In the words of that timeless philosopher Axl Rose.
“What’s so civil about war anyway?”
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My hands are tied
For all I’ve seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars(full lyrics below the fold).
So I was walking to get my coffee and the first song Pandora thought I should hear was Civil War. This was one of the howl at the moon songs we used to serenade the entire barracks with when we were lit up. I have said before I think it is a great song and a brilliant anti-war anthem. If it doesn’t make you thinnk about the true cost of war and the failure of humans to live peacefully, then you are not paying attention
We are again looking at a foreign war and I have been trying to square in my own mind how we can justify it. I want to throw up when I hear newscasters toss around phrases like spending our blood and treasure. STFU! we are sending men and women to fight and die, have the stones to speak straight about that. It is the most consequential decision we can make and should always be a last resort.
Now that the UN has blessed a no fly zone, we will see what happens next. This action is obviously much later than it should have been and many Libyans have been slaughtered because of that failure. Once it was obvious that there was a serious resistance in Libya, we should have made some overt gesture of support. Gaddafi is a pathetic facade of a true tyrant, and he has never been particularly brave. He wet himself when Reagan launched some buzzbombs at him. He caved on his WMD programs when W deposed Saddam. Doesn’t it seem likely that if a bunch of his fighter jets blew up and holes appeared in all his runways that he might have chilled out and decided rich in exile beats being returned to your component molecules?
So what now? The Libyans are starting to talk like a good chickening out wouldn’t be the worst thing, but Madame Hillary wants to see the actions meet the words. I can’t see any scenario where US troops on the ground is a good thing, besides some Special Forces helping the rebels learn to play Army. But maybe some Egyptian tanks flying UN and Arab League colors parked near Benghazi might sharpen up the decision-making process for Gaddafi and his spawn. If he keeps hitting the rebels we can obviously give him a good taste of precision-guided weaponry and he really doesn’t have any way to oppose us.
If there was ever a time for that vaunted international community to step up and act this seems like an easy one. Strangle him economically, diplomatically and if need be literally. Personally I think he will cave shortly and go pitch his tents in somebody else’s desert oasis. If he doesn’t then it gets sticky, and all options for escalation seem to require some direct intervention. There is not much sentiment in favor of that and our own Sec Def said land war in the Middle East would be insane so this is not time for a reprise of the shores of Tripoli. In the end I think we will try to pressure him out and if that fails, we will destroy as much of his weaponry, infrastructure and personal property as possible. Insha Allah that will do the trick.
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach…
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N’ I don’t like it any more than you men.” *
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done before
Look at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can’t deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
D’you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said “Peace could last forever”
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can’t trust freedom
When it’s not in your hands
When everybody’s fightin’
For their promised land
And
I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war
Look at the shoes your filling
Look at the blood we’re spilling
Look at the world we’re killing
The way we’ve always done before
Look in the doubt we’ve wallowed
Look at the leaders we’ve followed
Look at the lies we’ve swallowed
And I don’t want to hear no more
My hands are tied
For all I’ve seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars
“We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials
For example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer” **
I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
And I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need one more war
I don’t need one more war
Whaz so civil ’bout war anyway
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