By Donald B. Ardell – December 27, 2009
Next to religion, golf seems to me one of the silliest ways to waste time ever invented. Unlike religion, golf does not have toxic side effects that poison the waters of liberty, destroy human faculties for reason and incite tribes into murderous assaults against each other. But, it is not harmless if, due to years of dedicated training, natural ability and favorable circumstances, the golfer excels and achieves celebrity status. Tiger Woods has done that and more - he has reached not only a billion dollar level of wealth from golf-related income - he has attained a deity-level of fame. The public demands a great deal of posturing from its fabled celebrities. And therein lies a big hazard.
Celebrities are expected to follow the moral codes that religious and other social pressures extol. A married celeb of the male gender is at special risk. Mr. Woods, like other celebs, must face the ultimate sand trap - fidelity.
Fidelity comes easily to black vultures, but it is contrary to human nature. It's a wonderful thing if, somehow, a human male either pulls it off (fidelity, that is) or at least does not get caught "transgressing" from the "no one else, ever" norm associated with marriage. (Why in hell gays want to bring this burden down upon themselves is a mystery that eludes me - though I think they should be allowed to do what they like, even if it's self-destructive.) We know, from the never-ending outing of disgraced politicians, that the male's chances of marital bliss are not "Las Vegas odds" good. The reality is that deeply entrenched, non-negotiable desires of males shift with the passage of time. With initial love and excitement, they will promise anything - including fidelity, and believe in said promise. But nature is more potent than early intentions. It is simply unlikely that males are capable of enduring lust of an exclusive nature for their wives over time. A mate may still be good company over the years as both evolve, but based on changed opportunities, circumstances and modified preferences of one kind or another, ingrained early ancestor-fueled desires for some other caveman's woman is going to override religious teachings - and one's own professed code of exclusive commitment.
Tiger Woods is a better golfer than anyone else on the planet, but he is still a human male with characteristics that evolved over millions of years. Don't look for fidelity-related changes anytime soon, for celebrities or the rest of us instinct-driven males.
While I was tempted to rest my case after writing this, I sent it around for comment, just to get some initial reactions. All came back with notes of much interest and benefit, but one was truly special. It came from Bob Ludlow, familiar to TPJ readers as a mystery columnist writing under a clever pen name. I’m pleased to include Bob’s remarks, for they add several perspectives I suspect you will find a considerable interest. Enjoy – take it away, Bob.
Ludlow’s Comments
Don - You are surely correct on almost all counts, plus you make some sage and witty observations. I love the implication that not getting caught belongs right up there on the wonderful-thing pedestal along with true fidelity. Also liked your statement that Nature is more potent than early intentions. That's really well said!
(Human nature has been called the tyranny of the genes. And I'll tell you what: poorly managed sexual impulsiveness is far from the worst problem that results from blind submission to the dictates of our Stone-Age genes.)
But I digress.
Yes, fidelity most certainly does not come naturally, especially not for males, and most especially not in the long run (the perception of which varies over a wide range from male to male). And married male celebrities are surely at high risk, especially in this infantile twenty-first century U.S. culture. Why are male celebs at special risk?
Let me begin to count the ways:
* They have almost unlimited disposable income.
* Most of them travel a lot without their wives and families.
* They are wealthy, famous, and frequently very attractive. (Sorry if I sound cynical or sexist, but from my perspective, celebrity and wealth seem to make almost any male attractive, at least to a depressingly high percentage of good-looking young women.)
Wherever wealthy male celebs go, beautiful, eager women are strewn in their paths. I am reminded of the expression, Women are sex objects, men are success objects. In the case of wealthy and famous men, gorgeous young women are almost literally throwing themselves at them everywhere they turn. And one thing that means to me is that the Tiger Woods scandal does not speak well for a lot of women.
But hey, the villains here are not Tiger Woods, men, or women. The villain, as always, is an immature, shallow culture that keeps us mired in an unrealistic worldview that we can't live up to short of imposing a totalitarian theocracy. And anything would be better than that, including a perpetual drunken orgy.
But I digress, so back to why married male celebrities are at special risk . . .
* Their genes relentlessly urge them to get their rocks off at every opportunity and to fuck every nubile woman they can.
