Although I'm a pretty liberal guy, I, like most other humans, am a bit of a study in contrasts. I believe we need secured borders but an easier pathway to citizenship. I believe that for the most part the government has no right to interfere in the private lives of others, but I also know that people are idiots which is why I feel that vaccines should be mandatory.
I think Democrats are naive cowards, Republicans are out-of-touch fools who are afraid of change, and Libertarians are just children who are angry they have a bed time, but still want Mommy and Daddy to fix their boo-boos and make dinner, so long as they can still feel like they're in control. I don't mind paying taxes, but want to know how my money is spent. I like SNAP, WIC, TANF, Social Security, Medicaid/ Medicare, the ACA, and a variety of other "social safety net" type programs, but sure as hell want them monitored for waste, fraud, and abuse. To be clear, I think requiring drug screening for benefit applicants is all three of those things; waste, fraud, and abuse, when we aren't even requiring our elected representatives to take a drug test.
And as the saying goes, I just want gay, married couples to be able to defend their marijuana plants with guns. So it comes with some surprise that, despite knowing I possess often hypocritical and conflicting ideals, I find myself a bit angry over an article I read regarding a candidate I don't know (Joni Ernst), running for a position I don't care about (the Iowa Senate position), in a state that only becomes important during election season. The article is here.
The article is a campaign attack ad masquerading as an Op-Ed piece written by Paul Begala, who CNN describes as:
..."a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, was a
political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992
and was counselor to Clinton in the White House. He is a consultant to
the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action."...
The basic premise of the article seems to be, "Joni Ernst wants to keep her guns so she can shoot cops and soldiers if she doesn't like the government. She's cray-cray, and I should know, I have a bunch'a guns too, but I don't want to hurt anyone, ever!" Now, Joni Ernst may be crazier than a shit-house rat (which, for some reason, we've deemed the craziest of all rodents), she may indeed want to shoot a cop because she doesn't like Obamacare, I don't know. But judging by what Paul Begala says, he doesn't know either.
The crux of Begala's claim that Ernst thinks the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to be able to shoot government employees you disagree with comes from this statement made by Ernst in a speech to the NRA:
"I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to
defend myself and my family -- whether it's from an intruder, or whether
it's from the government, should they decide that my rights are no
longer important."
If you're wondering where in that statement Ernst mentioned that she would rather shoot an American service member than have to pay taxes for welfare, you're not alone. Begala seems to focus in on the last part of the statement; "... or whether
it's from the government, should they decide that my rights are no
longer important." And implausibly takes that to mean Ernst thinks the 2nd Amendment makes it legal for her to kill anyone she disagrees with in government.
Begala goes on to elaborate just how crazy Ernst is by claiming the 2nd Amendment only applies to taking up arms FOR the government, not against, giving the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 as an example of what happens when you violently oppose Uncle Sam (hint: George Washington himself finds you, kills you, and breaks all your shit). Begala also cites the Civil Rights movement as an example of how even the egregious and violent segregation that the government imposed was solved more by Rev. King, Jr's speeches of peace than by the Black Panthers bombs. These things are true. Peace should always trump war and the non-violent solution to a problem is always preferable to the violent one. It is also true that it is illegal to commit an armed insurrection of the government, but Begala's points and demeanor indicate that he feels it is something that should/ could NEVER happen in this country.
Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Russia/ USSR, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and fuck it, most of Africa. What do those countries have in common? Governments, and a population that at one point or another thought, "Governments do bad things in other countries, but not here, right guys?" So, what part of Ernst's speech am I going to use to make my point? This part: "...should they decide that my rights are no
longer important." Which is the part of the speech wherein Ernst states that the right to defend her life and the life of her family from all those who wish to do them harm is not something to be encroached upon by even the federal government. It's the part that says when you attempt to take away my life I have a right to stop you. Whether its because you just kicked my door in to steal my TV and I startled you, or because you kicked my door in to drag me off into the night on the orders of the government.
