What Will Winning Look Like?

I believe that, if you’re going to go to war, you go to win.  You have an attainable goal like “We’re going to conquer this land” or “We’re going to drive those folks out of this country” or “We’re going to commandeer all the natural resources in this place.” and you pour money and manpower into making it happen.

You don’t go to war to fight an idea–like terrorism or Islamic fundamentalism–because wars aren’t effective ways to fight ideas and it’s impossible to understand when we’ve won.  Will we have won the war on terror after four years without a terrorist attack?  Ten?  Will we have vanquished Islamic functionalism if women can take off their burqas?  Or when men can talk to women in public?  How do we recognize our enemy when today a person might be on our side, but one Britney Spears video or one stray bullet, and suddenly that person is determined to help wipe us off the planet?

And so here we are in Iraq.  We’re fighting a war there, but for what?  We’ve gotten rid of Saddam.  What’s our goal?  To bring peace?  Or to establish a democratic government?  Or what?

Because, really, I think leaving now would be a mistake, even though I think this is the stupidest war we’ve ever fought.  But when you start thinking about two soldiers mutilated and boobytrapped with bombs, you just start to think that vague “We’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” bullshit just isn’t cutting it any more.

I don’t even know any more who “them” is.  Who is our enemy?  How do we recognize them in order to fight them?  How will we know when we’ve beaten them?  Do our troops have enough protection?  Do they have the equipment and supplies they need?  What will constitute victory?

Seriously, America, help me understand what our objectives are and the criteria we’re using to decide if those objectives are being met.  Because right now?

I don’t think we have any.  No objectives and no criteria.

And what’s worse is that we seem to be fighting an opponent who is willing to do batshit crazy things.  I mean, seriously.  Rigging corpses to explode?  I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for the soldiers who found that.

Yes, I know it’s war and that people are going to die.  But this war just seems like it’s full of the most pointless deaths ever, kids who might have been better used here at home or rebuilding Afghanistan or whatever.  Why are we even fighting in Iraq, again?

I mean, I hate to make absurd suggestions, but the fundamentalist Muslims hate the same things about us that our own fundamentalist Christians do–our decadent culture and the freedoms our women have.  Why aren’t we fighting this war primarily as a war of propaganda?

Why aren’t we flooding Iraq with pornography and women’s t-shirts and Hollywood blockbusters and Mapplethorpe photos and A Room of One’s Own and condoms and liquor?  Turn them into the very thing they hate and fear?  Us.

In Which I Learn a Valuable Lesson and Make a Suggestion to the Wild Boar

The Valuable Lesson: If the fire alarm goes off and you exit the building without making sure that everyone in your office knows what’s going on, the person left will be pissed off.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a fire or she would have been pissed off.*

 

The Suggestion: Open for lunch and get some tables outside.  Also, comp me for making this awesome suggestion**.

 

 

 

*I think the italics convey the difference between "I’m going to tell you I’m mad" and "My ghost will haunt you so bad and every time you go to have sex, I will stand at the end of your bed and make disparaging ethereal-voiced comments about how small your partner is and how much you look like a moldy ham sandwich while using the voice of your dead grandma, which I totally will be able to, because I’ll be dead.  Thanks, bitches."

**Does anyone actually get comped cool shit because of their blog?  I bet Roboto does.  It must be so great to be Roboto.

Well, So Much for Well Trained

Someone, and I’m not pointing any fingers, acted like such a nincompoop when faced with the world’s oldest dog (who was doing nothing but admiring Tier’s light pole) that I’m embarrassed to be seen by the world’s oldest dog’s owner ever again.

Yes, it’s true.  Many of us fear old age and it’s companion, impending death, but we don’t go around growling and barking and lunging at old folks.

That same someone also barked at a very small dog and then seemed surprised and hurt when that small dog barked right back.

And that same someone barked at the cat, which so startled the cat that he leaped over some dishes in an ungraceful manner, thus sending the dishes into the subject of this post.

Serves her right.

Now, she’s sleeping at my feet, which is no wonder.  She’s lived more in the past hour than most of us live all day.