a couple comments:
-there has been a lot of recent criticism about the lack of progress in iraq, and president bush has repeatedly said that there has been massive progress, after all they had elections. however, the elections were obvious not completely airtight. not like you would expect the first democratic elections in a country that is coming out of the shadow of a tyrant to be 100% fair, hell in america we don't even have completely fair elections, but i would expect there to be more progress than just elections.
deaths are increasing. not only for the soldiers that are there occupying the nation, but to the people that live there. so-called 'insurgents' are attacking both civilian and military targets. inter-sect bombings are also occurring. this is a massive problem, and we have been able to do little to stop it. swat one fly, you have a dead fly and some peace. until the million eggs hatch and you have a million flies. yeah, that is what is happening. we are getting no where.
-with all the ruckus about iraq, north korea has taken the opportunity to announce officially that they have nukes, and they are not willing to talk about giving them up. yeah, no surprise there. it would appear though that the government and the media would like us to think that this is a major threat to our nation. now, granted kim jong il or whatever his name is, is not the most stable fellow in the mental department, (at least that is what 'they' say.) but, he isn't retarded. nuclear weapons, as an offensive weapon are useless for a nation. if there was a missile launch from north korea aimed at america, we would level the country. we would also suffer from a nuclear blast/s but no one would win. stalemate. no one wins. i doubt anyone that has a static nation to govern is going to bother with a tie game that kills both sides.
the type of nuke that we would have to worry about is a dirty bomb, or a rouge nuke that was carried into the nation and detonate by a suicide bomber. if a terrorist was to use a nuke, we would not have a clear target to retaliate against. we could obviously nuke any nation that we think is haboring associates of the terrorist/terrorist group, but that would not ensure victory. but north korea is a clear target. it is easy to point to a spot on the map and say that the enemy is there, right there and we will be watching them. this war on terrorism is not such an easy sale. at least not to the american people that have been brought up with the tales of heroism and such from WW2. too bad most schools gloss over vietnam in history class. oh yeah, and that other war that people know even less about, the korean war. whatever, be ignorant.
-for sake of not being ignorant though, (yeah i know the contradiction in that.) despite what you see in movies, what you read in most contemporary history books, and all the good stories your grandparents and other veterans have told you World War Two was not a triumph of america. if anything it was a failure. before i get bash but the pc police and the ignorance squad, i am not saying that fighting hitler was a bad idea. i am not saying that when we did enter the war we did some great things. i am however saying that we stayed out of it just long enough to figure out whether or not we were absolutely necessary in order to win the war for the allies. oh yeah, we were also thrust into the battle when we got ambushed by the japanese.
there is however a huge black mark on our record for the european theatre, (i am not even going to talk about the american concentration camps that housed japanese-americans during the war.) what i am talking about is how we knew all about the death camps that were slaughtering not only the jews but political dissenters and a whole slew of other groups of people. yeah, you don't believe me. read "while six million died." great book. good on the details and the facts.
yeah, new music i am listening to: halovox, kervorkian death cycle, rachel yamagata, keane.
yeah, books i am reading: portable voltaire, the tru believer, war on the bill of rights.
i hope you are doing something with your life, because i'm not.
