At the time, I remember wondering, how did one guy armed only with handguns take out 40-odd trained soldiers in the middle of a military base? Yes, it was a surprise attack, the shooter had combat training, and since he was a soldier, he could walk past security… but 43 soldiers??? WTF? This crazy bastard had to RELOAD. How is it that those 43 soldiers didn’t return fire seconds after the shooting began?

The soldiers weren’t armed.

Lt. General Robert Cone, the commanding officer at Fort Hood, told reporters that the soldiers were not armed: ““As a matter of practice, we do not carry weapons — this is our home.” WTF do you mean, you don’t carry weapons?

The United States is currently at war. At war in Iraq. At war in Afghanistan. At war in Pakistan and Yemen (even though they’re pretending they’re not). And now Libya. Do you think Iraqi soldiers are unarmed while on base? You think Taliban soldiers get out of bed in the morning without reaching for a pistol? How about Al Queda? You think they’re wondering around their terrorist training grounds, eyes turned to the sky, searching for missle-toting unmanned drones, without a weapon at the ready? How about Libya’s special forces? Can’t suppress a civil war without a few bullets now can they?

This shows that the U.S. military simply doesn’t take these threats seriously. In their arrogance, they don’t really think they can be attacked on domestic soil. In a way, they are right – the Taliban aren’t going to roll into Texas in tanks. But that’s not how it works anymore.

If there really is no threat to “the homeland,” how about you stop occupying sovereign nations. If there is a legitimate threat (and a lone gunman does not constitute a terrorist threat), hows about keeping a sidearm handy while on the military base?

Oh, and do you remember how the shooting at Fort Hood ended? The shooter was dropped by a single civilian police officer.

As a political statement to assuage the so-called ‘muslim world,’ I suppose it’s not bad. Interpreted in the light of facts, history, and a rational, ethical perspective, however, and it’s overwhelmingly bullshit. Here are the 10 worst examples (in no particular order).

1. Tradition and progress

Obama: “For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over acentury, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt’s advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress.” Then later: “There need not be contradictions between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies enormously while maintaining distinct cultures.”

Why it’s bullshit: There is no harmony between tradition and progress. Tradition means ‘not changing’ and progress means ‘changing.’ When you ban gay marriage, you favor tradition. When you allow gay marriage, you favor progress. There’s no harmony. There can be compromise, but a compromise between tradition and progress is usually a compromise between a nonsensical position and justice.

2. Hostility to Islam

Obama: “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.” Later: “The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights.”

Why it’s bullshit: First, Obama is implying that western hostility to Islam is somehow imagined. Walk around in Texas with a turban and a beard for a while and you’ll quickly find out how real it is. Second, many Islamic leaders ARE hostile toward human rights. That’s why Iran rejected the UDHR as a codification of western values.

3. Justice

Obama: “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity…I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Why it’s bullshit: Muslims, Christians and philosophers define justice differently. In Islam, justice is about satisfying the rules of the Koran. That’s why Saudi Arabia jails women for the horrible crime of having been raped. Real justice is based on physical and emotional harm, and on fairness. These two conceptions of justice are incommensurate.

Obama: “There’s one rule that lies at the heart of every religion — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.”

Why it’s bullshit: The golden rule is a nonsensical basis for ethics. It can be refuted with trivial examples: ‘If I were gay I would want people to try to cure me;’ or ‘I would love it if she pinned me down and had sex with me, so I’ll pin her down and have sex with her. She’s only screaming “no” to get me in the mood’

4. Tolerance

Obama: “And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”

Why it’s bullshit: Deeds like stoning people who wish to convert to a different religion.

Obama: “The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as — it is as if he has killed all
mankind.”

Why it’s bullshit: In the “Holy Koran” an “innocent” is a muslim innocent. See Surah 9:121: “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them.”

Obama: “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance”

Why it’s bullshit: You do know that homosexuality is a crime in Iran and Saudi Arabia, right?

“We can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism.”

Why it’s bullshit: Hostility toward religions is an inescapable logical consequence of a human-rights-based view of ethics. Religions institutionalize human rights violations, especially around freedom from discrimination. It’s not a “pretense of liberalism.” It’s a direct result of the bigotry, misogyny, and evil motherfuckery enshrined in the Abrahamic religions.

5. Freedom of religion

“freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion” later: “Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.”

Why it’s bullshit: Freedom of religion is a contradiction in terms.

