition.
Will Bush's cabinet-appointed government ever succeed in its task of restoring order to the Iraqi public? Seems pretty unlikely at the moment, considering they don't have the backing said public who keep trying to kill them off. And no-wonder, what must it look like to a fiercely militant warrior-nation? The puppet princes of the foreign invaders in power... where would justice be for them?
I'm going out on a limb here, but perhaps it would have been somewhat easier for the Iraqi people to stomach a UN-appointed leader in the interrim to democratic elections (which in itself is a headache in a country governed by warlords and violence) than a US appointed "running dog".
Note that none of these comments are my true opinions on the matter - this is me trying to empathise with the Joe Bloggs on the street in Iraq, who has to watch US tanks trundle by every few minutes, and suffers hi-tech soldiers occasionally giving him the once-over. Who quite possibly has lost a child, or a wife to indiscriminate fire from either side, who perceives his liberation from one oppressor turned into a subtler form of oppression under a different yoke, and a different master.
Kerry seems to want the war to end - no doubt he wants to "win" the war against terror, and the truth is Bush has started something that cannot be reversed. The war on terror must be fought to conclusion now that it has begun (and the sad reality is that there is no hope of conclusion to a war of this nature, catch-22) since Bush has ? inadvertently created a boiling pot of hostility and resentment against the US - and by extension, any country that sides with the US.
I was surprised Kerry didn't point out the obvious during the debate. Bush's war, which he is so proud of today ("making good progress") - really, honestly. Has it achieved its objective? Is terrorism on the retreat? Funny that, from where I stand today, even in Singapore - previously the bastion of safety or so the men in white claimed, in a world gone awry - is at threat. From where I stand, Bush's war on terror has fanned the flames, and made everything even worse. Where previously there existed small local and dissociated groups of terrorists each "selfishly" intent on attracting international opinion and spreading a little "tough-lurve" to... whoever they were trying to get to... now there exist large international groups of killers working in conjunction with each other to achieve the largest numbers of civilian kills.
Granted, 9/11 appeared unprovoked, and involved a large scale loss of civilian life (and also a lot of speculation about a conspiracy on a grand scale, courtesy of michael moore and friends) but even so - a directed heightening of internal security and a focused response vs those responsible, namely Afghanistan and the Al Quhedawossname people might have contained the situation. Creating a fresh battlefield and new inspiration for the forces of terror in "unjustly" attacking, invading, and occupying Iraq was an unrelated knights (ie indirect) move I simply couldn't fathom.
Bush and Blair swear by it still. Saddam had the capacity to deploy the now infamous "404 not found" WMDs (do a google search on Weapons of Mass Destruction if you haven't already) within seven minutes. He had to be stopped.
The funny thing is Korea has nuclear capability now. And so does America, and so too do the Russians and quite probably, the Chinese.
And yet no nukes flying around helter-skelter and obstructing our busy civilian airways. I guess just because someone has something doesn't necessarily mean he'll use them.
Saddam was no amatuer politician - he knew the Americans, hell he was instated by them a very long time ago. If anything, Saddam is as politically savvy as fellow dictator Kim Jung Il... malignant, festering, and prepared to go to great lengths to get his own way. But I doubt very much he'd have been fool enough to fire that first nuke... or whatever other imaginary WMD Bush continues to claim he possessed at the time. (I was tickled pink to watch Bush substitute WMD for every nuclear reference Kerry was making. I guess a little battlefield anthrax "WMD" poses a major threat to the american public thousands of miles away and far beyond the range of the average Scud launcher. I guess even short-range battlefield weapons of "mass destruction", aimed at killing large numbers of enemy soldiers at one shot pose a threat to the world at large. Makes you wonder why the US is even developing them... bunker busting nuclear warheads and all?) Speaking of which, one really has to wonder at the use of depleted uranium munitions on the battlefield, during the vietnam and gulf wars, and the potential for a lingering threat to civilian life even beyond the battles they're expended in. Surely these too are weapons of mass (and indiscriminate) destruction?
Are the Preachers practising, one wonders.
Kerry is, as Bush has been quick to point out, untried, untested, and above all unproven.
But the thing is, even incompetent as he appears (and certainly, both candidates appear equally incompetent and less than intelligent) Kerry has to be the less dangerous of the two, to the international community at large. Kerry wants dialogue and discourse. Bush in contrast is a warmonger.