* There's more, much more; but this is not supposed
to be an essay, just a brief response to your column.
So I say well done, and let me make one more comment. As you say, circumstances change. To that I would say any fool knows that morality is circumstantial. Thou shalt not kill? Give me a break. There are even circumstances where it would be immoral not to kill.
When it comes to adultery, I think many of us should at least be less judgmental about what is a common human failing. If Tiger Woods had forced himself on unwilling women as some sports heroes have done, then moral outrage would be mandatory.
As for Tiger Woods, I'm hardly surprised. I am disappointed, though, mainly because I thought he was too smart to recklessly destroy his carefully -- and expensively -- crafted image.
The question that really bugs me is just how in the hell was such a great athlete unable to do what even an average octogenarian can do, i.e., keep his car on the road? That's almost as puzzling as George Bush's sitting in that classroom reading The Pet Goat and doing nothing for five minutes after being told, Mr. President, the country's under attack. GW has been characterized as incurious. If he didn't know anything more than the country is under attack, then apparently he wasn't even curious if his wife and daughters had been vaporized in a thermonuclear attack. There are just some things I'll never understand.
I loved your comment wondering why gay citizens want to bring the burden of fidelity on themselves. But if that's what they want, I fervently want them to have that right.
The only downside was your gratuitous disparagement of the great sport of golf. That was a cheap shot at best. What makes golf worse than any other sport? The only thing I don't like about it is the damn golfcarts. If able golfers were required to walk the course, it would be a decent fitness activity.
Don Ardell is the Well Infidel. He favors evidence over faith, reason over revelation and meaning and purpose over spirituality. His enthusiasm for reason, exuberance and liberty are reflected in his books (14), newsletter (513 editions of a weekly report) and lectures across North America and a dozen other countries.
TPJ Magazine
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Reincarnation of the Dark Ages
None Dare Call It RELIGIOUS FEUDALISM
By Loren Adams, 27 December 2009
The king taxed the peasants to poverty while the royals were exempt from paying any. Reason? Unjust tax codes were a design of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. That was the “targeted tax-cut” which invariably became law. “He who hath the gold maketh the rules.”
The Dark Ages was the birthplace of “Trickle-Down Economics.” The caste system was embraced, the church was simply a ruling arm of the monarch, and slavery was legitimatized by the religious righteous.
Republicans constantly decry labor’s “class warfare,” but this is the real war being waged across America. The cultural war is basically a derivative of class warfare – where the ruling class has employed white evangelicals to do their bidding: divide and conquer.
During the Dark Ages, wealth was exclusively inherited, not earned. The legal system was purchased like a commodity resulting in juryless trials, military tribunals, pronouncements by a king acknowledged as sovereign and commissioned by God to rule as if the voice of Providence Himself, executive orders usurping representation, taxation without representation, etc. Anyone disputing the monarch’s sovereignty was designated a traitor and summarily executed, tortured or banished to dungeon. These were the markings of the Dark Ages. Are they not similar to contemporary Republicanism so glaringly demonstrated during the Bush years?
America’s founders rejected the monarchial system where its legitimacy hinged on approval by the religious supremes. The “separation of church and state” concept of the new republic was established for that reason. Now we are sliding back into the realm where the head of state rides to power on a religious beast, where any successful candidate must be approved by the predominant religious system to win. Even our beloved Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign felt he must do pilgrimage to Saddleback Church and later pay homage to Pastor Rick Warren at Inaugural.
The Dark Ages were not only dark from plagues, they were darkened from ignorance, superstition and greed. The religious right denied the world was round; anyone disputing this “God-derived” doctrine was executed or imprisoned. Science was equated with Satanism. Thus, discovery, invention, innovation, and commercialism could not flourish, and the West plunged into poverty. Does America not see the similarity? A religious system that wages war on science, denies climate change, rejects evolution, and edits Texas texts for school children to include praise for Limbaugh, Beck and Palin is a system geared toward destroying not only scientific and environmental thought, but the foundation of economy.