6. Atheists Beware

Obama: “And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share.
This is the hope of all humanity.”

Why it’s bullshit: This american-centric proselytizing if I ever heard it. These are not everyone’s aspirations, and certainly not mine. Not everyone has a family to love. Not everyone wants an education. Not everyone wants to work. And not everyone has a god.

Obama: “when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — (applause) — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.” Later: “The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision”

Why it’s bullshit: Take your faith and your god and your prayers and plant them in your ass where they belong. The sooner we stop brainwashing our children with this anti-rational nonsense, the sooner people will stop killing each other.

Obama: “The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we
have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”
The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”
The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of
God.”

Why it’s bullshit: The funny thing about holy books is, they’re so big you can cherry-pick whatever you want from them. For Example:

The Holy Koran tells us: “Forbidden to you are…married women, except those you own as slaves.” (Surah 4:20-, 24-)
The Talmud tells us: “If a heathen (gentile) hits a Jew, the gentile must be killed.” (Sanhedrin 58b)
The Holy Bible tells us: “How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock,” (Psalms 137:9).

7. Nukes

Obama: “When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations.”

Obama: “But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America’s interests. It’s about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.”

Obama: “I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. ”

Why it’s bullshit: All of these quotes reveal the central hypocrisy of American nuclear weapons policy – ‘it’s ok for us to have nukes, but not you, and we want nuclear disarmament, as long as everyone else disarms first.’ This is based on the fundamentally racist, ethnocentric assumption that the US is more trustworthy than any other nation. The primary reason to seek a nuclear arsenal in the modern age is to deter American invasion.

8. War

“The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America’s goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity.”

Why it’s bullshit: you did not go by choice? WTF? Of course there was a choice! You could have just, you know, stayed home and focus on intelligence gathering instead of warmongering. You could have done black ops instead of overt war. You could have used diplomacy and negotiation to broker a deal with the existing Afghani government. No choice my ass!

Obama: “And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale.”

Why it’s bullshit: Then the US ruthlessly murdered over 100 000 Iraqis, claimed credit, and now states it’s determination to keep on killing in Afghanistan. To be fair, Obama says he wants to leave Afghanistan, but to be more fair, it’s all just talk. If he wanted to leave, he’d order troops home, not order more troops to go.

Obama: “We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military — we seek no military bases there” later: “I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases”

Why it’s bullshit: You seen the Iraqi embassy? Looks like a military base to me…

Obama: “the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein”

Why it’s bullshit: You mean, the one’s who survived? There are more than 650 000 dead Iraqis who might beg to differ.

9. Torture and the Rule of Law

Obama: “I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year. (Applause.) So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law.”

Why it’s bullshit: This is nonsense. Obama has essentially provided all of the american war criminals who approved, ordered and conducted the torture with full amnesty, and proposed a new policy of indefinite detention in American prisons. It’s not gitmo that matters. Gitmo is just a bunch of buildings. What matters is that the U.S. is officially holding prisoners without trial and obstructing the prosecution of war criminals. The rule of law is the maxim that decisions should be made based on the law rather than relying on arbitrary governance. Indefinite detention programs and protecting war criminals for political reasons is the very antithesis of the rule of law!

10. Israel and Palestine

Obama: “So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”

Obama: “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong
and it does not succeed.”

Obama: “The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people.”

Why it’s bullshit: This is all meaningless talk. The U.S. gives $3 Billion a year to Israel and brands the leaders of Palestine ‘a terrorist organization.’ If Obama really wanted peace in the region, he could just withhold Israel’s funding until a deal had been reached, or give half of it to the Palestinians to encourage economic development in the region.

Random stupid comments

Obama: “Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail”

This is meaningless. There’s never been a world order. All large empires in history have failed, or still exist in some form, and can be expected to fail eventually. All large empires have elevated some groups and persecuted others.

Obama: “We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a
simple concept: E pluribus unum — “Out of many, one.””

But socialism is somehow evil in America

Obama: “the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson — kept in his personal library.”

Obama is implying that Jefferson had great respect for Islam. This is the guy who said “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” More good Jefferson anti-religion quotes here.

Obama: “I made clear that America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam.”

So he can see the future now?

Obama: “And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments”

If the rest of the world said the same, the US would be distinctly unwelcome. This is more ethnocentrism – ‘when we go to war, it’s for a good reason. Other wars are stupid.’