I chanced upon the Asian Wall Street Journal inflight from SF to Taipei, and read with wonder the articles lauding Bush's strongarm tactics. There was great truth to the arguments contained within, about the individual nations of the UN having their own self-serving agendas, and there was a grain of truth to the accusations that the UN forces under Kofi Anand's leadership is toothless and spineless, rendering the whole organisation indecisive and slow to act - but that, surely is the price of consensus. A balance is struck between the needs of the international community, and if that decision is indecision - at least it's a decision the world agrees on. Bush's disregard for anyone else's opinion but his own is thuggish and reeks of dictatorship, and no, I don't believe he should be applauded for it in the least. America may be the superpower of the world today - but with power and authority come responsibility. America shouldn't take it on itself to "lead the world", but rather to guide it, and offer it's technical expertise where required.
The global community needs to be returned to a village, from the fiefdom that is has become under George W Bush.
Whether Kerry is the man for that job or not, I have no idea. But Kerry at least, isn't George Bush, and exudes a manner of versatility that his more myopic and muleish counterpart does not. Kerry at least gives the world a shot at change, and if he is true to his words, will effect it.
My opinions, anyhow.
And hey, my toes have stopped smarting :)
I'm in major pain. someone call an ambulance. (ahh, good old NHS days, I miss them already) I just stubbed my toes on my mom's !$@!*ing violin stand. Dangerous things, what. ARRRGH. whine.
So given the dearth of anything remotely interesting happening in my life at the moment (aside from forgetting how to play Foolish Games by Jewel entirely. And as luck would have it, the last known and original copy of the score as scored by re-minisce is lurking somewhere out there down under in the possession of a certain Her that he'll probably never see again this lifetime) I've decided to rant a little about the Presidential candidates of the United States, ie the two most important men in the(ir) world.
Damn that smarts. Poor toes.
Certainly, sitting glued to the telly watching the presidential debates in LA (which isn't saying much, since I also sat glued to the telly watching old westerns, black and white classic chick flicks, Jerry Springer, and yes I must concede, sellavision - hey it happens when you haven't had a personal telly in the last seven years, okay??) Kerry came across the better man, after months of being painted as Mr Flip Flop. I was surprised to hear him espouse views which seemed rather sensible and moderate, and potentially even progressive - or perhaps it was simply Bush doing his broken-record routine (indecisive! indecisive! this country needs a commander in chief!) that made Kerry look good.
Bush came across to me at least as the spoilt brat cum warmonger who's more interested in playing international bully boy than in crisis resolution - mine is bigger than yours, suck it, momma! Whereas Kerry came across as the modern day political SNAG, all talk, and quite possibly no action (although rumour has it that the SNAGs are really quite pervy too...)
To Bush's credit, he's always been consistent - if you ain't with us, you're against us - but the thing is he's also extremely blind, and can't seem to realise when he's consistently wrong. The only reason the country needs a commander-in-chief is because of the war he manufactured - one has to wonder if he's implying that without the war he's really unfit to rule?
Perhaps that's the reason he blundered into a rather ill-advised war, on the faintest of pretexts : nonexistent WMDs and unproven links to terrorist organisations. Perhaps that's the reason why he chose war as a first, rather than last resort, and perhaps it even explains why, as senator Kerry pointed out, troops are deployed all around the oilfields and not the country's infrastructure, which is constantly being destroyed by terrorists today.
I cannot begin to empathise with the Iraqi civilians who daily have to suffer the consequences of Mr Bush's private war with Saddam - and now, with the ghost of Saddam. One really has to wonder if killing off / capturing the head honcho is really going to subdue the fierce loyalists of a proud, and rather militant middle eastern nation hell bent on obliterating the invading infidel. Methinks perhaps Bush and his administration forgot to factor in cultural differences into the equation - but then again, even the United States of America has a chain of command, with the Speaker of the house assuming stewardship should the President and Vice President fall... and so on. Perhaps Bush and his bully boys simply underestimated their opposition.
Will Bush's cabinet-appointed government ever succeed in its task of restoring order to the Iraqi public? Seems pretty unlikely at the moment, considering they don't have the backing said public who keep trying to kill them off. And no-wonder, what must it look like to a fiercely militant warrior-nation? The puppet princes of the foreign invaders in power... where would justice be for them?
I'm going out on a limb here, but perhaps it would have been somewhat easier for the Iraqi people to stomach a UN-appointed leader in the interrim to democratic elections (which in itself is a headache in a country governed by warlords and violence) than a US appointed "running dog".
Note that none of these comments are my true opinions on the matter - this is me trying to empathise with the Joe Bloggs on the street in Iraq, who has to watch US tanks trundle by every few minutes, and suffers hi-tech soldiers occasionally giving him the once-over. Who quite possibly has lost a child, or a wife to indiscriminate fire from either side, who perceives his liberation from one oppressor turned into a subtler form of oppression under a different yoke, and a different master.