Those of you who know me know that I openly mock conspiracy theorists. I think that conspiracy theories are a product of a first world life-style. In short, if your daily concerns involve being eaten by lions or shitting yourself to death from contaminated water, its unlikely you have the time for the mental masturbation needed to come up with the idea that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Illuminati Lizard People. And on the off chance that Big Tin Foil is right, and the Illuminati Lizard People are behind a vast network of global conspiracies, then I wholeheartedly apologize. And its hard not to look at someone who, in America at least, claims that they need guns to fend off the Government's Men-In-Black who are threatening to drag them off into the night for their blog post about Obama being the antichrist, and not see them as some sort of right-wing, nut-job, conspiracy theorist who is likely a danger to others.
But what if you changed the country of origin to Iran in 2014 (or Iraq in 1990, Germany in 1938, Japan in 1935, Russia/ USSR at fucking anytime, or Cambodia in the 1970's), and the name of the leader-in-question to Ruhollah Khomeini. Then suddenly the idea of the government dragging you off to your death for saying the wrong thing seems a lot more plausible, doesn't it? I wonder how many people in Iran spent New Years Eve of 1977 thinking it couldn't happen to them?
Do I think the US Government is going to turn on its people, in whole, or in part, in such a manner that requires armed resistance? No. I think that the very nature of the American people and government make us relatively resistant to that. And I certainly don't think anything in the last several hundred years would have warranted such an event (The Civil War doesn't count, since the Confederate States of America were no longer part of the United States). But I also don't know what the future holds, and not knowing what the future holds is part of what makes many of those amendments, such as the 1st,-4th, 9th, and 10th, so important.They safeguard our ability to rule ourselves, and serve as a reminder that it is the people who give the government its power. A hunting rifle, pistol, or even an AR-15 may not do much in the face of a large, organized, and well armed government. But a populace that can bite back, even with small and blunted teeth, when its back is against the wall, is one that can have its own agency in determining its future.
So while Begala can tell me all he wants that the ghost of George Washington wouldn't agree that it's ever OK to take up arms against the government, history tells me that Mr. Washington was just as much of a hypocrite as the rest of us. And while the voting booth is preferable to the sword, having one if the other fails can make all the difference.
So at the risk of sounding like a tea partying, overly jingoistic, conspiracy theorist I'll close with a passage from the Declaration of Independence,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of
these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present
King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny
over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world." (Link)
And while I hope that this nation will never turn to the darkness that has enveloped so many others, if it does, I hope that the Americans of that day are willing to fight to restore their rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Wow... this ended up having way fewer dick jokes than I though...
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
This is why we can't have nice things
My thoughts on vaccines and the people who decry them are generally well known. But since I should put something on here that I haven't simply copied and pasted from my Facebook, here it goes.
In short: If you choose not to get vaccinated for any reason other than allergy or immune system compromise you deserve to get polio and are complicit in the deaths of those who cannot get vaccinated. Go get yourself a grim reaper robe, champ.
In long: There has always been a minority contingent of people opposed to vaccines. In the early days of the practice this was perfectly understandable and even necessary as vaccines were not nearly as safe or effective as they are now. People had to perform a cost-benefit-risk analysis when it came to deciding if they should be immunized. More than 100 years ago this involved some actual risk as the possibility of infection, allergic reaction, or just simply having the vaccine fail to protect you were decent possibilities in an age when food safety consisted of "less formaldehyde in the milk means we have to pay those filthy Irish farmers more!" some MD's still considered blood letting to be a viable option for the Spanish Flu and chiropractors thought they could cure asthma by twisting your neck in a way that would make Jason Bourne jealous and give Jean Claude van Damme a hard on (Wait... they still do this? Oops!).
However, today the effectiveness and safety of vaccines is unparalleled. Until recently, diseases like Polio had all but been eradicated within the United States while cases of measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis (whooping cough), and a variety of other commonly vaccinated against illnesses had become so rare that getting them netted you a personalized spot in the CDC's MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), which is kind of the Rolling Stone of disease control and prevention, only with less boobs and more awful infections and injuries.
