Dumb and Dumber
“I don’t oppose all wars,” said State Senator Barack Obama from the speaker’s platform at an antiwar rally in downtown Chicago in October 2002. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.”
Dumb and rash—that pretty much sums up the threatened US bombing of Syria.
In this age of permanent war we’re once again treated to selective images of war’s brutality and the tragic human suffering war imposes (a reporter for NPR, betraying incredible ignorance of the proper role of a free journalist, said, “I’ve seen the gas attack videos from the Defense Department, and it seems the US must do something.”); once again we’re asked to forget the consequences of US interventions in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and more; once again we’re told to ignore the “ignorant foreigners” from the UN, the Arab League, and Great Britain (!!!) as the warrior leaders crank up their phony front-group “NATO” and assemble an ever-shrinking “coalition of the willing;” once again a group of Dr. Strangeloves from the Pentagon makes smiling and extravagant claims about the evolution of our creepy new war technology (“You can see these surgical strikes on YouTube!”) that guarantees success without harming a single innocent.
Dumb war.
Quick, bring in the “intellectuals!”
Richard Fontaine, the president of the Center for a New American
Dumb and rash—that pretty much sums up the threatened US bombing of Syria.
In this age of permanent war we’re once again treated to selective images of war’s brutality and the tragic human suffering war imposes (a reporter for NPR, betraying incredible ignorance of the proper role of a free journalist, said, “I’ve seen the gas attack videos from the Defense Department, and it seems the US must do something.”); once again we’re asked to forget the consequences of US interventions in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and more; once again we’re told to ignore the “ignorant foreigners” from the UN, the Arab League, and Great Britain (!!!) as the warrior leaders crank up their phony front-group “NATO” and assemble an ever-shrinking “coalition of the willing;” once again a group of Dr. Strangeloves from the Pentagon makes smiling and extravagant claims about the evolution of our creepy new war technology (“You can see these surgical strikes on YouTube!”) that guarantees success without harming a single innocent.
Dumb war.
Quick, bring in the “intellectuals!”
Richard Fontaine, the president of the Center for a New American