The religious system was USED to gain power for monarchs similar to the way current political operatives USE the religious to further their own aims. In the Middle Ages, the doctrine of the “divine right of kings” precluded civil liberties; the king/queen equaled “divinity.” Potentates (royals) were considered surrogates of God. Power was passed down from father to son — Dynasties divinely ordained by entitlement. So, when we hear of world leaders or presidents bequeathed the title “Man of God,” watch out. It may not be long before civil liberties and human rights become casualties in the name of national unity and security — and with popular support — the masses duped by superstition. Remember the Bush theocratic dynasty.
History has witnessed its booms and busts (some massage as “cyclical market adjustments”). History repeats itself. We were at the core of an unparalleled economic boom at the close of the Clinton years — measured by purchases, low unemployment and budget surpluses. There were more jobs than people to fill them; illegals streamed across the border. Now we’re in a deep recession as a consequence of buying into Republican Dark-Age mentality.
What caused history’s busts? When capital is concentrated among the wealthiest, history warns of ominous collapse. The bubble bursts. It happened in 1837, 1857, 1884, 1893, 1907 and 1929. In all depressions there was glaring disparity of income: The poor — poorer, the rich — richer.
Prosperity is the result of healthy circulation of currency where the vast majority have robust purchasing power. When wealth fails to circulate but is dammed up by a concentration at the top, the economy falls and results in depression or severe recession. When the rich accumulate an overwhelming portion of the wealth, their house of cards comes tumbling down because there remains few to buy the goods sold by the wealthy to sustain the lifestyle.
Sure, other factors – such as over-speculation, Wall Street insider trading, anti-labor trade agreements, deregulation, and tax policies determined by greedy special interests – drive the economy into the ditch. But are not these all related? The world is loaded down with the cancers of Bernie Madoffs and Kenny Lays before downturn metastasizes itself into poverty, crime and collapse.
Consider this ominous fact: The average American’s income has remained flat since 1977 — 33 years ago, while the income of the richest 1% has more than tripled — 228% (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). CEOs (corporate executive officers) incomes rose 400% in the 1990s to $10.6 million annual income per capita, while take-home pay for the average American, the 80%, rose zero percent.
Real life experience bears it out. Most Americans don’t enjoy the purchasing power they once did when a one-income family could raise children, purchase a home, car and college education for their kids. Now both parents work (if lucky enough to have a job) and still can’t keep up, resulting in less quality education, poor family relations, rising crime, and an eroding moral foundation.
Some in this country never learn from history. The greedy are blinded to the fact that refusing to care for others less fortunate ultimately leads to their own demise. The underlying truth may be that these tightfisted characters are not so much concerned about accumulating wealth as widening the gap. Yes, they delight in seeing the difference. Class consciousness means more to them than money in the bank. Thus, the motive defines the power struggle.
Thom Hartmann’s depiction of America’s economic and educational decline is accurate.
The political will of the radical right is more stubborn than ever. Not only do they want to defeat Health-Care Reform, they want to rid the country of any safety-net, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and any other “socialist” program. It’s all “socialism” or “communism” to them. . . “un-American.”
They hide their greed behind such noble causes as “individualism,” “patriotism,” “character & family values” and “national security,” but all the while their ultimate aim is the same. Proudly they wave the flag and claim to be the lead standard bearers for patriotism; all the while we recall they’re missing in action when it really counts; wealthy family ties shield them from risk. Only the rich initiate wars, mostly the poor fight them. The double standard of justice comes from obscene wealth. Principles can be compromised at a price. And so can religion, their primary weapon of choice.
In similar manner, they buy off religious organizations and congressmen, hire the best lobbyists, and manipulate enough voters through the religious system to change laws for their benefit. Their aim? To further concentrate the wealth and leave the rest of the country destitute if need be. Their “compassionate conservatism” is hypocrisy cloaked in a sound-bite.
In future years it will be written that the real enemy of our times was not communism or socialism (as many Tea-Baggers scream), but rather the re-emergence of a form of feudalism in alliance with theocracy or what The Family (“C-Street”) calls “Dominionism.” The Handmaid’s Tale was not too far off.
In place of mote-defended castles surrounded by thatched-roof shanties will be “gated communities” [sporting high-tech surveillance to keep the homeless and servant-class out] surrounded by metal trailer shanties housing 21st Century serfs. Recall “Hoovervilles”? The new shanty-towns should be aptly named “Bushvilles.” We’ve come a long way in 1,200 years or so.