Vaccines are not just crucial to individual health, they are crucial to the health of large populations. Remember how I said that Polio had all but been eliminated? Well, thanks to people failing to get vaccinated it's coming back (http://tinyurl.com/l8z3jql http://tinyurl.com/mov3zz). For an explanation as to why immunizations work to keep the greater good safe I suggest this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPcC4oGB_o8 It demonstrates herd immunity using gummi bears and takes a little over 2 minutes so even the most ADD of you can handle it. Plus it uses bright colors and relatively small words.
Not only is Polio coming back, but everybody's other favorite old school disease, the mumps, is also making a solid comeback, and not all of it can be attributed to filthy hipsters trying to ironically contract an illness no one hears about anymore. http://tinyurl.com/m7b8b2v
"But wait!" You mewl while flapping your arms about ineffectually, "We didn't get vaccinated a hundred years ago! My grandfather never got vaccinated and he lived to be 100 years old and never took a sick day!"
Your grandfather also lived in a time when going from New York to Paris in a metal tube powered by explosions was the sort of thing Jules Vern would have laughed at as being too outlandish. He lived at a time when men were men, hard work was valued and the average life expectancy was around 60 years so you better get crackin' or you'll be dead of old age before you know it! (http://tinyurl.com/cskr7sl). He lived at a time when widespread epidemics were confined to a few of the really nasty bugs, took months upon months to spread and and infant mortality percentages from illness and injury were anywhere from the mid-teens to high twenties (http://tinyurl.com/kjeqbnb). The fact that your grandfather made it out of childhood while you whine about getting a flu shot is a testament to the kind of man you'll never be.
Citing the past as an excuse for your present failings is just about the worst thing you can do. The Americans of a century ago didn't spit in the face of progress, they embraced that shit. When Orville Wright decided he was sick and tired of those feathered fucks soaring through the wild blue yonder he didn't just shrug it off and say "Eh, it's too hard to understand how flight works," he built a machine and took the fight to those smug bastards. And did we stop there? Fuck no! In the same amount of time it takes to make a $2000 bottle of scotch we went from a kerosene powered bird harasser to stabbing the moon with our flag just so it knows who owns it! And because that's not enough we went back so many times we got bored and decided to play golf (http://tinyurl.com/k4xlog7) and go 4-wheeling (http://tinyurl.com/l9vckn8).
Of course for every Louis Pasteur there is a John R. Brinkley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley) and that's why I have to address the vaccines and Autism "controversy." Why do I put the quotation marks around the word "controversy?" Because it isn't one. Because the one study that was used to start that scare has been discredited so hard that the author lost his license to practice medicine and was criminally charged (http://tinyurl.com/m29kq94). Because that's what should happen when you craft a fake study with the intent to defraud people and end up causing a world-wide health crises that continues to this day. So why do people still think vaccines cause Autism? For the same reason that people think aspartame causes cancer, GMO food is bad for you, and homeopathy is real. A basic misunderstanding of science and statistics coupled with a media that knows how to get customers inflamed in an attempt to drive ratings. And it's not helped when Americans are so poorly trained on what a "credible source" is that we take potentially life ending advice from a woman primarily known for showing her tits for money and some dude famous for a role in which he literally talked out of his ass (http://tinyurl.com/kbe8p, http://tinyurl.com/q7dj452, http://tinyurl.com/hxamy). Since that's a lot of shit to tackle I'll just go for the low-hanging fruit; correlation vs. causation.
Correlation is used to described two events that change together but do not cause the change to occur. Causation is used to describe two events that depend upon each other for change. Yes I know it's more complex than that, blah blah blah. Anyway, two correlating events would be ice cream sales and temperature. As the temperature increases, so too do ice cream sales. That makes sense, right? Now what if I told you that it was getting hotter because people were buying ice cream? You'd look at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead. No rational human being could assume that simply because those two things increased and decreased together that they would be causing the change in the other... right? ...Guys?
