A Voice of Reason

Don't miss an excellent latest article by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times this week in which he states that the priority in our struggle not only to retain world leadership, but to survive should be on the economic competition with China, and not on the futile "war on terror."

Here is a quote: "Frankly, if I had my wish, we would be on our way out of Afghanistan not in, we would be letting Pakistan figure out which Taliban they want to conspire with and which ones they want to fight, we would be letting Israelis and Palestinians figure out on their own how to make peace, we would be taking $100 billion out of the Pentagon budget to make us independent of imported oil — nothing would make us more secure — and we would be reducing the reward for killing or capturing Osama bin Laden to exactly what he’s worth: 10 cents and an autographed picture of Dick Cheney."

I don't know - I would probably throw in an autographed picture of Sen. McCain and Sarah Palin as well.

You can read the entire article here.

An Important Cultural Phenomenon

"Avatar" is unquestionably the most important cultural phenomenon in the US of the past year, if not a decade. With it, James Cameron made our nation look in the mirror and be appalled at what we see. He made us cheer when Americans are savagely killed, he made us give an unequivocal answer: "It feels good" to a question, "How does it feel to betray your own country?", he made us feel triumphant when defeated and pathetic Americans are driven out of the land they tried to conquer. This is the most culturally subversive movie of the year. An absolute pleasure to watch.

Americans, driven by our usual force, greed (or interests of shareholders, as they are referred to in the movie), try to destroy a primitive aborigine culture on a distant planet in their desire to mine a very valuable mineral. When the locals refuse to give up their land and resources voluntarily, the Americans start a full-scale military operation against them... and lose. American war cry is, "We are going to fight terror with terror!" (rings the bell?), and the aborigines' only hope of winning is that they "know these mountains better" than the Americans do. In other words, the movie all but literally evokes our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and cheers our imminent defeat. But the genius of James Cameron is in not tying the plot to a specific historical moment, or a particular military conflict - but rather turning the movie into a parable which can be interpreted as an archetype for a variety of situations, including Israel's war against Palestinians, and any future conflicts the Western world may be involved in against indigenous populations of various countries blessed with natural resources.

The movie presents a special challenge to our mainstream media. Given its astonishing commercial success, the media cannot possibly just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Nor do they dare to analyse its message - again, given its remarkable success (does this mean that Americans are buying the message and are attuned to it? or does it mean that Americans are rather stupid and they just don't read more into the story than the sci-fi plot?). Actually, I mostly see just the reports of dollar figures on the ticket sales while calling the movie "a sci-fi epic." I understand the media establishment's predicament, and enjoy watching them wiggle their way out of it.

The movie "Avatar," - if it is truly understood and accepted by the American public - can be a very significant step in us taking a critical look at ourselves as a country and changing the course, rather than staying it. The movie is as much an important cultural phenomenon as the media's attempt to divert its significance by trivializing it as another idiotic "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings."

Both, the movie and its commercial success, make me hopeful for the future of our nation.

Tell Me Who Your Friend is

The USA is squarely on the side of the "young Georgian democracy" in its conflicts with Russia. Here is what I - surprise, surprise! - do not see reported in our American propaganda - eh-h-h - news. The democratic republic of Georgia decided to blow up a WWII memorial. Let me remind you that the Soviet Union was the decisive force in the victory over the Nazi Germany having lost 27 million lives of its own citizens. Among those killed were 300,000 Georgians. Not to worry. The monument was to be demolished to make way for the construction of the new Georgian parliament building (curiously being moved outside of the Georgian capital Tbilisi). Mr. Saakashvili timed the demolition so that it would coincide with his birthday on December 21 (incidentally, that day is also the birthday of another famous Georgian, Stalin). Georgian opposition voiced their protests against the demolition which were, naturally, ignored in the best traditions of the Georgian democracy. Anyway, the blast was eventually held 2 days ahead of the schedule for reasons unexplained to the press. During the explosion a woman and her 8-year-old daughter were killed by a piece of debris which accidentally hit them.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Saakashvili! Hope you get a particularly tasteful tie as a present.

Great friends we have, really! Blowing up monuments to people who defeated fascism (blowing up their own citizens as a collateral damage, too). Huge portraits of Stalin can still be seen on the streets of Georgian cities. What do friendships like that say about us? Oh, wait. I remember that at some point Osama bin Laden was our friend. Never mind!

The news has been reported by Reuters, and some other Western media - but not the US. Oh, no, not the US. We do not report unpleasant news about our dear friends. We are all Georgians here, remember? Count me out.

A New War SurTax - a Brilliant Idea!

