Obama and the Dogs of War

here is no end to war.






Chris Hedges in his article, “Becoming what we seek to destroy” says it well: We are

“ … guided by a president who once again has no experience of war and defers to the bull-necked generals and militarists whose careers, power and profits depend on expanded war, we are transformed into monsters.

This is the point: we are becoming the enemy. Every time we are confronted by the atrocities of the past, we chant, “Never again”. But we do not change.

The Pope once again decries the Nazi killings. But in the present-day, living-world the violence is the same, and the excuses are similar.

In Sri Lanka a well-fed government spokesman accuses the Tamil Tigers of killing the Tamils. This may be true, but we have heard authorities from different countries use the “human shield” excuse so many times for their massacres, it has become rhetorically suspect. The Israelis used the same language to justify the slaughter of the Palestinians. Now the United States says the killings and massive exodus en Pakistan are due to the same pretext: the “enemy” seems to practice self-immolation just to give us bad press. It is a problem of PR: the Associated Press went so far as to call the deaths “awkward”.


I am outraged, but it seems that power has a “Gatopardo” existence: the term refers to an Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. In this novel the main character, Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, negotiates and manipulates things so that his aristocratic family can continue to benefit even during Garibaldi's populist changes in the late 19th century.

In the same way, armies and arms manufacturers continue to market their wares and ply their trade even though so many of us scream bloody murder.

As always, let's enthusiastically let lose the dogs of war!