Causation is pretty much what it sounds like, one event causes the other. A good example of that would be ingesting alcohol and becoming intoxicated. There is a direct and provable link between the two. What if I suggested there wasn't? That those two things just happen at the same time but aren't causative? What's that? Why, yes, that is a dick on my forehead! A simple misunderstanding of words and their meanings is actively causing the deaths of thousands of human beings each year. Think of that the next time you hear someone dismiss an argument by saying, "It's just semantics!" In fact, if we had all just been thinking in the first place we wouldn't be here now.
[By the way, the Jason Bourne Chiropractor comparison is courtesy of an Irish comic by the name of Dara O'Briain and his routine is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Check it out!]
In short: If you choose not to get vaccinated for any reason other than allergy or immune system compromise you deserve to get polio and are complicit in the deaths of those who cannot get vaccinated. Go get yourself a grim reaper robe, champ.
In long: There has always been a minority contingent of people opposed to vaccines. In the early days of the practice this was perfectly understandable and even necessary as vaccines were not nearly as safe or effective as they are now. People had to perform a cost-benefit-risk analysis when it came to deciding if they should be immunized. More than 100 years ago this involved some actual risk as the possibility of infection, allergic reaction, or just simply having the vaccine fail to protect you were decent possibilities in an age when food safety consisted of "less formaldehyde in the milk means we have to pay those filthy Irish farmers more!" some MD's still considered blood letting to be a viable option for the Spanish Flu and chiropractors thought they could cure asthma by twisting your neck in a way that would make Jason Bourne jealous and give Jean Claude van Damme a hard on (Wait... they still do this? Oops!).
However, today the effectiveness and safety of vaccines is unparalleled. Until recently, diseases like Polio had all but been eradicated within the United States while cases of measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis (whooping cough), and a variety of other commonly vaccinated against illnesses had become so rare that getting them netted you a personalized spot in the CDC's MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), which is kind of the Rolling Stone of disease control and prevention, only with less boobs and more awful infections and injuries.
Vaccines are not just crucial to individual health, they are crucial to the health of large populations. Remember how I said that Polio had all but been eliminated? Well, thanks to people failing to get vaccinated it's coming back (http://tinyurl.com/l8z3jql http://tinyurl.com/mov3zz). For an explanation as to why immunizations work to keep the greater good safe I suggest this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPcC4oGB_o8 It demonstrates herd immunity using gummi bears and takes a little over 2 minutes so even the most ADD of you can handle it. Plus it uses bright colors and relatively small words.
Not only is Polio coming back, but everybody's other favorite old school disease, the mumps, is also making a solid comeback, and not all of it can be attributed to filthy hipsters trying to ironically contract an illness no one hears about anymore. http://tinyurl.com/m7b8b2v
"But wait!" You mewl while flapping your arms about ineffectually, "We didn't get vaccinated a hundred years ago! My grandfather never got vaccinated and he lived to be 100 years old and never took a sick day!"
Your grandfather also lived in a time when going from New York to Paris in a metal tube powered by explosions was the sort of thing Jules Vern would have laughed at as being too outlandish. He lived at a time when men were men, hard work was valued and the average life expectancy was around 60 years so you better get crackin' or you'll be dead of old age before you know it! (http://tinyurl.com/cskr7sl). He lived at a time when widespread epidemics were confined to a few of the really nasty bugs, took months upon months to spread and and infant mortality percentages from illness and injury were anywhere from the mid-teens to high twenties (http://tinyurl.com/kjeqbnb). The fact that your grandfather made it out of childhood while you whine about getting a flu shot is a testament to the kind of man you'll never be.
Citing the past as an excuse for your present failings is just about the worst thing you can do. The Americans of a century ago didn't spit in the face of progress, they embraced that shit. When Orville Wright decided he was sick and tired of those feathered fucks soaring through the wild blue yonder he didn't just shrug it off and say "Eh, it's too hard to understand how flight works," he built a machine and took the fight to those smug bastards. And did we stop there? Fuck no! In the same amount of time it takes to make a $2000 bottle of scotch we went from a kerosene powered bird harasser to stabbing the moon with our flag just so it knows who owns it! And because that's not enough we went back so many times we got bored and decided to play golf (http://tinyurl.com/k4xlog7) and go 4-wheeling (http://tinyurl.com/l9vckn8).
