Not wanting to stir up trouble, but, in spite of my overabundance of patriotism, it occurs to me that there is a big difference between defending one's country and giving one's life trying to make a temporary slight difference in a few Afghani women's lives.It is also pretty expensive. Seems cheaper to just relentlessly bomb the folk in Pakistan who attacked us 10 years ago. A little late, perhaps, but who knows.
Our election is Tuesday and it strikes me as odd that there are more female members in the Afghani Parliament than we have in the U.S. Senate. Just an observation; perhaps a little more attention should be paid to the home front women.
I suppose this is a political opinion, so I apologize.
No need to apologize. Seems we spend a lot of time worrying about the mote in other countries' eyes, so to speak, and not paying attention to the huge logs sticking out of our own.
ReplyDeleteYes, we need to focus a lot more on the home front on all topics, from both genders...
ReplyDeleteI'm ready for a change.
It's very good politics to try and focus your voters on things far from home.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. empire has got a somewhat spotty record where it comes to trying to tribal states into democracies.
It may sound good at home, but these are people whose democracy occurs not at national, but at village level. They don't do things as we do, but that seemed not to be any sort of drawback back in the eighties when we were teaching them how to make IEDs, and sending special forces to show them how to down helicopter gunships.
As for the ratio of women in parliament.... well, America, more than 50% of your voters are women. So are women not voting for women? I wonder why?
@ Soubriquet (so Max doesn't think I'm shouting at him)
ReplyDeleteHalf the women I know still think women can't be in politics because "we're mentally unstable at certain times of the month."
/rolls eyes
If we can't convince women to stop believing the BS, how can we expect anyone else to? (Sorry, pet peeve).
I'm with you on this one (except cluster bombing more tons of civilians on the off chance someone bad is hiding among them).
good political opinion!
ReplyDeletep.s.
thanks for visiting my blog!!
stephanie: Women "mentally unstable at certain times of the month."? Surely not! Whatever gave you that idea?
ReplyDeleteWell, I've known women who could go berserk in moments if they had difficulty with a can-opener, so I'd certainly have my doubts about any woman having her thumb anywhere near the launch button whilst in the grip of hormonal insanity...
"That russian on television just gave me a nasty look, so BOOM! See how insolent you dare be when you learn Vladivostok's gone!"
There's something scary about women being combat pilots too.
However, my point stands that women are a majority in western society, and as such, if women really wanted a government of women, it could happen.
Affirmative action, or artificial bias, is not the way.
Cluster bombing civilians? that's the American way too.
Because if just one of the people killed is a bad guy, then the attack was righteous.
The US bombing people far away? No change there eh?
ReplyDeleteWomen in politics? I give you the mad Baroness Thatcher and her opponent Harriet Harman! And you can keep these and other self obsessed women.
I should not have put the part about women in politics in this post, because it confused and diluted the one issue this post was about. Forget the women and let me be more clear:
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. military should get the hell out of Afghanistan and go back to school and learn what the purpose of an Army is. An army is for killing your enemies and destroying their will to fight you, nothing else. Since Vietnam, U.S. Politicians (and generals) have somehow gotten it into their heads that an army is for building roads and schools and propping up corrupt government puppets that the army has put in place.
Adullamite: yes, if our enemies come from far away, then fight them and bomb them far away. And do away with smart bombs. Killing civilians is what ends wars, not killing armies. Civilians in pain force governments to surrender. You would have war clean and pretty. So would our memory-less politicians. There is no incentive to avoid war if it is clean and pretty and civilians do not suffer.
Your continuing hatred of the U.S. is duly noted.
The point about women in politics is a completely different issue, and I should not have mixed it in with this post.
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ReplyDeleteOkay, I largely agree with you on thwe proper use of armies.
ReplyDeleteIn my case it's not hatred of the u.s, but a certain distaste for u.s. foreign policy.
The proper use of military force is, very definitely, to exert devastating force and smash the enemy into a terrified pulp. So terrified thatfurther insurrection is unthinkable.
However, we tie our miliary's hands, and tell them to "Hold your position, take no offensive action", we expect them to endure under incoming fire, of ten without retaliation, whilst politicians hold meetings.
I'm not sure what Sun Tzu says the object of war is. I'd say "To win", and if you keep that idea in mind, then everything you do is done with one aim.
It seems to me that there's no clear objective either in Iran or Afghanistan, one day it's poppy fields, another day it's taliban chasing, truth is, they're pissing money away, resources away, and, most importantly, they're pissing lives away.
And for what? Hands up, class, can anyone tell me what the objective is?
Find WMD? Depose Saddam? Install western-friendly government in happy prosperous western friendly state?
Get women into government?
Or make Halliburton shareholders rich?
I can't tell you what the object is. To piss money away? To waste lives? I don't know why seemingly simple concepts need such complicated responses by governments.
ReplyDeleteSee, there I agree.
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