Obama: “And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America;”

Setting up scholarships on the basis of religion is a violation of basic human rights, specifically freedom from discrimination based on religion. And don’t give me any affirmative action bullshit. The most persecuted belief system in the US is Atheism, not Islam.

Obama: “create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo. ”

It’s called email, dipshit.

Obama: “The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores — and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average.”

This is called selection bias. The US only lets in Muslims if they are particularly intelligent, well educated, and capable of supra-normal contributions to society. The fact that they do better than average is an indicator of racist immigration practices, not enhanced opportunity.

Conclusion

Free thinking people everywhere, beware. Obama is not the American Messiah. He’s another corporatist, religious whack-job tyrant. He’s no more pushing a liberal agenda than I am pushing a religious one. Atheists, liberals, environmentalists – if you’re relying on this asshole, you’re fucked.

8. Rapid Extinction of Critical Species

Our food supply is composed of various interconnected plant and animal species. We sometimes forget just how interconnected they are. For instance, the entire oceanic ecosystem depends on phytoplankton (little floating plants). If phytoplankton were to rapidly die off, due to changing water temperature, acidity or perhaps a virulent disease, the entire oceanic ecosystem would collapse. Bye bye fish, sharks, whales, krill, crabs, lobster… everything. Our agriculture is also fundamentally dependent on a small number of key species: worms (which aerate the soil) and bees (which pollinate practically everything). If worms or bees were to suddenly die off, horrendous famine and mass extinction would follow.

7. Environmental Collapse

The theory of environmental collapse is based on the idea that most organisms are tightly interconnected. Thus ecosystems are web-like structures where each species depends, directly or indirectly, on many other species. Many scientists believe that there is a kind of diversity threshold such that, if we lose enough species, entire ecosystems will collapse. Given the alarming rate at which species are becoming extinct (somewhere in the order of 100 to 1000 times faster than normal), if such a threshold exists, we may be getting close.

This, of course, would not only cause horrifying environmental destruction for which our grandchildren would never forgive us, and eradicate all sorts of potential medicines, but also produce global famine.

6. Human Disease

The Black Plague killed half the population of Europe in the 14th century, when slow methods of travel (horses and tall ships) impeded its spread. A similar disease today could rapidly spread across six continents. It is possible that the right (wrong?) disease could kill practically everyone on the planet. This could be a natural occurrence or a biological weapon.

As a society, however, we like to flip out about every new strain of the flu and take dramatic, but entirely ineffective, steps to assuage public fear. We close schools and hassle airline passengers. What we don’t do is create a culture where it is unacceptable to go to work, go shopping, take public transit, or generally wander around coughing on people when you have a contagious infection. Meanwhile, we let sick people sit around cross-infecting each other in waiting rooms for hours because we don’t have enough doctors on staff. And more fundamentally, we don’t address the continual degradation of human immune systems due to nutritionally devoid diets and epidemics of obesity, diabetes and respiratory disease.

5. Climate Change

If you still think climate change is a hoax, get help. No scientific conjecture has received more thorough testing and analysis in history than man-made climate change. If the temperature continues to rise, three important things will happen:

sea level will rise

deserts will grow

storms will become more extreme

All of these have severe effects on the food supply. As sea levels rise, farmland close to sea level will be flooded. As deserts grow, they consume previously arable land. As storms grow more extreme, more food and farmland will be destroyed each year. You might think that as the temperature warms, we’ll be able to farm further north, and that will make up for the farmland lost to sea level rise and desertification. You would be wrong. The arctic is already a cold desert. Climate change will likely just make it a less-cold desert.

4. Nuclear War

Any open conflict between two nuclear powers, be they the US and Russia, India and Pakistan or China and North Korea, has the potential to end life as we know it. Even if initial blast only kill millions, the radioactive fallout from a large-scale nuclear conflict could poison not only billions of people but also our food and water supplies.

3. Supervulcanism

Sorry Trekkies, Supervulcanism is not about controlling emotions and mind melds. It refers to a sudden rise in global volcanic activity. Volcanos are like the Earth’s smokestacks. If they all start spewing out ash at once, the atmosphere would become opaque, blocking out the suns rays. Imagine a thousands years of twilight. Now imagine 99% of the worlds plants dying, shortly followed by 100% of the world’s animals, including us.

Supervulcanism contributed to at least three Mass Extinctions.