Kerry seems to want the war to end - no doubt he wants to "win" the war against terror, and the truth is Bush has started something that cannot be reversed. The war on terror must be fought to conclusion now that it has begun (and the sad reality is that there is no hope of conclusion to a war of this nature, catch-22) since Bush has ? inadvertently created a boiling pot of hostility and resentment against the US - and by extension, any country that sides with the US.
I was surprised Kerry didn't point out the obvious during the debate. Bush's war, which he is so proud of today ("making good progress") - really, honestly. Has it achieved its objective? Is terrorism on the retreat? Funny that, from where I stand today, even in Singapore - previously the bastion of safety or so the men in white claimed, in a world gone awry - is at threat. From where I stand, Bush's war on terror has fanned the flames, and made everything even worse. Where previously there existed small local and dissociated groups of terrorists each "selfishly" intent on attracting international opinion and spreading a little "tough-lurve" to... whoever they were trying to get to... now there exist large international groups of killers working in conjunction with each other to achieve the largest numbers of civilian kills.
Granted, 9/11 appeared unprovoked, and involved a large scale loss of civilian life (and also a lot of speculation about a conspiracy on a grand scale, courtesy of michael moore and friends) but even so - a directed heightening of internal security and a focused response vs those responsible, namely Afghanistan and the Al Quhedawossname people might have contained the situation. Creating a fresh battlefield and new inspiration for the forces of terror in "unjustly" attacking, invading, and occupying Iraq was an unrelated knights (ie indirect) move I simply couldn't fathom.
Bush and Blair swear by it still. Saddam had the capacity to deploy the now infamous "404 not found" WMDs (do a google search on Weapons of Mass Destruction if you haven't already) within seven minutes. He had to be stopped.
The funny thing is Korea has nuclear capability now. And so does America, and so too do the Russians and quite probably, the Chinese.
And yet no nukes flying around helter-skelter and obstructing our busy civilian airways. I guess just because someone has something doesn't necessarily mean he'll use them.
Saddam was no amatuer politician - he knew the Americans, hell he was instated by them a very long time ago. If anything, Saddam is as politically savvy as fellow dictator Kim Jung Il... malignant, festering, and prepared to go to great lengths to get his own way. But I doubt very much he'd have been fool enough to fire that first nuke... or whatever other imaginary WMD Bush continues to claim he possessed at the time. (I was tickled pink to watch Bush substitute WMD for every nuclear reference Kerry was making. I guess a little battlefield anthrax "WMD" poses a major threat to the american public thousands of miles away and far beyond the range of the average Scud launcher. I guess even short-range battlefield weapons of "mass destruction", aimed at killing large numbers of enemy soldiers at one shot pose a threat to the world at large. Makes you wonder why the US is even developing them... bunker busting nuclear warheads and all?) Speaking of which, one really has to wonder at the use of depleted uranium munitions on the battlefield, during the vietnam and gulf wars, and the potential for a lingering threat to civilian life even beyond the battles they're expended in. Surely these too are weapons of mass (and indiscriminate) destruction?
Are the Preachers practising, one wonders.
Kerry is, as Bush has been quick to point out, untried, untested, and above all unproven.
But the thing is, even incompetent as he appears (and certainly, both candidates appear equally incompetent and less than intelligent) Kerry has to be the less dangerous of the two, to the international community at large. Kerry wants dialogue and discourse. Bush in contrast is a warmonger.
I chanced upon the Asian Wall Street Journal inflight from SF to Taipei, and read with wonder the articles lauding Bush's strongarm tactics. There was great truth to the arguments contained within, about the individual nations of the UN having their own self-serving agendas, and there was a grain of truth to the accusations that the UN forces under Kofi Anand's leadership is toothless and spineless, rendering the whole organisation indecisive and slow to act - but that, surely is the price of consensus. A balance is struck between the needs of the international community, and if that decision is indecision - at least it's a decision the world agrees on. Bush's disregard for anyone else's opinion but his own is thuggish and reeks of dictatorship, and no, I don't believe he should be applauded for it in the least. America may be the superpower of the world today - but with power and authority come responsibility. America shouldn't take it on itself to "lead the world", but rather to guide it, and offer it's technical expertise where required.
The global community needs to be returned to a village, from the fiefdom that is has become under George W Bush.
Whether Kerry is the man for that job or not, I have no idea. But Kerry at least, isn't George Bush, and exudes a manner of versatility that his more myopic and muleish counterpart does not. Kerry at least gives the world a shot at change, and if he is true to his words, will effect it.
My opinions, anyhow.
And hey, my toes have stopped smarting :)
