11 September 2005

insert your own damn subtitle here

Of course, given my current situation, I'm in a "nuke'm all 'till they glow" mood. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I had been making notes on my laptop for the past couple of months on the whole 11 September / GWoT / Pink vs. Grey thingy; alas, all was lost when I was made redundant and the laptop was not included in the consolation prizes offered to me upon my forced exit.

Wankers. But I digress.....

Back during graduation season, some knob on NRP was going on about how the current crop of college graduates were worried that the ".....War on Terrorism was going to be a factor in their lives for some time to come....." Well, NO.SHIT.SHERLOCK. Get used to it.

I'm 42 years old. Short of catalysmic nukular strikes rendering what is now known as the "Middle East" into a glowing smoldering glass plate, this War on Terror will be with us for the rest of my life. My children will grow up with it, and when we finally win this thing, my children will rejoice as I did upon seeing the Berlin Wall fall over and finally die.

I'm just old enough to remember the Civil Defense drills in school. Don't look at the light! Get under you desk! Assume the position and kiss your ass goodbye! My fellow travellers will understand what the fall of the Berlin Wall meant for all of us.

But there will be no nukular strike; no bombing of Mecca. No wholesale laying waste to entire regions, entire peoples, entire idelogies. Although, at times, such actions certainly seem well justified. Could we do it? Sure. This whole GWoT could be over by half-time on Monday Night Football.

But why? Why not?

It is because of who we are as a people and a Nation. We (justifiedily) bombed the living shit out of Germany and Japan, then spent un-told trillions of dollars rebuilding those countries and defending them for 60+ years.

You may or may not rembember the tsunami that hit Indonesia last year. How much support / money did Our Country pour into that area, both publically and privately? Why? Because we, as a People Step.Up. We pay the freight and tip the driver. It's just who we are.

We don't bomb them back to the pre-Stone Age, not because we are physically incapable of doing so, because we could. Thrice. With plenty of munitions left over the do the same to whom-ever fucked with us next. And the ones after that. And the ones after that. And so on, ad infinitum. We do not do such things because of who We are.

It's the restraint that We show that is the true measure of our People.

My point? Your best guess will be appreciated in the Comments. I'll "one-up" you: my point is NOT that you shouldn't blog whilst drinking to excess. Because you should. Comment, I mean.

But you knew that.