There is something wrong with the world when you get a look of pity for stating that you would rather do the “right” thing then the lazy one that will get you further.
It just happened to happen to me at work today.
I have a feeling that this is what is wrong with America.
But it’s a bigger issue.
Tonight the president is speaking on our “new” philosophy/way ahead in Afghanistan. To be honest, in war (which is what this is) you are either winning or losing. There is no halfway, there is no in-between, there is no gray. You are one or the other.
Well we’ve been loosing for a few years now. And we, the american people, somewhere along the way, forgot we are americans.
To be honest, at this point a lot of the time all I hear is whining. We are tired of war, we are tired of money, we are tired of blah blah blah.
When did we forget that we are those tough pioneers? When we make things happen by doing? When we fly into the teeth of danger because it is right, and just and what makes us who we are?
When did we forget we owned a set?
And no, this is not some false bravado, this is not immaturity. You can choose to be who you are when you are a adult. Right now, it looks like we have settled down to our nice cushy office job. America, not the home of the brave, America the home of the cubical farm, the couch potato and the purposefully blind and ignorant.
So what do we have at core? What is wrong with us? We are lazy. Physically, spiritually and mentally. And we found out that you can be lazy and still get others to do what you want. Smarter not harder right?
Instead it’s just sort of hollowing us out and leaving behind . . well not much.
So tonight when the president tells you that you have a war tax, when we are sending more troops over, and when it’s going to be a long haul. I want you to redeem yourself a little bit and think about some factors.
1.) You don’t just destroy a people and run. You leave a place better then you found it. Even if it is hard to do and even if it takes generations.
2.) We have lost a lot of folks, a lot of my friends in this war. It would be spitting on there name to turn tail and run. It would be saying they died for nothing.
3.) We are still fighting to prevent another 9/11 from happening. Try to remember what that felt like and see if you really want it again.
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It is part of the American ethos to hold certain values as distinctly American, even when they are simply values which many hold as prized. It is only in adversity that such values are forged, and America is not the land of adversity for the suburbanite, the well fed and relatively satisfied. Rare is the American who jettisons that life for anything else, especially beyond it; the pioneer spirit is mostly dormant.
There has not been in the past, from an American at least, a well defined sense of purpose for Afghanistan, but rather a nebulous idea. Nebulous ideas are not in of themselves bad, they’re just hard for many people to grasp.
Addressing the root causes of a conflict is very difficult, and takes time. The ability to articulate why this is necessary is a rare talent. We can spend money and lives on physical structures and on ground held, but we also have to change the game. If people sit on the fence because they can’t say which side is going to be worse, we have a long way to go. The Taliban were seductive because they promised a more certain, less capricious justice system than the warlords. They delivered, with gruesome effectiveness, and no flexibility. We must offer something equally compelling. This means jobs, a clean justice system (this was how the Taliban also infiltrated the NWFP in Pakistan) that is adequately staffed and resourced, and a plan for sustainable development. It may even mean developing the stable parts of the country more, or dedicating greater resources there.
The costs are not borne by the many, but by the few. Unfortunately shared sacrifice has become political suicide, at least when declared as clearly as such. After 9/11 there was a perfect inflection point, and we were told to go shopping. It was unsatisfying and insulting. There still remains a reserve of dedication to something greater than the self, but if the only option presented that supposedly fulfills that is the military, we lose many people who would contribute but cannot find themselves in that. We as a people must find a way, as we have before, to channel that into what ever avenue is available.
Comment by copp3rred December 5, 2009 @ 11:12 am