wiki leaks again

i've not yet decided where i stand on this whole wikileaks thing. there is a part of me that rather enjoys the "no shit sherlock" vindication of my long-held beliefs that the obama administration is much better at chess than were the bushies (see cables between u.s. and russia over the missile defense move in exchange for a vote against iran, see cables between u.s. and saudi arabia to get china onto saudi's oil and off iran's, and see cable from the saudi king expressing anger over bush's insistence on "handing iraq to iran on a golden platter," after the king strongly advised against going to war in iraq).

on the other hand, there's something kind of fucked up about the detailed exposure of intricate and presumably diabolical manipulations the leader of the free world must engage in to maintain that salutation, not to mention the safety and sanctity of america. i mean, think about it. we are america. we are the great ones, the "exceptional" if you will. we are pillars of democracy, the tower of strength to the rest of the world, the moral compass we ask others to follow. can we really be all that whilst also playing manipulative games with this country over that, this leader over that, pulling this punch here in order to deliver it there?

for those of us with a working brain and an eye toward the reality of the modern world, the word "duh" does come to mind. but we live in a country full of simpletons who believe the words of "wisdom" spoon fed to them by the likes of glenn beck, sarah palin, and rush limbaugh. we also live in a world where mahmoud ahmadinejad has access to wikileaks (see cables from every leader around the world calling him crazy and telling the u.s. to let israel bomb the fuck out of iran).

so how appropriate is it to over-share the details of what really does go on in the game of multinational diplomacy? and can america stand tall atop the mountain of moral superiority whilst rolling around in the machiavellian mud with the rest of the riff-raff?

you decide.

~k

the trouble with teeth in sleep

in light of the fact that most of my night terrors revolve around terrorists, being chased by monsters, and forcing myself to wake up just before freddy krueger plunges his knivey finger nails into my jugular, this latest sleep intrusion seems but a minor inconvenience. but i'll be goddammed if i'm not twisted into nine kindsa knots today after waking at 2am horrified that my teeth had fallen out.

seriously, i could go into the gritty details i remember spectacularly well (which likely make less sense on "paper" than the film that's been on replay in my brain all day), but the bottom line is that i dreamed my teeth were falling out, and i'm still reeling from the horror i felt at 2am.

i'm sure part of it's exhaustion, cuz it was near impossible to get back to sleep whilst so riled up. i'm sure part of it is type-a-insanity (i.e. "i wanna know NOW what it all means), and the rest is the confusion associated with why something as insignificant as a dream about my teeth falling out could have so much more of an impact on my day-psyche than being terrorized by the likes of freddy krueger.

and of course i googled it. apparently, this is the most commonly researched dream. freud would say it's punishment for masturbation (and i won't even go into what that says about freud), bible-thumpers think it has to do with me caring more about what others think than what god thinks (uh...not likely), others think i'm insecure or have trouble expressing myself (yeah, that's probable), or perhaps i'm "unprepared for the task at hand," whatever that is.

so... after my research and analysis, it turns out i still have no idea why i remain so stressed out about it or what the hell it means, but maybe it just means that it's time to go to the dentist...

~k

sacrifice

the dictionary has a bazillion definitions, but this one seems the most all-encompassing:

"the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim."

so how do you know which has a higher claim?

when weighing all things, which things get the most weight, which things are meant to matter more? and why is it that just when you think you know the answer, something, some feeling you didn't expect, some something you didn't know was there comes into play and fucks everything up?

how do you know?

~k

afghans again

for the past several weeks, i have tortured myself trying to come up with a solution for the shit show that is our afghanistan issue, and every time i think i've pinned down my opinion, i talk myself out of it. or i let others talk me out of it.

you see, i am torn first by limited resources. and then by other things. and other people.

putting aside things like money, loss of life, a commitment the american people aren't likely to buy into, and the fact that afghanistan is an historical graveyard of empires, if i had my druthers, we'd go all in. we would commit to building a democratic afghanistan. and we'd do it by empowering the local 'warlords' to become leaders and governors.

we'd help them build roads and farms, schools and hospitals, and give them the tools they need to form a more perfect union. one in which more than 28% of its population is educated, where women have access to equality, education, and opportunity, where farmers can farm something other than opium, and where we can stabilize pakistan's neighbor. we would, in a sense, organize afghan communities.

whether or not there's a strong central government a la the united states of america, or whether there's something a bit more loose a la the short-lived confederate states of america (which seems more likely when considering the present afghani administration), the key is in building the local governments, as an upshot of the current political structure. and then asking them to convene for a big constitutional convention to fine-tune their current government into something more akin to effective governance.

there are those who argue we go all in, regardless of the ability of the afghans to eventually govern themselves. 'let's just go in guns a blazin and kill some terrorists,' if you will. cuz, yeah, that's a great use of our armed services and resources. just because general mcchrystal says we need 40,000 more troops, we should just send them in, without asking questions or coming up with a strategic plan, doesn't quite cut it for me. especially when reality suggests that any sort of afghanistan initiative is going to commit us to a minimum of ten years (and that's only if things go perfectly between now and 2020), with a more plausible time line of about a hundred years.

and i'm not sure how much weight i can give the argument that our end goal is meant to be about eradicating al queda and eliminating the taliban control over any part of afghanistan (at this moment in time, the taliban is gaining control in the eastern part of afhanistan, near the pakistani border, just as they gain power in pakistan. this latter development is enough to worry the bejeesus out of much of the free world that the terroristy taliban is positioned to topple president zardari and seize control of a country in possession of nuclear weapons (fucking scary, eh!?)).

i think our strategy needs to have more to do with regional stability than simply some dumb 'war on terror'. and the only way we can ensure regional stability, enough to help afghanistan learn to effectively govern itself, is to build a nation. and asking americans to sign up for a multi-generational nation-building project is not something i've quite figured out how to do (though i'm working on it).

and at what expense? (this is where that little issue of limited resources comes into play).

i mean, america hasn't had a load of debt this high since the last time we set out to rebuild the world via the marshall plan after world war ii. with china holding all the cards to our continual descent into the dungeons of debt, while our economy seems to be averting a rebound (except for those asshats on wall street whose egregious risk to main streeters is still earning them egregious sums of money (at the same time consumer lenders are spiralling down into the shit tank along with the rest of us)), can we really afford to go all in?

i dunno.

and ultimately, if i have to pick between healthcare for all americans or healthcare for all afghans...

well then, the end.

~k

"where are you going?"

she asked.

a week ago, i was sure the answer was "the white house". it's evolved to: washington, dc, or some post-conflict country in need of government restructuring.

for the people who love me, i'm sorry for this evolution. fer reals. but for the hopeless adventurer in me (the one whose bucket list includes 'spending a year with no address'), i pray i end up in khartoum or nairobi, where maybe i can help a newly forming democracy get underway.

but the white house is still number one. it's just no longer the only egg in my basket.

~k