The TPJ Magazine
By Loren Adams, 27 December 2009
The king taxed the peasants to poverty while the royals were exempt from paying any. Reason? Unjust tax codes were a design of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. That was the “targeted tax-cut” which invariably became law. “He who hath the gold maketh the rules.”
The Dark Ages was the birthplace of “Trickle-Down Economics.” The caste system was embraced, the church was simply a ruling arm of the monarch, and slavery was legitimatized by the religious righteous.
Republicans constantly decry labor’s “class warfare,” but this is the real war being waged across America. The cultural war is basically a derivative of class warfare – where the ruling class has employed white evangelicals to do their bidding: divide and conquer.
During the Dark Ages, wealth was exclusively inherited, not earned. The legal system was purchased like a commodity resulting in juryless trials, military tribunals, pronouncements by a king acknowledged as sovereign and commissioned by God to rule as if the voice of Providence Himself, executive orders usurping representation, taxation without representation, etc. Anyone disputing the monarch’s sovereignty was designated a traitor and summarily executed, tortured or banished to dungeon. These were the markings of the Dark Ages. Are they not similar to contemporary Republicanism so glaringly demonstrated during the Bush years?
America’s founders rejected the monarchial system where its legitimacy hinged on approval by the religious supremes. The “separation of church and state” concept of the new republic was established for that reason. Now we are sliding back into the realm where the head of state rides to power on a religious beast, where any successful candidate must be approved by the predominant religious system to win. Even our beloved Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign felt he must do pilgrimage to Saddleback Church and later pay homage to Pastor Rick Warren at Inaugural.
The Dark Ages were not only dark from plagues, they were darkened from ignorance, superstition and greed. The religious right denied the world was round; anyone disputing this “God-derived” doctrine was executed or imprisoned. Science was equated with Satanism. Thus, discovery, invention, innovation, and commercialism could not flourish, and the West plunged into poverty. Does America not see the similarity? A religious system that wages war on science, denies climate change, rejects evolution, and edits Texas texts for school children to include praise for Limbaugh, Beck and Palin is a system geared toward destroying not only scientific and environmental thought, but the foundation of economy.
The religious system was USED to gain power for monarchs similar to the way current political operatives USE the religious to further their own aims. In the Middle Ages, the doctrine of the “divine right of kings” precluded civil liberties; the king/queen equaled “divinity.” Potentates (royals) were considered surrogates of God. Power was passed down from father to son — Dynasties divinely ordained by entitlement. So, when we hear of world leaders or presidents bequeathed the title “Man of God,” watch out. It may not be long before civil liberties and human rights become casualties in the name of national unity and security — and with popular support — the masses duped by superstition. Remember the Bush theocratic dynasty.
History has witnessed its booms and busts (some massage as “cyclical market adjustments”). History repeats itself. We were at the core of an unparalleled economic boom at the close of the Clinton years — measured by purchases, low unemployment and budget surpluses. There were more jobs than people to fill them; illegals streamed across the border. Now we’re in a deep recession as a consequence of buying into Republican Dark-Age mentality.
What caused history’s busts? When capital is concentrated among the wealthiest, history warns of ominous collapse. The bubble bursts. It happened in 1837, 1857, 1884, 1893, 1907 and 1929. In all depressions there was glaring disparity of income: The poor — poorer, the rich — richer.
Prosperity is the result of healthy circulation of currency where the vast majority have robust purchasing power. When wealth fails to circulate but is dammed up by a concentration at the top, the economy falls and results in depression or severe recession. When the rich accumulate an overwhelming portion of the wealth, their house of cards comes tumbling down because there remains few to buy the goods sold by the wealthy to sustain the lifestyle.
Sure, other factors – such as over-speculation, Wall Street insider trading, anti-labor trade agreements, deregulation, and tax policies determined by greedy special interests – drive the economy into the ditch. But are not these all related? The world is loaded down with the cancers of Bernie Madoffs and Kenny Lays before downturn metastasizes itself into poverty, crime and collapse.
