Maybe we should "Cut and Run."

I am at loss.
The war in Afghanistan is starting to seem pointless.
How does that song go? "One, two, three...what are we fighting for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam..."
Don't get me wrong at all here. September 11th required an answer. It demanded a response which would be felt around the world. The Earth needed to shake at our wrath...without a doubt. If ever there was a just reason for a military strike, it was then.

But...

Haven't we done that? Hasn't enough blood been shed...on both sides?
Are we fighting a war to kill one man...Bin Laden?
From all the reports we see, he isn't in Afghanistan...he's in Pakistan...if he is even alive still.


Here is my fear.

We are now creating generations of children who will have no other goal but to kill Americans. Young people are growing up to know nothing about the US other than we are a country killing their friends and family. Soon, no child will have known any other state of their world than war. Imagine that...your life is nothing but a continuous stream of death...from parents, to uncles, to brothers...They have no perspective of what happened in 2001. It's not as if the Taliban is going to make sure both sides of story are presented.



Think about this for a second...
What if America did some horrible thing...something awful...and we were invaded.
Would we stand back and say, "Yep, we deserve that. Kill whoever you think you need to. We will even hand them over to you."
No, of course not...every man, woman, and child would be doing everything they could to fight back. We would stand up to whatever force it was. We would forget any evil we did and unite to defend our homeland...our homes...our families.
Is that what is happening now in Afghanistan? Are there people who WERE friendly to us, but are now sick of all the fighting...so they join their countrymen? Could that be a reason why things don't seem to be going so swimmingly at the moment?
From before the Romans until now, man has had one thing in common...we are a social creature. We have evolved to be one because it is better for the survival of the species for us to group together...so when a social group/country is being torn apart...what is the natural and human reaction?
...to fight to the death to keep it.
This story will not end well.

Could PETA be what is standing in the way of "Peace in the Middle East?"

I have had a little unwanted, extra time on my hands this week. So, as a way to deal with it, I have been going to the Soup Kitchen a little more (no, I have not seen Rashawn since that one time).
I have, however, been able to speak with some other guys.
Yesterday, I had a little chat with a Vietnam Vet who works at the Kitchen.
Picture an old Tom Hanks in Castaway. See him with almost pure gray hair, grown to its maximum length. Add a beard which puffs out in a waterfall of white and drapes down to the middle of his chest. Make him have a gruff, Wolfman Jack, type voice...and you will have the guy I am talking about.
He told me he had an idea on how to end all conflicts with Muslims and not shed on drop of human blood.
Here is his plan...
Muslims believe pigs, in all the various stages from living, to butchered, to cooked...are things so unclean that a human should never touch, let alone consume. Why? I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with it being an animal which feeds on human garbage...but, I could be wrong.
It is so horrible, this pork, that even sliding a grime-covered finger over it...can result in eternal damnation. ..some sects are more forgiving than others, though, I must add. However, the more forgiving of the branches are usually not the people we have issues with.

Take some crop dusting equipment or fill big AC-130's with tanks that can hold liquid...do you see where he's going with this?
Fly over one of the most fanatical of these nations and spray away...with pig's blood. Coat an entire city...paint the town red with the stuff.
Others will fall in line pretty quickly. The wackos would see this as a horrible outrage, but wouldn't want this done to them, because there is no coming back from it. There aren't enough infidels to kill to erase having your eyes and mouth filled with pigs' blood.
For what it's worth, I think it is interesting.
I say you could take it a step further...
You could drop pig bombs. Kick a few really fat suckers out the back door and watch 'em splat around some boys planting IED's....instead of that cool whistling noise from a dropping bomb, they'd hear some porker squealing as it fell...oh, yeah, that would make 'em think twice.
We could have our guys carry raw chicken and pork when they go into a town. Grab Abdul gently by the hand and take him to some "quiet place." Then, slap him with a chicken breast for a few minutes...just long enough so his face gets all sticky and smelly with that white chicken goo...then...pull out a pork chop. Wave it in front of him and tell him, "This one is going to be dropped down your pants unless you spill the beans, bub"...bye-bye to all those virgins...
We could go a step even further, and use cloned pigs. Most religions believe, for some odd reason, that cloning is evil. Tell Mr. Mohammad we cloned Sally to Sow and he is going to be doused with an even more "evil" cloned pigs' blood from her. Tell him we have 4,ooo Wilber's and we are going to cut their throats and drain them into the city's well, or puddle, or whatever water supply they have...he'd talk.
It's mean...maybe even cruel...but I don't think it is torture. We would be using a culture's superstitions to work against them. It would be no different than a country eating rabbit on Easter.
But...
This would never happen and the reason used for not doing it would indeed be cruelty...to pigs. PETA would bomb research centers and kill scores of scientists...to save some pigs.
Here is a quote from Penn Jillette, "You want passion and truth? Okay...Teller and I would personally kill every chimp in the world, with our bare hands...if it would save one street junkie with AIDS."
While understand the Vet's idea may be naive, it does prove a point and highlight where our values are...or are not.
Hey, PETA, Man comes first.

Van Jones was not Jim Jones...

I guess America is a little safer today. The sun will shine just right, so no one gets burned, and raindrops will ask permission before they fall on someone. Mice and rabbits can run and play in the open grass without fear hawks will devour them. Dogs will take the day off and not chase cats.
All because...Van Jones is no longer in office.
I feel so much more secure...
Or should I?
Maybe I should be worried.. Maybe I should dread the fact that a person was run out of office because he signed a petition...Maybe I should be afraid that if I think someone is a racist, I will lose my job...
Van Jones thought Glenn Beck went over the top when he said the President doesn't like white people...a fact numerous advertisers agreed with, since they pulled their adds from his show.(How many minorities does Mr. Beck have working for him? Maybe he is racist?)
Van Jones thought there should be further investigations into the 9-11 terror attacks and was then labeled a "9-11 truther." Never mind some polls suggest as many as 30% of the country thinks the same way.
Van Jones, to many, was clearly an extremist because he belonged to a group which supported black activism...how dare a black man do such a thing? The horror!!! It's almost as bad as an anti-abortion person belonging to Focus on the Family...
While I think the 9-11 conspiracy theories (plural--because there are quite a few) are groundless and have been debunked thoroughly, I don't believe the same way Congressman Mike Pence does...
He said, talking about Jones, "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate."
Really? No place in the public debate?
I dare say Mike Pence has no place in Congress.
How many people believe the Earth is only 6,000 yrs old, the Face on Mars is real, watched Oliver Stone's movie and think the Kennedy assassination was government plot, the Branch Davidians were burned alive by federal agents, FEMA camps are being set up, the media's details of the Columbine shootings, the Moon Landing Hoax, aliens crashed at Roswell and are being stored at Area 51...should I go on?
All of those are absurd and have been debunked...yet, people believe and speak about them on a daily basis. However, they are no more absurd than what Van Jones was said to believe....we shall pretend he never came out against the 9-11 truther movement when asked.
I don't know which is more crazy, thinking the government had something to do with 9-11 or waterboarding a single prisoner 183 times...they both seem out there, but only one of them really happened.
No matter what Glenn Beck's chalkboard shows, Van Jones is not evil. His ideas may be odd, but it doesn't mean he uses a Ouija board or consults the dead to make sure the country in more "green."
What did Voltaire say? "I disagree with every word you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say it."
I guess Rep. Pence found the rest of the quote...
"...unless you use coarse rhetoric and have extremist beliefs."
Mike Pence is a disgrace to the Congress, to his voters...and to America.