History Lessons

A while back, I took a trip; spent a few days in Georgetown. No, not the one in DC. The Georgetown in Malaysia, at the North end of the Malacca Straits.

It's a pretty ramshackle place - a leftover from the colonial days of the British Empire, set there to protect the shipping in the straits. Named, I presume after The Mad King George. Not much to see, and seems like everybody smokes incessantly, so eating is a bit of a challenge. Probably the most interesting place was Fort Cornwallis (1786). Yes, named after that Cornwallis. Awarded a fort, I guess, for coming in second at the Battle of Yorktown (1781). It occurred to me later that the General would probably never have been so famous if he had won the battle. Enduring fame would have come to a later commander, the one who finally lost the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. In the course of that war the British Army won most of the battles but, as predicted early by Sir Edmumd Burke, they could have won every battle and still lost the war. You cannot win a war if the other side won't stop fighting. Unless, as I've probably mentioned a few times before, you simply exterminate them (Carthagos Est Delenda).
What a terrible shame, isn't it, that Tony (The Poodle) Blair couldn't convince our own Mad King George (The Blunt Instrument) Bush? He was so intent on invading other countries, and putting them to rights, that he couldn't be bothered to check his history books.
So Now, here we are, with two lost wars, trying to find a graceful way to exit, carrying our dead with us as we go.
In Afghanistan, the warlords have never paused except to reload. Our miniscule military force on the ground has been kept rushing from pillar to post trying to find some key leader of an essentially leaderless resistance. Our wonderfully learned West Point Generals seem unable to concieve that they're fighting warriors who never even went to college.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the various factions, having been well paid, well armed, and well trained by the U.S. military and assorted CIA cohorts, are waiting for us to leave, at which time the Potemkin Government they've put up for show will disappear, and they'll set about deciding whose Man-on-a-White-Horse will become the new Brutal Thug Dictator, replacing Saddam Hussein.
Let me dedicate this to our very own American Mad King George: Masters of War

Of Course, There's Another Way

To deal with this: "In quotes: Koran-burning threat". The good pastor Terry Jones (another Reverend Jones; Oh My!), if he would reflect for a moment on the violence, the destruction, and the out and out atrocities committed by those who have professed Christianity over the last millenium or so, might wish to toss a few Holy Bibles on his bonfire, as well.
Though, truthfully (as if that has anything to do with human motivation), every kind of person of every kind of social or religious background, is sometimes given to mindless acts of violence.
Of course, it can be fun to do something that you know will provoke the ersatz outrage of those who make a profession of being outraged. Like the staffers at Fox News, in the case of those who claim to be more-Christian-than-thou. Or, of course, the ADL cadre, who troll through the news seeking any taint of anti-semitism. And then, as here, with this little piss-ant church from Florida, there are those who like to get an expression of outrage from the Muslim guardians of righteousness. As the faux outrage spirals ever higher, so to does the pay scale of the demonstrative savers of their respective societies.
I do like some of the very predictable quotes gathered in the above very modest compendium of BBC News.

Who Authorized This?

Or, How did the CIA end up such a power unto itself? How does it get to wage war, complete with war crimes, with no adult supervision? Why does nobody ever ask questions like this? Is J. Edgar Hoover still alive (or something resembling life), and working across the street from the FBI?
Report: Blackwater Created Shell Companies. Lost in the report (well, almost lost): "Last year, Panetta [CIA Director - ed.] canceled a contract with Xe that allowed the company's operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan, and shifted the work to government personnel ." My question: Just what the hell is the CIA doing loading missiles on RPVs?. Apparently, having sowed land mines over large swathes of Southeast Asia, pretty much destroying Laos and Cambodia, where people are routinely blown up still today, the ever-vigilant CIA is working hard to create yet another toxic dump in a foreign (read, not-like-us) part of the world. Isn't this sort of activity supposed to be the purview of the military?
Oh, well; I don't suppose the dead really care much whose finger pushed the button.
It's just that I take great offense that such crimes are perpetrated in my name.
It's madness! It's madness!