They have suicidal tendencies -- except often they also drag along Innocents with them as they drift towards the Abyss.
I seldom Blog on international politics, but sometimes the event and direction are blatantly clear to outsiders or spectators, so one wonders why the protagonists themselves don't see the Danger sign right in front of their eyes. Close two eyes? -- one ahead of the MP of Jasin.
From the Sun, page 12:
BUSH SENDING MORE
TROOPS TO IRAQ
WASHINGTON: President George W.
Bush told skeptical Americans on Wednesday he was
sending about 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq,
and in a rare admission, said he made a mistake
by not deploying more troops sooner.
"The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American
people, and it is unacceptable to me," Bush said in a
televised White House address.
.........
:
:
:
Page 15 has an aricle by ROBERT FISK
(from The Independent)
headed
BUSH AND THE MARCH OF FOLLY
SO into the graveyards of Iraq, George W.
Bush, their commander-in-chief, is to send
anorther 20,000 of his soldiers. The march
of folly is to continuue.
:
:
:
And on page 17 is another local march to FOLLY!
Housing project takes
off in Bkt Cerakah
Desi: No comment beyond one question ~~
Remember SEMUANYA OKAY?
(Is it Bukit Celaka?)
"God save us from these suicidal leaders;
Me and my foolish mates cry out:
do we weep in vain and in pain?"
Amen/Amin.-- Desi
I also engaged with Washington Post PostGlobal Conversations
on the current topic hotly debated in the US. maybe among its "War on Terror"
Allies' nationals too:
I had written much mush earlier about the entry of US troops
into Iraq, (Aweofhelen has an original! So you Others get jeles!:(
titled
"Theirs Is Not to Question Why"
About a year-an-a-half after the terrorist attacks
on World Trade Centre, New York, and the Pentagon,
Washington D.C., the United States and its chief ally,
Britain, led a 40-day war on Iraq based mainly on the
ground that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a threat
to the world, having in his possession "weapons of
mass destruction". As in any war, there would be
dissent and debate on whether the U.S. was right or
wrong or justified to go to war against the world
opinion expressed via the United Nations. But once a
government had decided to go to war, the army boys and
girls did not have any choice but proceed to the
battle-field.
This spirit of "do or die" was eloquently captured by
Lord Alfred Tennyson in "The Charge of the Light
Brigade", and since then, these lines have been carved
in our minds, and recalled instantly whenever a war
breaks out, as in the recently concluded US-led war in
Iraq. Following are the first two stanzas from the
immortal Charge:
"Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
:
:
Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred..."
War sometimes has been overly romanticised, especially
in epic films coming out of Hollywood. But inevitably,
Death stares at the soldier, torturing him,
frightening him, sinking him into despair, and
sometimes, when night falls like an enveloping blanket
of temporary peace and relief, makes him ponder on the
meaning of war, maybe the futility of it all.
:
:
The trouble with modern warfare, starting with the US
war in Afghanistan early in the new millennium, we
were treated to what looked like our kids' play with
computer games as over CNN television news, the guided
missiles launched into Afghanistan from aircraft
carriers located thousand of miles way appeared merely
as beams of light in the night skylines. There were no
close-ups of bodies of the soldiers and civilians
killed, so much so that the viewers were "emotionally
detached". The raw smell and sight of corpses and
dying soldiers were not captured by such sanitised
warfare -- and the human race might just become
immune to the spectre of Death that must surely hang
over every war, whether fought in hand combat or by
manipulating guided missiles by remote computer
control!
Hence, poems such as the Charge of the Light Brigade
and remind us that war is, and will never be,
separated from the probability of Death and while the
theme of the triumphant Victor is sung and praised in
many war epics, the "Unsung Hero" remains a recurring
nightmare for war widows, orphans and family members
in all wars.
The lines from "Where have all the soldiers gone?/
Gone to graveyards ev'ry one" (Bob Dylan's
fans out dare, sing along with Desi?)
must surely strike a
chord of empathy in all grieving loved ones of war
victims, and also among thinking citizens the world
over. It is inevitable, for every bouquet handed out
to a surviving war hero, there are thousands upon
thousands of wreaths laid at the tombstones of the
Unknown Soldier.
During the US-led war on Iraq, many leaders in
Malaysia expressed their objections to the war, citing
many reasons, including that innocent people like
women, children and mainly civilians would be killed.
I just wonder if this wasn't true of all wars -- there
will always be innocent victims, though some
imaginative wordsmith coined a "lovely" term for it,
to make it less bloody maybe "collateral damage". Be
it a war using bows and arrows, hand combat, guns and
bullets, or bombs and grenades, and modern warfare
using precision and guided missiles and pilotless
planes loaded with bombs, the end result is the same:
loss of human lives.
In April/ May 2003 at the height of the US-led war on
Iraq, my thoughts went back to the 1960s-70s (I was a
teenager then), when the Vietnam War took a heavy toll
on both Americans and Vietnamese, and the rumination
inspired the following poem:
Warfront Faraway
The United States and allies have been
Raining missiles on Iraq for eight days now
Targetting a tyrant called Saddam Hussein
Soldiers, civilians have fallen dead
Iraqi more than American or British
But the blood that oozed was commonly red
Peoples across the nations protest
They clamour for a ceasefire
They do not understand, they ask:
"Mr President Bush, Why war?"
I too do not understand
Why they see the warfront far away
At home the destitute, the downtrodden,
Women and children are crying, dying
The citizens face daily war
Against hunger, discrimination, injustice
Who'd pause for these unprotesting victims?
Born of leaders who only see
The War on the far horizon.
mGf @howsy.blogspot.com based in London often astray in Paris or Stalkhome?, wrote about some Genies disappearing, a jinn out there in the most developed State in NegaraKu;
do you also see a Toyol?
Leading Selangor-ites to the edge of the Abyss.
Luckily I am from Furong of the Nine States.
If I don't like one, I have eight others to vanish to.
Anak Merdeka, where art thou hyde-ing?
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