Of course for every Louis Pasteur there is a John R. Brinkley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley) and that's why I have to address the vaccines and Autism "controversy." Why do I put the quotation marks around the word "controversy?" Because it isn't one. Because the one study that was used to start that scare has been discredited so hard that the author lost his license to practice medicine and was criminally charged (http://tinyurl.com/m29kq94). Because that's what should happen when you craft a fake study with the intent to defraud people and end up causing a world-wide health crises that continues to this day. So why do people still think vaccines cause Autism? For the same reason that people think aspartame causes cancer, GMO food is bad for you, and homeopathy is real. A basic misunderstanding of science and statistics coupled with a media that knows how to get customers inflamed in an attempt to drive ratings. And it's not helped when Americans are so poorly trained on what a "credible source" is that we take potentially life ending advice from a woman primarily known for showing her tits for money and some dude famous for a role in which he literally talked out of his ass (http://tinyurl.com/kbe8p, http://tinyurl.com/q7dj452, http://tinyurl.com/hxamy). Since that's a lot of shit to tackle I'll just go for the low-hanging fruit; correlation vs. causation.
Correlation is used to described two events that change together but do not cause the change to occur. Causation is used to describe two events that depend upon each other for change. Yes I know it's more complex than that, blah blah blah. Anyway, two correlating events would be ice cream sales and temperature. As the temperature increases, so too do ice cream sales. That makes sense, right? Now what if I told you that it was getting hotter because people were buying ice cream? You'd look at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead. No rational human being could assume that simply because those two things increased and decreased together that they would be causing the change in the other... right? ...Guys?
 |
| I'll just leave this here... http://tinyurl.com/l9qy9oq |
[By the way, the Jason Bourne Chiropractor comparison is courtesy of an Irish comic by the name of Dara O'Briain and his routine is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Check it out!]
Monday, January 6, 2014
Dissappointed? Sure. Surprised? Hell no.
So, this happened:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/al-qaeda-force-captures-fallujah-amid-rise-in-violence-in-iraq/2014/01/03/8abaeb2a-74aa-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html
and
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/world/middle_east/battles-intensify-for-control-of-fallujah/2014/01/04/5ef4d3a8-9166-4037-af56-4ed6822a8609_video.html
Apparently al Qaeda has taken back Fallujah in every real sense of the word; national flags torn down and replaced, no ISF, IA, or IP's anywhere to be found (no real change there), large scale firefights, it's like someone got into their flux capacitor enabled blue Bongo truck (or maybe it's a maroon Opel?) and went back in time to 2004.
And you know what? Fuck 'em, they can have it. I don't know anyone who deployed to Iraq because they genuinely wanted to help the Iraqi people and give them freedom. Save that shit for interviews with people who have more stars on their collar or stripes on their sleeves than brains. And you know what? They don't believe it either. Speaking for myself, at no point in either of my deployments did I shoulder on my 60 pound med bag on top of another 60 pounds worth of armor, ammo, water, and other assorted gear to wander around the 100+ degree night and splash oh-so-playfully in a canal whose express purpose was less "irrigation" and more "open air feces conveyance," while getting shot at and hoping like hell that the piece of concrete I'm kneeling on isn't camouflaging an IED because I wanted the Iraqi people to be able to get a 10 piece extra crispy on the way home from the local al Walmart.
Sure, there was talk down at the street level of the war about "winning hearts and minds," but no one took that seriously. Come on, we may have been filthy, uneducated enlisted men, but even the cannon fodder knows that giving some guy a generator and case of JP8 tainted water after blowing up his house, shop, friends houses, and car is a lot like giving your wife gas station flowers and half a box of chocolates as an apology after she catches you defiling her sister and best friend at the same time... in your shared bed... with all of her co-workers watching. Its so half-assed its worse than no apology at all.
