Rant o' the Day - THE WAR

I have trouble with irrational behavior. I'm one of those people who truly believes that the presence of large amounts of gray matter in a mammal should imply a certain degree of higher intelligence. Regardless of loads of evidence to the contrary, I hold to the idea that we are a sentient species. So with regards to this insanity in Iraq, I just keep saying, "WTF?"

I just finished this rather lengthy article in The Nation. Yep, it seems that it is up to, like, one, non-mainstream (I'm the only person I know that reads it, makes it non-mainstream in my book) periodical to bother to amass and chronicle what the vets are really saying. The Nation interviewed 50 combat veterans from around the States and actually documented what they said about how American soldiers are enduring what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls an "atrocity-producing situation." You think? Let's see - take a bunch of testosterone poisoned, wet behind the ears teenagers, amped and armed, underpaid, scared shitless and unsure if they're ever going to see home again and add tense checkpoints, futile house to house searches, endless high speed convoys through streets full of IED's, no understanding of the culture or language of the people around them, no way to know who's an enemy - and you expect maybe it's going to be all sunshine and puppies?

You know what? No one in the anemic "peace movement" wants to beat up the vets a'la Vietnam. But we're doing that doomed-to-repeat-it thing again, in spades. People are DYING over there. Lots and lots of grandmothers and babies and women and children. And nobody over here gives a rat's ass as long as it's over there and we can still watch Dancing with the Stars with our Lean Cuisine. You can barely get a good American interested in OUR casualties. (Vietnam was the same until the draft - nobody cares if only poor boys are dying. And we're still dealing with the PTSD of that war.)

Back to my original problem with irrational behavior. What has happened to the gray matter in this country? When did Americans get so looney? When did rational people start believing that a little sandlot of a country was a threat to AMERICA THE HEAVILY ARMED? Why can't we just leave? Huh? Want a hint? Read this.