2. Supernova or Gamma Ray Burst

When two stars collide or a large star goes supernova (collapses into a black hole), it can create an extremely energetic explosion. This energy travels outward in the form of Gamma Rays, which are sort of like X-rays on steroids. If such an energetic explosion occurred somewhere ‘nearby’ earth, say anywhere in our galaxy, the resulting gamma ray burst could destroy the ozone layer and irradiate the earth’s surface. It would be sort of like Marvin the Martian finally getting his giant ray gun to work and frying Earth with it.

Everything dies but the cockroaches.

1. Astronomical Impact

There are a lot of big rocks floating around in space. Every once in a while, two of them come together. Whether it’s an asteroid or a commet or even something from outside our solar system, if any big chunk of space debris come crashing into Earth, we’re dead.

Strong evidence supports an impact causing the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event (the one that killed the dinosaurs). How did it happen? Well, when a 10km-wide rock slam into the ground, several things happen. First, there’s the initial explosion – several orders of magnitude more powerful than the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Depending where the impact occurs, that could kill millions, or just a whole lot of fish. Then there’s the earthquake. We’re talking a 16 on the Richter Scale – 100 000 time more powerful than any earthquake in human history. The ground would move in waves, tossing people and building about like boats on a seething ocean. It would decimate buildings and infrastructure all over the world. Imagine the aftermath of the worst earthquake ever, and all the hospitals have been destroyed.

Assuming you survive all of that, you’ll have the pleasure to freeze and/or starve to death when all the dust thrown into the atmosphere blocks out the sun, just as in supervulcanism.

Only the cockroaches survive.

Early 19th Century – Intellectual property protections are created in Europe to that labors of the mind are enjoyed, for a short time, by their authors.

20th Century – Due to the logistics and cost of marketing and distributing media, music and movie creators sign over their work to publishers. Publishers get rich. Artists get a pittance.

1967 – World Intellectual Property Organization is created “to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world” (from the preamble to the convention establishing WIPO)

1990s – Rise of personal computing and the Internet. Logistic complexity and cost of marketing and distributing media evaporates. Traditional publishers become obsolete.

1990s through today – Rise of collaboration, sharing, open source, remixing, etc. IP laws, particularly software patents and copyright law, cease to achieve their original purpose (to encourage innovation). IP Laws become obsolete.

1999 – Napster created.

2000 – Publishers realize they are becoming obsolete; go batshit crazy. Begin to trick artists into thinking the same way.

Summer 2001 – Publishers sue Napster into oblivion; begin diverting all remaining resources to scaring the shit out of the public by suing teenagers, senior citizens and anyone else they can intimidate for bajillions of dollars in damages those people never could have caused.

Fall 2001 – Bush/Cheiny/Rumsfeld invent “War on Terror” for the dual purposes of bankrupting the USA while enriching themselves and instituting a dictactatorship. Dictator Numbnuts then calls everyone he doesn’t like a terrorist, abducts them and imprisons them in the floating S&M dungeon we call Gauntanomo Bay. Dictator Numbnuts further labels any action he doesn’t like “terrorism” or “supporting terrorism.”

2005 – Artists like Radiohead begin realizing that publishers are obsolete, embrace the new order and begin independent online distribution.

2006 through today – Lawsuits begin to backfire. Courts begin realizing that publishers are trying to use civil courts to prosecute criminal offenses but cannot justify the damages they are seeking due technicality – they have no evidence.

2007 through today – Desperate, publishers attempt to delegate enforcement by leaning on Internet Service Providers and Universities. Harvard Law takes it personally.

2008 – Charles Nesson, Professor of Law at Harvard and Captain of the SS Fuckoff starts blasting dirty-big holes in the side of the RIAA’s Fort Bullshit.

2009 – Seeing the RIAA’s bullshit shield weakening, the MPAA realizes it’s in shit up to its collective eyeballs and decides to take radical action. The MPAA “commissions a study” (read, “pays someone to invent evidence for a pre-made conclusion”) to link piracy with terrorism.

How why do you think publishers would want to conflate piracy with terrorism? Wouldn’t that just muddy the whole issue? Yes. Yes it would. That’s how OJ got away with killing his wife, and that’s how the publishes intend to get away with screwing over artists and consumers for half a century. They are going to try to have you, yes you, declared a terrorist. They are going to use fear and stupidity to pressure prosecutors to put piracy cases on top of their lists. Then they are going to spend every dollar they can beg, borrow and steal to have you, and people like you, thrown in jail for a very long time. They are going to try to frighten the living shit out of as many people as possible so people stop downloading.

