Iraq, Global Warming, and Pascal's Wager

First things first, and there isn’t anything more important where national affairs are concerned than Iraq. There are few things personal as important, either. We’re entering the fifth year. Words failing, that’s almost all I can say, anymore. The war that our Louis the Fifteenth said would pay for itself with oil is now costing all of us save the rich (who don’t, of course, pay anything without profit) $630,000,000,000 – that’s six hundred, thirty billion dollars.

That, in case you like most "Americans" pay no attention to history, is the most since World War Two.

Even with past spending adjusted upward for inflation, the $630 billion provided for the military this year exceeds the highest annual amounts during the Reagan-era defense buildup, the Vietnam War and the Korean War.

When the cowardice of cutthroats called Congress approves a nearly $100,000,000,000 – that’s one hundred billion dollars – “emergency” (strange how it can be an emergency for anyone who demonstrates as little concern for our troops as these jackasses) spending bill in the next few weeks, they will have appropriated $607,000,000,000 – six hundred, seven billion - for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About seventy-five percent of that will go to Halliburton and their military industrial complex ilk in Iraq.

You may have noticed that, now that the elections are over, the Congress’ Democrats are changing their tune on the war and the spending. Did I say cowardice? Yeah, I did – make that craven, crawling cowardice. Lobbyist scum-sucking cowardice. Throw in deceit . . . oh, never mind! What’s the use?!

"They (the belly-crawling, ass-kissing sycophants our fuehrer now rules) have a responsibility to get this bill to my desk without strings and without delay," our Dubbya says. Damn! –but I detest that miserable caricature of a man!

This is a turning point in the history of civilization, folks - not only ours, but that of mankind. This is also what the military industrial complex has been looking for since they seized power here in the fifties. That’s a war just about without foreseeable end, a war with all of Islam. Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee last week that winning “the war on terror” – what a genius stroke that was for the neo-conservatives and military industrialists – “will require still greater resources. “

Damned right it will. If we happen to run out of people to impoverish and force into servitude, there are millions of illegal aliens we can import for the purpose. This is becoming just about as Orwellian as you can get (strange, isn’t it, that “1984” has popped up in the news again?). Read it, see the parallels – it’s damned near a script for the Bush League Administration and what’s coming.

"The country's not mobilized," Schoomaker said. "Less than one-half of one percent of the people are participating in this. And I absolutely believe that we've got to get people out of the spectator stands and onto the field. ... I believe that this is a very long, serious fight that's going to continue to get more and more dangerous."

Read that again, folks. Presumably, the Two-Minute Hate rallies will begin soon. Watch FoxNews for the first announcement. Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity will, no doubt, lead them.

If anyone should remind the General that the United States is spending almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined spends on munitions and armed forces, Fox, Hannity, and Coulter will be brand him a traitor.

There’s more from the Ministry of Truth, too. One James Carafano, one of those supposed “analysts” at the Heritage Institute in Washington, said military spending isn't high (!) when compared to the overall size of the U.S. economy. “Analyst,” apparently, is now the Ministry of Truth title for a White House Tony Snow who reads the script handed him by his boss. Probably the Bush League’s equivalent to the Ministry of Love guy, O’Brien, huh?

After all, Carafano asserts, defense appropriations currently equal “only” about four percent of the country’s gross domestic product. We can handle a lot more. There are only about forty million poor, and – excuse me if I repeat myself – we can import a whole, lot more from Latin America. Plenty to go around. They’ll be glad to serve in our military, too (something already being bandied about in Washington – citizenship, should they survive). Does that remind you of anything? Rome, maybe?

And we spent seven percent of the GDP during the Cold War, goddammit. As the lady in San Angelo, Texas I mentioned a while ago, said, the poor here have TV. "When you have a bigger house, you buy more insurance," Carafano said. "When the nation is worth a lot more, we have to spend more to protect it."

Remember Reichsmarschall Herman Goering? "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

Neither was Carafano satisfied with his demands: "We have not had any follow-up attacks to 9/11; that's a pretty powerful success story," he said. Yeah that IS interesting. And clever, huh? -the way they veil that particular threat, I mean. What, Mr. Carafano – should we expect another 9-11 soon? Hmmmm!