A couple of Midwest congressmen (one is a US Senator) are proposing a new surtax on the "rich" (people making over $200 or $250K) to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not a secret that wealthy people tend to be more conservative in their political preferences, and hence are more likely to support those totally unnecessary wars which they sincerely believe or hypocritically proclaim to be protecting our "safety." I totally agree that we need to invite weatlhy war supporters to put their money where their mouth is, and hope that all of a sudden they will realize that all those wars do exactly what they were meant to do - that is not to fight terrorism, not to "keep America safe", but to enrich a bunch of companies (and kill a few hundred thousand of Iraqis and Afghans in the process - but who cares and who counts, right?). Meanwhile, I hope that high US earners who do not support these wars will start to think seriously about emigrating from the US. Maybe this in turn will send a message to our government. The more I think about it, the more New Zealand appeals to me. Read the whole story here.

$320,000,000 DAILY FUEL BILL for the Marines alone in Afghanistan

I came across a most interesting column by Paul Craig Roberts, an economist who used to be one of the masterminds of Reaganomics serving as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan. He held a number of high and prestigious academic positions, is an author of numerous books, and as a persona non grata in the American mass media, he can be called an American dissident. He was awarded Legion d'honneur, the highest French Order, by French President Francois Mitterrand. You can read the text of his column from which I borrowed the title of the today's post here. In it, he discusses how needs of the US citizens are thrown under the bus by our government which minds almost exclusively interests of the financial elite, and of the military-industrial complex. (For example, we the people are being charged $400 per GALLON of fuel used by our troops in Afghanistan, and we spend those gallons like there is no tomorrow while arguing with straight faces that we do not have enough money for the national health care.)

On the other hand, here is a permanent link to the list of all of his columns.

I consider myself lucky to have discovered such a distinguished, well-informed and intelligent source of information and interpretation of the current situation.

P.S. My Russian-speaking readers can read an excellent in-depth interview with Paul Craig Roberts to a Washington, DC - based correspondent of a Russian news site slon.ru here.

The Spirit of the Times

I have heard about the movie "Zeitgeist" from my overseas friends. I am not sure where you can watch it in the US, other on YouTube. The whole movie contains 3 parts, one of which offers a very different version of the events of 9/11 from the one we were officially told. Below you can find links to the 4 segments of that part about 9/11. I want to say that I would be delighted to disbelieve the scientists and engineers who discuss their findings in this movie, but the evidence presented by them would have to be refuted with equally solid proof. If somebody knows of such proof, please send it my way. "Evidence" like "this could not have happened because this would be crazy!" does not sound convincing to me. The links I am providing are to 4 segments of that Part Two of the whole movie. The entire length of these four segments together is about 35 minutes long. Watch it and judge for yourself. Oh, and by the way, the German word "Zeitgeist" means "the spirit of the times."

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Who do you love more: Mom of Dad?

Have you ever been asked who you loved more, Mom or Dad? What a stupid question to ask, right?! Don't you think it is equally stupid to ask people to choose between their country and their religion? Yet we are asking them to do just that when we send Muslims in our military to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq. The wars we are fighting there may not be overtly religious wars (and understandably, they are being fought for purely economic, not religious or political reasons), but the divide between the sides is along the religious lines.


If we continue to stubbornly oppose the fact that Muslims should not be asked to choose their country over their religion, we risk having many more Maj. Nidal M. Hasans. We will breed a strong fifth column in our military. After all, we did not send Japanese Americans to fight with Japan in World War II.

I am not saying that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in our military forces. But they absolutely should not be required to serve in combat against Islamists. To ignore the obvious fact of their split loyalties is to make a grave mistake.

An American Hero

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain decorated for his bravery in combat, an recently a Foreign Service officer, resigns in a protest over the Afghan war. Having spent much time in Iraq and Afghanistan, both as an officer, and as a civilian, he came to the conclusion that our presence in Afghanistan only fuels the local guerrilla war against the invaders and strengthens the positions of the Taliban. He is convinced that not only we are fighting the war we cannon win, but that the results of our war in Afghanistan are opposite of what we were trying to achieve. It turns out that the level of violence actually surges when the American troops are present. One can win a war against some organized armed force, but not a war against much of the population which you failed to convince to support you. Americans are in essence fighting and dying in a local civil war between an secular urban citizens of Afghanistan and the religeous rural population. At this point the insurgency against the American presence is not managed from one "center" - it is spontaneous and omnipresent. We are much hated by the Afghan pepople also because we are supporting the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai. From his extensive experience, Matthew Hoh can no longer justify our military presence in Afghanistan. You can read more on the story here.

As one of the commentators noted on the Newsvine forum discussing this news, "The US WILL lose this war, just like every other war-mongering empire has lost a war in Afghanistan in the past and once again we will have learned absolutely nothing. In the process, thousands more American kids will die, thousands of innocent civilians will be slaughtered, and thousands more will be permanently scarred just so some defense contractor can make a profit, and a few people can get re-elected. "

Matthew Hoh - a true American Hero.