Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Monday, May 02, 2011

After A Fitful Night's Sleep, Some Perspective

I still think the whole howling frat party atmosphere that erupted in the aftermath of the news of our slaughter of the personification of evil last night -- price tag in the trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives though it be -- was disturbing, disproportionate, and unseemly, but if all this means we can now declare victory and end the wars and have our Constitution and our country back, well, I don't have to understand it, I'll take it. I am certainly grateful, if for nothing else, that this event has curtailed another week's distended contemplation of the awful Royal Wedding -- an event conclusively summarized for me by Jason Sklar's comment, "It's like a Tyler Perry movie with white people."

6 comments:

admin said...

Neither the stated nor actual purpose of the wars was to kill one man, so the wars won't end.

The stated purpose would be either dismantling the Taliban, removing WMDs, or spreading democracy, although the goal posts have moved many times. The actual purpose is hegemony over oil reserves (it is the same reason why we intervened in Libya and not Syria or Bahrain, although the humanitarian crises there are just as bad, if not worse).

bin Laden's death is a celebratory moment because he was the icon of 9/11, and his death brings closure to many people, but 9/11 has nothing to do with our campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq anymore.

myst101 said...

Oh come on.. Tyler Perry movies have their redeeming qualities..

Dale Carrico said...

Presumably, the "reputational atmospherics" have been bad for leaving Afghanistan despite the incredible unpopularity of the war and utter incoherence of our aims there -- so, bin Laden is dead, everybody wants out, declare victory and get out, what's not to like? The pretexts for war were bogus, the pretexts for leaving can be bogus as well. Everything on the ground is so remote from reason, decency, I don't even know how to connect the dots anymore. Lemons, lemonade.

Dale Carrico said...

Oh come on.. Tyler Perry movies have their redeeming qualities.

I assumed the comparison turned on all the ladies in funny hats.

Impertinent Weasel said...

Sigh.

I woke up today to see the Bin Ladin mythos, yet inchoate, begin to take shape. Much like Elvis, we'll be treated to Bin Ladin sightings in the checkout line for decades. Christ, they're already talking about his CIA connections.

What bothers me more, though, is the impossible daydream I had today that he was taken alive, brought out to sea, and interrogated with the Mother of All Waterboards before being keelhauled. I hope not, for all our sakes.

jollyspaniard said...

I'm not sure this brings closure to anything. A crowd of people cheered Trump when he said America should go into Iraq and Libya and take the oil by force. I can't see that sentiment disappearing over this, it doesn't have anything to do with Bin Laden.

I'd like to see America pull its troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. If Bin Laden's death makes that more likely then that's great but I don't see how it does.