My second favorite Jarhead on Iraq and Iran
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Photo: David Schankbone, Wikimedia
The war in Iraq isn’t going to expand tenfold overnight. By simply doing nothing, the Democrats can rest assured that Bush’s bad policy will simply keep failing. War with Iran, on the other hand, can still be prevented.
Major Scott Ritter USMC [Retired.] truthdig.org
My brother is a sailor1. It took him three tries to get himself to Viet Nam. I filed for Conscientious Objector, but lotteried out. During Christmas Break 1991 we talked about the impending war with Iraq. I told him that we would be lucky if it came out as well as Viet Nam. It looked, for a bit, like I might be wrong, but in the span of time, it appears I was right. I am a bit like Cassandra.
The sailors refer to the Marines as Jarheads. Marine Lt. Jonathon Kendrick in A Few Good Men, says of the sailors, “We like you boys just fine. Whenever we go somewhere to fight, you boys always give us a ride.” I never thought I would like Jarheads, but then I learned about Major General Smedley Butler who wrote War is a Racket. He’s my fave Jarhead.
I’m working on a third Jarhead. He knows a lot of evolutionary biology. He wonders if we [humanoid carbon units] will ever learn to live together. Or will we extin(ct|guish)2 ourselves. Professor, we need more than wishful thinking from you. As always, I have a seedling of a plan. Think Social Darwinism vs. Evolution of Cooperation.
1 He is officially retired, but he still has to show up now and then.
2This is an example of what computer scientists refer to as a regular expression. It is equivalent to (extinct|extinguish) which means “extinct or extinguish”. Regular expressions obey a Type-3 grammar in the Chomsky Hierarchy.