Consider this ominous fact: The average American’s income has remained flat since 1977 — 33 years ago, while the income of the richest 1% has more than tripled — 228% (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). CEOs (corporate executive officers) incomes rose 400% in the 1990s to $10.6 million annual income per capita, while take-home pay for the average American, the 80%, rose zero percent.
Real life experience bears it out. Most Americans don’t enjoy the purchasing power they once did when a one-income family could raise children, purchase a home, car and college education for their kids. Now both parents work (if lucky enough to have a job) and still can’t keep up, resulting in less quality education, poor family relations, rising crime, and an eroding moral foundation.
Some in this country never learn from history. The greedy are blinded to the fact that refusing to care for others less fortunate ultimately leads to their own demise. The underlying truth may be that these tightfisted characters are not so much concerned about accumulating wealth as widening the gap. Yes, they delight in seeing the difference. Class consciousness means more to them than money in the bank. Thus, the motive defines the power struggle.
Thom Hartmann’s depiction of America’s economic and educational decline is accurate.
The political will of the radical right is more stubborn than ever. Not only do they want to defeat Health-Care Reform, they want to rid the country of any safety-net, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and any other “socialist” program. It’s all “socialism” or “communism” to them. . . “un-American.”
They hide their greed behind such noble causes as “individualism,” “patriotism,” “character & family values” and “national security,” but all the while their ultimate aim is the same. Proudly they wave the flag and claim to be the lead standard bearers for patriotism; all the while we recall they’re missing in action when it really counts; wealthy family ties shield them from risk. Only the rich initiate wars, mostly the poor fight them. The double standard of justice comes from obscene wealth. Principles can be compromised at a price. And so can religion, their primary weapon of choice.
In similar manner, they buy off religious organizations and congressmen, hire the best lobbyists, and manipulate enough voters through the religious system to change laws for their benefit. Their aim? To further concentrate the wealth and leave the rest of the country destitute if need be. Their “compassionate conservatism” is hypocrisy cloaked in a sound-bite.
In future years it will be written that the real enemy of our times was not communism or socialism (as many Tea-Baggers scream), but rather the re-emergence of a form of feudalism in alliance with theocracy or what The Family (“C-Street”) calls “Dominionism.” The Handmaid’s Tale was not too far off.
In place of mote-defended castles surrounded by thatched-roof shanties will be “gated communities” [sporting high-tech surveillance to keep the homeless and servant-class out] surrounded by metal trailer shanties housing 21st Century serfs. Recall “Hoovervilles”? The new shanty-towns should be aptly named “Bushvilles.” We’ve come a long way in 1,200 years or so.
The TPJ Magazine
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Surely Follow
Hemp for Victory is a black-and-white film produced in 1942 by the USDA outlining a plan to distribute 400,000 lbs. of cannabis seeds to American farmers with the goal of producing 350,000 acres of cannabis by 1943 -- all for the war effort. The USDA even went as far as to urge 4-H clubs to grow at least half an acre, but preferably 2 acres of cannabis. All American farmers were required to see the film, sign a paper saying that they had viewed the film, and read a booklet on the matter. Farmers who agreed were waived from serving in the military, and all their family members were also exempt. They received farm equipment at a discounted price, and sometimes for free. However, before and after the war -- the same plant was considered "demon weed" and the killer of the same kids that were pressed into service to grow it during the war. Furthermore, the USDA and Library of Congress denied the creation or existence of such a film until 2 copies were found and sent in to the Library of Congress. Talk about hypocrisy.
Feel free to distribute this film far in hopes that we can restore some sanity to our nation and have a rebirth of freedom. Speaking of freedom, there is more information to be found at Free Thinkers Playground.
Part 1
Part 2
Feel free to distribute this film far in hopes that we can restore some sanity to our nation and have a rebirth of freedom. Speaking of freedom, there is more information to be found at Free Thinkers Playground.
Part 1
Part 2
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
When Our Leader Fail to Lead
When Our Leaders Fail to Lead
By David Korten
We have to make them. What David Korten learned from his experiences during the Vietnam War.
