16.8.11

Morality comeback?

Morality has long lost its place among the yardsticks with which we tell each other and ourselves how well we do.  The Darwinian justice of the markets was expected to exact the price of the socially under-performing actions.  Hence everything has turned into a market, from markets of ideas to dating markets, from job markets to derivative markets.  While many a population has followed its respective market gyrations, trying to understand and work the market magic to its advantage, the elites scorned disdainfully at any idea of morality.

The recent blowups in Iraq have brought back the moral dimension into the public discourse.  Have a look for yourself: 

Steve Bolger
New York, NY

Pathetic. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, but America the Stupid still propagates the lie. This country is so comprehensively dishonest it deserves its impending total collapse.


James O'Donnell III
Fremont, CA

If America’s leaders had a shred of human decency, Congress would’ve ended this criminally misguided debacle years ago, and several thousand Iraqis would still be alive today.

Instead, refusing to acknowledge our grave miscalculations (and ignoring the advice of our top military men), America had to “Surge,” giving Iraqi civilians the deadliest year of the war, just to pad the ego of an infantile failure of a president who couldn’t abide the idea of losing a war on his watch.

For the record -- which has been deliberately muddied by the Neocons and “mainstream” media -- the Surge was an abysmal failure: it exacerbated the ethnosectarian bloodbath and birthed fresh grievances with atrocities like the purge of the vast majority of Baghdad’s Sunnis (which created a million NEW refugees). It achieved none of its stated goals for political reconciliation or restoration of services.

Post-Surge Iraq is a civil war constrained only by its newly segregated population, divided by concrete blast walls erected by a brutal occupier.

Now Obama is our president, and despite his “anti-war” image, he’s been pushing Iraq to accept a prolonged U.S. military presence -- 10,000 soldiers in addition to the nearly 200,000 mercenaries we employ. He’s done so without a single strategic shift to acknowledge (and begin reversing) the terrible damage wrought by America’s profiteering policy of domination and control.

The decent (and intelligent) thing to do would be to admit our mistakes and begin making amends, relinquishing our geopolitical and economic ambitions where Iraq is concerned.

We owe the Iraqis and our own sacrificed soldiers no less.

But in Iraq and elsewhere our leaders continue down the morally grotesque GWoT path forged by Bush/Cheney. It’s a reminder that the true face of “evil” is something far more mundane than that which we usually imagine. In fact, it’s so common we see it every day.

It is the face of moral cowardice.

James O’Donnell III



harkadahl
London

A farcical, incompetent, malevolent assault on an innocent nation and it's long suffering people. The USA ought to hang it's head in abject shame (if it ever understood the notion of shame).


Donna
Cornwall, U.K.

As the mother of a former US Marine who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, I bucked the tide of military families by protesting the waste of war at every opportunity.

While my son accepted the fact that serving in a war zone was his job, and remained apolitical, I felt it was my job, as a mother, to condemn the immorality of squandering blood and treasury on an illegal invasion waged by warmongers -- on both sides of the Atlantic -- who lacked counterinsurgency tactics and an exit strategy.

No military parent wants to feel their child was killed in vain. But with Iraq's deadly internal strife continuing 8-1/2 years after the invasion, what else is one to think?

The cold arrogance of politicians willing to sacrifice other people's children in unwinnable wars still boggles the mind and sickens the heart.



Citizen
RI

Many comments are against the wars. Interesting, since there were also many comments FOR going in to Libya. As a country, we never like the war we're in, but that never stops us from entering or causing another one.

I'll wager that the next time the president makes the case for "intervening" in some two-bit third world country's issues, half of the people commenting against our current wars will be behind him, telling us how so very vital such and such's internal issue is to our national security, and how we desperately need to send in our troops to help straighten them out.

I am sickened by our addiction to war.

And this comment transitions it to Libya:



Alfred Noble
Geneva, Suisse

US OUT OF LIBYA NOW!!

Why is the US funding hardline Islamic Rebels in Libya?

The Rebels are guilty of far worse Human Rights Crimes than Ghadafi ever was guilty of.

Why are we the world's policeman?

We've wasted $1.2 Trillion in Libya now and are still flying DAILY bombing missions.




street professor
sydney, australia

"Democracy” comes out of the payload of a bomber aircraft, apparently… Saving them Libyans from themselves with NATO 'freedom bombs'.

Can't be long before Hillary asks Gaddafi to step down again, because the US knows what is best for the Libyan people. Free health care, education, housing, cheap oil, a massive water project and the highest standard of living in Africa isn't acceptable to the US.

You Libyans need 'US style democracy'.... heaps of debt, privatised Central Bank, high income taxes, high cost of education/health care and constant wars. Just ask the Iraqis to see how much fun it is.

Next stop, we'll help those Syrians out.




HAIDER ALI
NEW YORK

The great robbery of the century. First, the western countries sent the mercenaries for looting and plundering in Libya, and then seized the Libyan bank accounts and assets. And now they are releasing those funds to the rebels to buy the garbage from them(west), as well as pay them the consulting fees and etc.
Perhaps, if the Libya did not have $30 billion in the USA bank, it might not have this trouble.
Anyhow,the traitors will meet their consequences, and to capture the Libya like Iraq and Afghanistan will be foiled in the desert. We must feel sorry for the deaths in Iraq today, and take a lesson from this tragedy.


Lyle Vos, Democratic Candidate for President 2012
NY NY

Why doesn't the press confront Obama about Libya? Who is paying for the US war against Libya?


WHAT THE SILENT MAJORITY DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IS THAT IT WILL EVENTUALLY LOSE THE COMFORT OF WHATEVER IT INVESTED IN THE STATUS QVO.  YOU TELL ME THE MORAL, PLEASE!

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