No, I didn't leave the comforts of America and spend two, 7 month all expenses paid vacations in the largest cat box around because I wanted to give the Iraqis freedom, or because I wanted "fight the terrorists in Iraq so they don't come to America," or because I believed it was making the world or my nation safer. I did it because I was ordered to, and that's what you do after you sign on the dotted line and raise your hand. I did it because I wasn't about to let a platoon of men that I had grown to love (and hate) like my own family go without me, because I didn't trust anyone else to take care of them, and I wouldn't want to go with anyone else. And I doubt I was alone in that.
Its an old cliche` that you don't fight for a flag or a country, you fight for the man next to you. And just because its a cliche` doesn't mean it isn't true. That Iraq has become a bloody shit hole and all of the gains made by the men and women who fought and bled there are being lost doesn't come as a surprise. Hell, even the most boot Marine around in 2005 thought it would all go to hell when the US left. And that's coming from someone whose capabilities are trusted so little that he's required to have dummy cords on his other dummy cords and has to inform a superior when he goes to the head.
The sting of having fought in a war that was initiated by lies, managed by fools, and paid for with the blood of our nations youth doesn't lessen much with time, but it becomes more bearable. Seeing the ground we fought for retaken by the enemy just freshens the feeling. It also brings up anger, disbelief, and at least a little bit of betrayal considering the governments treatment of veterans lately, but if this development is going to spawn anything other than a few more drunken nights of "no shit, there I was..." war stories, then it should be action. Action to educate, remember, and prevent things like the Iraq war from happening again.
OIF and OEF has created an incredible segment of American society. We now have hundreds of thousands of young men and women who are more educated, informed, and trained than generations of American warfighters that came before them. We have a generation that has the means to achieve great things in life and the drive to do so. The battles in Fallujah, Ramadi, Nasiriyah, Baghdad, Kandahar, Bagram, Sangin, and Gardez weren't fought by the meek. They were fought by the very finest our nation has to offer. And the fight isn't over yet.
As it stands many of our fellow vets are homeless, jobless, suffering the physical and mental pains of war, behind bars or headed there soon. We have elected officials who seem to want to forget the Iraq war, the actions that lead to it, and the consequences that came as a result. I find it hard to watch senators screech and flap their arms on TV in an effort to get American troops sent in to Syria or Libya, it would seem that the McCain's of the senate and house have forgotten what it's like to have fought in a needless war. Perhaps they need a reminder.
Perhaps they need to see the men and women who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan leading from the front in local, regional, and national politics, challenging the embarrassment our national legislature has become. Perhaps they need to see modern day veterans creating organizations that not only help their fellow warriors in need, but bolster our collective voices. Perhaps they need to see vets as something other than a talking point or line item, or political weapon, and instead see them as the most powerful force for potential change in our nation that is out there. Perhaps they need to see that while most of America is willing to sweep this whole bloody mess under the rug and pretend it didn't happen, her veterans, the men and women who agreed to be the pointed tip of our nations spear with no questions asked, are not willing to "go gentle into that good night."
Losing Fallujah and Ramadi hurts. But losing our memory of how we got there will be lethal.
Yut, err, kill. Blah, blah, blah.
and
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/world/middle_east/battles-intensify-for-control-of-fallujah/2014/01/04/5ef4d3a8-9166-4037-af56-4ed6822a8609_video.html
Apparently al Qaeda has taken back Fallujah in every real sense of the word; national flags torn down and replaced, no ISF, IA, or IP's anywhere to be found (no real change there), large scale firefights, it's like someone got into their flux capacitor enabled blue Bongo truck (or maybe it's a maroon Opel?) and went back in time to 2004.
And you know what? Fuck 'em, they can have it. I don't know anyone who deployed to Iraq because they genuinely wanted to help the Iraqi people and give them freedom. Save that shit for interviews with people who have more stars on their collar or stripes on their sleeves than brains. And you know what? They don't believe it either. Speaking for myself, at no point in either of my deployments did I shoulder on my 60 pound med bag on top of another 60 pounds worth of armor, ammo, water, and other assorted gear to wander around the 100+ degree night and splash oh-so-playfully in a canal whose express purpose was less "irrigation" and more "open air feces conveyance," while getting shot at and hoping like hell that the piece of concrete I'm kneeling on isn't camouflaging an IED because I wanted the Iraqi people to be able to get a 10 piece extra crispy on the way home from the local al Walmart.