On Tuesday [December 2nd] night, President Obama announced his decision to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. It was a tragic error. He specifically said that to compare Afghanistan with Vietnam is a misreading of history. In a way, I would have to agree. We ultimately left Vietnam in humiliation. Afghanistan is not comparable, because our prospects for success there are even worse.
I am neither a military strategist nor a student of military history, but I recall well the U.S. experience during the Vietnam War. I was serving at the time as a U.S. Air Force Captain. My first assignment was as an instructor at the Special Air Warfare School in Florida, where we instructed Air Force pilots heading for Vietnam to be part of the Air Force's role in counterinsurgency operations. I later served in the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as military aide to the civilian responsible for monitoring all Defense Department-sponsored behavior and social sciences research.
These assignments brought me into contact with the most advanced thinking of the time about
unconventional, asymmetric warfare in which a conventional military force seeks to defeat an enemy who cannot be distinguished from a civilian noncombatant unless he is firing on you. This was the case in Vietnam and it is the case in Afghanistan.
I recall clearly one of the lectures I gave to Air Force pilots on the substantial body of social science research demonstrating that dropping bombs on civilian populations increases their will to resist. It isn’t a particularly startling finding, and I’m sure it holds up as well for any military operation in which seemingly indiscriminate fire causes significant civilian casualties.
So why are our prospects in Afghanistan even less hopeful than they were in Vietnam? As in Afghanistan, the enemy in Vietnam blended in with the people. In Vietnam, however, it operated as a coherent body with an allegiance to a command structure. Vietnam had experience functioning as a nation with a central government; it also had more physical infrastructure and a more educated population.
Afghanistan has never functioned as a nation under the central rule of either foreigners or Afghanis. It is a land fragmented physically and politically into feudal fiefdoms ruled by local warlords united only by a fierce commitment to resisting any form of foreign occupation. What passes for a central government has less legitimacy than did the government of South Vietnam, is even more corrupt, and is arguably not even fully in control of Kabul, the capital city. The idea that we or any other group of outsiders can pacify Afghanistan and bring it under some semblance of central democratic rule with a legitimate and reasonably competent government is beyond ludicrous.
It is difficult to convince civilians that you are there to help them when you are maiming and killing their loved ones for no evident purpose. Yet when you cannot identify the enemy, you will almost inevitably kill more civilians than combatants. I know how I would respond if a foreign army inflicted such harm on my family. The more troops we put into Afghanistan, the greater the resistance.
On November 20, 2009, Bill Moyers PBS Journal presented an episode on President Lyndon Johnson’s path to war. It is a piece of history that Moyers knows well, having served as a top-ranking member of President Johnson’s staff from 1964-1967. Drawing on the archive of White House tapes, Moyers tells the story, in Johnson’s own words, of how the political dynamics of the time drew him into an ever more costly escalation in a war that he knew from the beginning we could not win.
President Obama seems to be repeating this sad history, caught up in much the same dynamic in an even more futile war. This one may not end with pictures of the last Americans in Afghanistan departing by helicopter from the U.S. Embassy roof, but the time will come when we will recognize as a nation that we cannot win this war. The only uncertainty is when that time will come that we make the decision to leave.
Ultimately we left Vietnam not because of bold presidential leadership, but because we the people of this country demanded it. We had been told that the fall of Vietnam would lead to the fall of Southeast Asia, with devastating consequences for U.S. interests and national security all around the world. It didn’t happen. Following our departure from Vietnam the people of Vietnam formed a coherent national government and rebuilt their country. Asia became stronger, freer, and more democratic; Vietnam is now one of our major trading partners. There has been much agony along the way and Vietnam is no model of democracy, but everyone is far better off than during the war that should never have happened.
Invading Afghanistan was a tragic error. Escalating our presence there compounds the error. We have created a terrible mess, but it is not within our means to clean it up. The sooner we leave Afghanistan and let the Afghani people sort out their future for themselves, the better off both we and they will be. We now know it will happen only when we send a message to our politicians, including President Obama, too loud and too clear to be ignored.
………………………………………………………………………………………
David Korten wrote this article for
YES! Magazine a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. David is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, and president of the People-Centered Development Forum. His books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World.
By David Korten
We have to make them. What David Korten learned from his experiences during the Vietnam War.