Terrorism: the systematic use of fear as a means of coercion.

Downloading movies and music is not terrorism. Using the legal system to protect your profit margin by scaring the public into changing its behavior is.

Only Americans would elect a Bush and a Dick and then be surprised when they fucked the country.

Related Posts:
The Biggest Money-Grab in History
Video Slideshow: Top 5 Heroes in the War on Bullshit
McCain thinks the Iraq war is Noble? NOBLE?

So I ask you, who are the terrorists? Have Hamas or Hezbollah killed 284 innocent Israeli children? Did Saddam Hussein kill a million Americans?

What the American and Israeli forces are engaged in is genocide. They are not, have never been, simply protecting themselves.

War on Terror my ass. Nothing incites terror more effectively than a genocidal invasion.

Update: I’m not the only person calling this attempted genocide. Bolivia is calling for “the International Criminal Court to bring genocide charges against top Israeli officials.”

Prostitution may be the oldest profession, but men made war before money was invented to pay prostitutes.

Karl Rove. If you see this guy on the street, kick him in the nuts.

That’s right. Karl Rove is the reason we are still in a state of fear in America. It’s not because of the very real threat of terrorist attacks; it’s not because there are people out there who want to kill Americans. It’s because Karl Rove has infiltrated every aspect of American life with his rhetoric of fear. Now, you might not be a history buff like me, but there is another elusive figure in world history who reminds me a lot of this Rove cat. His name is Joseph Goebbels, and he was propaganda minister for the Nazi Party of Germany. He was a master of using fear to manipulate the masses of Germany, much as Rove is a master of using the same rhetorical tactics on the American public.

Can you imagine what a rhetorical deathmatch would look like between these two? It would be like watching a debate between McCain and Bush: two assholes spouting the same shit. But hey, now I’m inspired, so let’s compare quotes. I’ll go ahead and put some Goebbels-constructed propaganda next to the bullshit Bush and his croneys spout, and hey, we can even make it a little quiz. I won’t tell you who said what, so you can see how, um, easy it is to spot the differences. Don’t cheat, now.

1. “[We] must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

“The art of leadership… consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.”

2. “Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character.”

“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans. . . unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.”

3. “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

“I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen… I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.”

Conclusion

So folks, if you want something to be afraid of, don’t fear terrorism. Don’t fear Islam, or people who are culturally different. Fear assholes like Bush and Rove, who seek to manipulate a nation through fear… very much like another group of people earlier in the world’s history. Today is 9/11, but don’t spend today reflecting on how badly we need to unite against the perceived enemy across the sea; spend it reflecting on how badly we need to avoid being turned into a nation of blind sheeple following the rhetoric of a four-letter word like Rove. If you want to honor the memory of those who died on 9/11, don’t let their death be the inspiration for more murder.

That’s right, you heard me. Neocon leader William Kristol says we owe it to Georgia to defend their nation against Russia because of the 2,000 troops Georgia has given to the War on Terror. What is this douche, a comic book villain trying to end the world?

Arkham Asylum: where Bill Kristol should be bunking with the Penguin.

This guy is completely insane, and here’s three damn good reasons why.

3. We don’t owe Georgia a damn thing.

Georgia’s contribution of a whopping 2,000 troops to our bullshit war in Iraq is Kristol’s primary justification for calling troops to war. He says that “for this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious commitment to defend its sovereignity.” And I agree. We owe them vast amounts of moral support and diplomatic maneuvering to make sure they maintain their sovereignity. We don’t owe them a damn thing in the way of troops.

Georgia only joined the Iraq war in an effort to join NATO out of a belief that we would protect them from their large, aggressive neighbor: Russia. I sympathize with their plight. Russia is big and scary. So Georgia sent in their 2,000 troops to help us out. Apparently Georgians are not as astute as I am, but if we need the help of a third-world country whose government has only existed since 2003, what the hell makes them think we can help them fight Russia?! Which brings me to my next point…

2. Our forces are stretched too thin already.

CNN recently asked a group of 34,000 military officers about their situation in the Middle East, so why not listen to the pros: “Of those surveyed, 88 percent believe the demands of the Iraq war have ‘stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.’ . . .  Eighty percent of officers believe it is unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at present.” (CNN, 2008)

The truth is, at a time when recruitment for the military is way down, we are fighting two conflicts, and if you think things in Afghanistan are a-okay, think again. It’s idiotic to even think we could carry the battle to a third front – let alone one as vast as Russia. If we learn nothing else from Napoleon and Hitler, we should know the cold truth that Russia will break the back of any force split on multiple fronts.