Anyway, we’re obviously not spending enough. "On the other hand,” the “analyst” said, “the world's best-equipped military is being fought to a standstill by a handful of zealots in Iraq.” Yeah, we noticed that, too. And, well, now – by god, we can’t have that; and anyone who refuses to “support the troops” (arrrgh! –that phrase pisses me off) will be declared an “un-person.”

It occurs to me, incidentally, that you might not have read “1984.” Well it’s on Wikipedia, I suppose. You’ll be able to handle the synopsis – it’ll be only a page or so.

On another matter having to do with the same mentality and Ministry of Truth control, Hate Rallies against those of us who want to do something about pollution of the planet and its atmosphere also seem to be in the offing. Same thing there - threaten the oil companies profits by letting up on the accelerator in order to pump less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and you’re in danger of becoming an “un-person.” The "Inner Party" includes the oil company corporations, you know. War is damned profitable for them, too.

Three or four hundred times the carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere has nothing to do with global warming, and anyone who thinks that needs to work on his doublethink. That will not be tolerated by the people who put Big Brother in the Ministry of Plenty – oops, Mr. Bush in the White House.

The Ministry of Truth is also pumping out data to prove that the earth has in the past been even warmer than it is now. They do not also point out that that is irrelevant, however. The planet a long time ago was a lot of things it isn’t now. It had dinosaurs, for instance; more, there was a time when it could only support primordial live forms, too. Or no life at all. Hardly something we ought to encourage, I should think.

Look, folks, this is Pascal’s Wager. Remember? Pascal’s Gambit, as it was also called, had to do with religion and the existence of god, but it is a logical schema that applies here, too. Even if we’re not certain about the result of what we choose to do, it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to risk the planet when all we might gain is save a relatively few jobs and the lifestyle of some of our “Rich and Famous.”

When you think about it, Pascal’s Gambit, and game theory related, apply where Iraq and the possibility of war with all of Islam is concerned, too. It is thunderously (as I am wont, of late, to say) obvious that the time of colonialist capitalism is ending, anyway. There isn’t anything left to exploit to that degree. To risk a war that might do more damage to mankind than global warming – and might also put the finishing touches on that, besides – would be stupid.

The scariest part of it all for me in either case is to listen to supposed experts – “You can never trust a capitalist,” the heroine in my novel said, “everything is for sale” – base their pooh-poohing of the idea that global warming has human causes on irrelevant conclusion like proof the planet was once warm or warmer. These people obviously – at least presumably (I once pointed out here that education and intellectuality do not equate to intelligence) - think better than that.

The same is true of the similar arguments by “analysts” who inveigh – and similarly - against “cut and run tactics” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. to paraphrase Pascal, if you stop attacking Islam, and peace – even generally – ensues, your gain in lives saved, destruction abated and prevented, is “infinite” – enormous, at least. That, I should think by now, is obvious (notice that I didn’t say “thunderously”).

Even if, when we stop attacking Islam, Moslems continue their jihad, to make ourselves invulnerable is not only eminently possible (even results in higher employment and economic gain), we gain enormously – again in terms of lives saved, etc.

If the reason for the war in Iraq is the World Trade Center and the lives lost there, parenthetically, we’ve gotten one hell of a poor trade.

If we go on attacking Islam, and force Moslems to universal jihad, our loss may, indeed, be infinite. The only winners would be industrial military complex corporations like Halliburton.

There’s one more thing to think about, eerie in its mien. We seem to be risking severe or fatal – for us, anyway – damage to the ecosystem out of some kind of male minimalist daring and stubbornness, the same thing that seems to demand that we refuse to “cut and run” in Iraq. I’m beginning to think on second thought (if you’ve been reading here, you know what I mean), that maybe we should let women rule.

Maybe they will, anyway – what we’re doing lately sounds too damned much like the machismo of a game of “chicken” to suit me. Maybe we - men, I mean - will kill ourselves with the stupid games we insist upon playing.