Land of Confusion.

 These days, one can’t help but sit back and feel frustration towards the game that never ends: Washington, District of Columbia. Recent months have been (to me) reaching epic proportions of stupidity. And sure, I’m aware that I’m not involved in the process, I’m not in the cloakrooms of the Capital building, nor am I in any way on the inside of the Obama administration. However, I think we’ve really reached a point in our political lifetime where Americans on -both- sides of the aisle are fed up with the politics both parties are playing. Off the top of my head, the last time I can imagine such a time (although I could be wrong, as I wasn’t alive then) was during the hey-days of the ’60s with Vietnam.

Certainly has the same floral bouquet, doesn’t it?

Embroiled in unpopular wars, atrocities, no real idea of WHY we are in the situation in the first place, and soldiers coming home in body-bags. Now, I’m not trying to say that our modern day conflicts are the same as the horror of the Vietnam war, either in scope or in the human cost; merely that several general facts are true in both cases which I will list for sake of clarity.

• The origins of these conflicts are both cemented in rather shaky(understatement) ideological ground.
• We don’t have a clear imperative as far as a ‘win’ or a firm exit strategy.
•  These conflicts are almost universally unpopular, hugely expensive, and ultimately limited in terms of ‘gain.’

Now, as I stated earlier, Iraq and Afghanistan are thankfully not as viscous as Vietnam was. During Tet ’68, the deadliest week of the conflict, 543 American soldiers died, with 2547 wounded. So far as I’m aware, our most costly weeks in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us between 40 and 60 lives.

And at the same time, political posturing hasn’t stopped since 9/11. The pretext for the Iraqi War is so flimsy that polls taken last year say that only 37 percent of Americans feel that the war was justified. Everyone now has heard the statements from the early days of the invasion of Iraq, culminating in the popular culture statement “Where are the WMD’s?” as well as the political fallout that brought down the Neo-conservative grip on American politics. Most talking heads will shy away from speaking about the causes of the war anymore, and instead hold the Bush Doctrine as the only motivation needed. Oh, and of course, freedom for the Iraqi people.

So, as a controversial man once said, “It’s a case of the chicken’s coming home to roost.” The idea that this what our course of action led us to, reaping the whirlwind.  That man was Malcolm X, and he was speaking about the recent assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

A disturbing thought, by the way, was pointed out to me recently by my fiancee. There are now soldiers operating in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, who were ten years old when the towers fell. To me, that’s a terrible milestone and one that I struggle with still today, when I think of the young children in my immediate and extended family in 2001.

So, while all this is going on in the Middle-East and Central Asia, our elected officials are engaging in another ideological war in regards to the Federal Budget. This war is frustrating, confusing, and frequently shows an apparent lack of common sense and perspective by both political parties, as well as an obvious lack of communication. This type of atmosphere is quickly becoming the prime export of America.

I know this post was a ramble, that we’ve gone all across the subjects of the day, but I feel it reflects my state of mind where this is all concerned, and I can’t help but think “That this is a Land of Confusion.”

Dillon, one of my dearest friends and a soldier in the United States Armed Forces recently returned home to the states from Afghanistan, alive and well. I love you brother, welcome home.

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