1. Kristol’s motivations are less than pure.

Hmmm, now why would a neo-con like Kristol push for us to go to war in Georgia? For one thing, the American people are a heck of a lot more likely to vote for conservatives during periods of war, and let’s face it: we just aren’t paying attention to Iraq anymore. The Iraqi headlines have fallen to page 2A, and it’s simply not enough exposure to guarantee a Republican win in the presidential election.

More importantly, though, there’s the BTC Pipeline, the very reason Russia has decided they want Georgia so badly. The pipeline transports petroleum from Azerbaijan over 1,000 miles to a port in Turkey, making it not only the second-longest oil pipeline in the world, but also one of the most important ways oil makes it to the West.

So why would we want to fight Russia over Georgia? Because, what better way for us to sneak in the back door to gain access to the BTC Pipeline. Like Kristol says we owe Georgia for their support in Iraq, how much more do you think they will owe us if we bail them out of a fight with Russia?

I’m not one of them. Here’s what I’m afraid of: innovation. I don’t fear us being attacked by disorganized fundamental religious nuts from the desert; I fear a much quieter and more subtle threat. America may fall, but it won’t be through force of arms; we’ll just be left in the dust technologically and then methodically bought out by Eastern Asia. Don’t believe me? Here’s a few reasons why Eastern Asia, in particular China, will own your ass soon.

4. Eastern Asia has more meat.

They simply have so many people in parts of Eastern Asia, that they don’t have to worry about preserving the life and good health of their workforce. They can just replace them. Same goes for military might. Allied military leaders during World War II thought the Russians were bad, sending legions of cannon fodder until the bodies just piled up and they had to climb over them to keep attacking. There are enough people in China that their top 25% in just about any field outnumber the U.S. and Canada combined. There’s no shortage of muscle and meat in the Far East.

3. China has a lot of damn money.

To give you an idea, here’s the top four economies in the world: the United States, Japan, Germany and China, in that order. But here’s the difference between China and the the rest of us: they are rapidly growing. While the United States’ GDP has continued steadily to grow in small increments, China’s GDP growth in 2007 was 11.4%, compared to our 2.2%.

There is also the concern of public debt. The US owes about 9 trillion dollars to the rest of the world, mainly China. I’m not as strong on economics as Kavan, perhaps, but these are disturbing trends to see. China expands, while we stagnate. Wonderful.

2. We are a bunch of lazy hedonists who have forgotten how to do anything.

Just think about this: Steve in Oklahoma thinks guitar is real damn cool. He goes to a friend’s house, picks up his guitar, and realizes whoa, this crap’s hard. I’m not gonna learn this. Instead, he gets his parents to buy him Guitar Hero and becomes a master of the little-plastic-Fisher-Price-pseudoguitar-thingy. Meanwhile, in China, Steve’s counterpart isn’t playing guitar or Guitar Hero. He’s probably working in the factory that produces Guitar Hero, making the brainrot American kids consume on a daily basis.

How many 16-year-olds do you see anymore working to pay for their car, or trying to save money to go to college in a few short years? Not too damn many. Half our citizenry doesn’t ever have a source of employment before finishing their B.A. – paid for by mommy and daddy.

This is not the case in Eastern Asia. Reading census data from the People’s Republic is an interesting thing; one thing you may notice is that when the labor force is examined, it is from age 15 and up. That’s because 15 is the age these people start working. I’m not for shipping our kids off to the mines at 12, but you know what? Take away the video games, make them mow the damn lawn, and for God’s sake don’t give them some stupid idea that they should never have to work before graduating college.

1. Wal-Mart is gonna sell us out.

When was the last time something you bought at Wal-Mart said “Made in America” on it? Probably a long time ago, since about 70% of products sold at Wal-Mart are made in China. According to another report, Wal-Mart has exported about 1.5 million jobs to China. How are they an American company? So one of our country’s largest employers isn’t even remotely American anymore, great. You might think I’m a nutso conspiracy theorist, but picture this and tell me it’s not frightening: straw rice-field hats on smiley faces.