The Crappiness Of This New War

Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition

The old war of the 21st century, as in 'the Bush-Blair-Howard Misadventures In Iraq', (a.k.a. the Coalition Of The Unwitting Go To A Quagmire For A Bath) was characterised by a one-sided whup-ass of the industrially and technologically inferior Iraqi forces followed by years of door-to-door combat culminating in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. If it was meant to be morally edifying - and war rarely is such a thing - then the 'BBHMII' was a thoroughly miserable travesty in the morality stakes. Then they pinned it on a woman with low IQ and whistled by in their black limos. All  of which reminds us of the tremendous Monty Python sketch. Just as the Inquisitors start with fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, devotion to the Pope and red uniforms and then their claims degenerate in meaning, the 'BBHMII' started with Shock and Awe and eventually ended up with a brawling kind of war, the sort of which nobody could make any sense.

Then there is Guantanamo Bay prison where people are still kept without trial or warrants as somewhere between insane asylum of the 19th century and a torture chamber. Barack Obama came to power in 2008 promising to close the prison but of course it still exists today. One would think that Obama could easily and readily close that damnable institution by releasing all the prisoners with microchips in their skulls. At least the torture ought to end. The fact that it doesn't end is rather emblematic, and we come to realise Frank Zappa wasn't exactly kidding when he sang that Torture Never Stops. Yes, it's all been one long night of the iron sausage for all of us. It's hard to claim any moral ascendancy when what our side is offering is victimhood in a military prison in Cuba.

Now we're about to go back in and do it all over again, mostly because we can find even more moral revulsion in ISIL/ISOR than we could in Saddam Hussein. Not many people in parliament are expressing objections to the deep hypocrisy and great folly in going back to war in Iraq.

What we can deduce from all of this is that there are certain cultural tropes in our leadership and military that go right back to the Dark Ages, and despite our iPhones and internet connectivity and social media and Lady Gaga and Katy Perry freedoms, our leadership in war is ethically no better than the kind of medieval kings. It is no wonder that something claiming to be an Islamic State and a Caliphate becomes our opposite number and promptly started beheading people like this is the Fall of Constantinople, where the Ottomans fired chopped heads out of bronze canons. We are in essence replaying the nightmares of the past because it amuses us as entertainment in the news cycle.

They Think It's A Real Crusade, Not A Metaphorical One

Some weeks go I noticed ion Facebook that a couple of people with whom I went to school had served in Afghanistan (a.k.a 'The Other Crappy War of the 21st Century'). Couple of good old boys from Sydneys North Shore, 'Phil' and 'Potty' doing their bit for the cause of enduring freedom... I mean 'Operation Enduring Freedom'. There they were, one in the ADF as a soldier and the other as a chaplain. They were smiling like they were having a good time, and maybe they were on their boys' own adventure.

The bit that caught my eye was the big crucifix on the collar of the chaplain 'Potty', which got me thinking, was he walking around Kandahar or Kabul or wherever they were stationed in that uniform? Doubtless he was; and it struck me that he was the living walking talking crusader in a nation of Muslims, wearing that dirty big crucifix on his uniform - losing over the hearts that might have just been won over by our good efforts. It's like spending all the good will you're earning on the slot machine of faith.

How could the ADF not looked like a bunch of Crusaders come to the land of the muslims. It got me depressed. I understand that there are many religious people amongst our services and that they would require spiritual guidance in the business of shooting and killing people and still wanting to go to a Christian heaven (and I do mean that with the utmost ironic contempt). I pity the soldiers who would be getting this spiritual guidance from 'Potty' who in his days as a high school kid was about as emotionally evolved as a raging haemorrhoid; but be that as it may, it made me sick to the pit of my stomach that the ADF thought this was worth the effort.

So you can see I am really thrilled and excited about the prospect of sending 'boots on the ground'; and 'Potty' with them, to offer spiritual guidance to our Rampaging Crusading Christian Solders so they can still go through the eye of the needle into a Christian heaven having dispatched a bunch of Islamist Beheading Bastards to Allah. It's a great concept isn't it? When do they get to sack Jerusalem and fill the streets ankle deep in heathen blood? Looking forward to that in the news cycle!

No, really it's appropriate to say Jesus wept.