On Tuesday [December 2nd] night, President Obama announced his decision to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. It was a tragic error. He specifically said that to compare Afghanistan with Vietnam is a misreading of history. In a way, I would have to agree. We ultimately left Vietnam in humiliation. Afghanistan is not comparable, because our prospects for success there are even worse.
I am neither a military strategist nor a student of military history, but I recall well the U.S. experience during the Vietnam War. I was serving at the time as a U.S. Air Force Captain. My first assignment was as an instructor at the Special Air Warfare School in Florida, where we instructed Air Force pilots heading for Vietnam to be part of the Air Force's role in counterinsurgency operations. I later served in the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as military aide to the civilian responsible for monitoring all Defense Department-sponsored behavior and social sciences research.
These assignments brought me into contact with the most advanced thinking of the time about
unconventional, asymmetric warfare in which a conventional military force seeks to defeat an enemy who cannot be distinguished from a civilian noncombatant unless he is firing on you. This was the case in Vietnam and it is the case in Afghanistan.
I recall clearly one of the lectures I gave to Air Force pilots on the substantial body of social science research demonstrating that dropping bombs on civilian populations increases their will to resist. It isn’t a particularly startling finding, and I’m sure it holds up as well for any military operation in which seemingly indiscriminate fire causes significant civilian casualties.
So why are our prospects in Afghanistan even less hopeful than they were in Vietnam? As in Afghanistan, the enemy in Vietnam blended in with the people. In Vietnam, however, it operated as a coherent body with an allegiance to a command structure. Vietnam had experience functioning as a nation with a central government; it also had more physical infrastructure and a more educated population.
Afghanistan has never functioned as a nation under the central rule of either foreigners or Afghanis. It is a land fragmented physically and politically into feudal fiefdoms ruled by local warlords united only by a fierce commitment to resisting any form of foreign occupation. What passes for a central government has less legitimacy than did the government of South Vietnam, is even more corrupt, and is arguably not even fully in control of Kabul, the capital city. The idea that we or any other group of outsiders can pacify Afghanistan and bring it under some semblance of central democratic rule with a legitimate and reasonably competent government is beyond ludicrous.
It is difficult to convince civilians that you are there to help them when you are maiming and killing their loved ones for no evident purpose. Yet when you cannot identify the enemy, you will almost inevitably kill more civilians than combatants. I know how I would respond if a foreign army inflicted such harm on my family. The more troops we put into Afghanistan, the greater the resistance.
On November 20, 2009, Bill Moyers PBS Journal presented an episode on President Lyndon Johnson’s path to war. It is a piece of history that Moyers knows well, having served as a top-ranking member of President Johnson’s staff from 1964-1967. Drawing on the archive of White House tapes, Moyers tells the story, in Johnson’s own words, of how the political dynamics of the time drew him into an ever more costly escalation in a war that he knew from the beginning we could not win.
President Obama seems to be repeating this sad history, caught up in much the same dynamic in an even more futile war. This one may not end with pictures of the last Americans in Afghanistan departing by helicopter from the U.S. Embassy roof, but the time will come when we will recognize as a nation that we cannot win this war. The only uncertainty is when that time will come that we make the decision to leave.
Ultimately we left Vietnam not because of bold presidential leadership, but because we the people of this country demanded it. We had been told that the fall of Vietnam would lead to the fall of Southeast Asia, with devastating consequences for U.S. interests and national security all around the world. It didn’t happen. Following our departure from Vietnam the people of Vietnam formed a coherent national government and rebuilt their country. Asia became stronger, freer, and more democratic; Vietnam is now one of our major trading partners. There has been much agony along the way and Vietnam is no model of democracy, but everyone is far better off than during the war that should never have happened.
Invading Afghanistan was a tragic error. Escalating our presence there compounds the error. We have created a terrible mess, but it is not within our means to clean it up. The sooner we leave Afghanistan and let the Afghani people sort out their future for themselves, the better off both we and they will be. We now know it will happen only when we send a message to our politicians, including President Obama, too loud and too clear to be ignored.
………………………………………………………………………………………
David Korten wrote this article for
YES! Magazine a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. David is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, and president of the People-Centered Development Forum. His books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World.
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