Sure, there was talk down at the street level of the war about "winning hearts and minds," but no one took that seriously. Come on, we may have been filthy, uneducated enlisted men, but even the cannon fodder knows that giving some guy a generator and case of JP8 tainted water after blowing up his house, shop, friends houses, and car is a lot like giving your wife gas station flowers and half a box of chocolates as an apology after she catches you defiling her sister and best friend at the same time... in your shared bed... with all of her co-workers watching. Its so half-assed its worse than no apology at all.
No, I didn't leave the comforts of America and spend two, 7 month all expenses paid vacations in the largest cat box around because I wanted to give the Iraqis freedom, or because I wanted "fight the terrorists in Iraq so they don't come to America," or because I believed it was making the world or my nation safer. I did it because I was ordered to, and that's what you do after you sign on the dotted line and raise your hand. I did it because I wasn't about to let a platoon of men that I had grown to love (and hate) like my own family go without me, because I didn't trust anyone else to take care of them, and I wouldn't want to go with anyone else. And I doubt I was alone in that.
Its an old cliche` that you don't fight for a flag or a country, you fight for the man next to you. And just because its a cliche` doesn't mean it isn't true. That Iraq has become a bloody shit hole and all of the gains made by the men and women who fought and bled there are being lost doesn't come as a surprise. Hell, even the most boot Marine around in 2005 thought it would all go to hell when the US left. And that's coming from someone whose capabilities are trusted so little that he's required to have dummy cords on his other dummy cords and has to inform a superior when he goes to the head.
The sting of having fought in a war that was initiated by lies, managed by fools, and paid for with the blood of our nations youth doesn't lessen much with time, but it becomes more bearable. Seeing the ground we fought for retaken by the enemy just freshens the feeling. It also brings up anger, disbelief, and at least a little bit of betrayal considering the governments treatment of veterans lately, but if this development is going to spawn anything other than a few more drunken nights of "no shit, there I was..." war stories, then it should be action. Action to educate, remember, and prevent things like the Iraq war from happening again.
OIF and OEF has created an incredible segment of American society. We now have hundreds of thousands of young men and women who are more educated, informed, and trained than generations of American warfighters that came before them. We have a generation that has the means to achieve great things in life and the drive to do so. The battles in Fallujah, Ramadi, Nasiriyah, Baghdad, Kandahar, Bagram, Sangin, and Gardez weren't fought by the meek. They were fought by the very finest our nation has to offer. And the fight isn't over yet.
As it stands many of our fellow vets are homeless, jobless, suffering the physical and mental pains of war, behind bars or headed there soon. We have elected officials who seem to want to forget the Iraq war, the actions that lead to it, and the consequences that came as a result. I find it hard to watch senators screech and flap their arms on TV in an effort to get American troops sent in to Syria or Libya, it would seem that the McCain's of the senate and house have forgotten what it's like to have fought in a needless war. Perhaps they need a reminder.
Perhaps they need to see the men and women who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan leading from the front in local, regional, and national politics, challenging the embarrassment our national legislature has become. Perhaps they need to see modern day veterans creating organizations that not only help their fellow warriors in need, but bolster our collective voices. Perhaps they need to see vets as something other than a talking point or line item, or political weapon, and instead see them as the most powerful force for potential change in our nation that is out there. Perhaps they need to see that while most of America is willing to sweep this whole bloody mess under the rug and pretend it didn't happen, her veterans, the men and women who agreed to be the pointed tip of our nations spear with no questions asked, are not willing to "go gentle into that good night."
Losing Fallujah and Ramadi hurts. But losing our memory of how we got there will be lethal.
Yut, err, kill. Blah, blah, blah.
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