Midnight Smack

I seldom wax smack about politics here, but 'tis the season, so let's let 'er rip.

Is there seriously not just one measly Republican who is brave enough to stand up to the leaders of his party and not just offer up a short soundbite for the cameras on how the war isn't going well, but rather have some balls and name names and call people out for this abomination in the Middle East? Risk your job and be unmerciful, I demand.

Most of why I don't go political here is because I don't follow the process enough to sound fully informed. There are so many states and seats and offices and races and candidates and issues and attack ads and counter ads and statistics and the twisting of statistics and denials. If you're career isn't in politics, and I hope it isn't, then it's like a full-time job just following politics.

But nowadays, I do think I know enough to know that war is based on big business and denials, and it disgusts me that there isn't one man or woman -- not one -- currently working in Washington who's willing to take a risk and shake things up. War is a lucrative industry, and business is booming for Company USA.

Seriously, are we really trying to be liberators? We're the most self-absorbed country in the world. Since when do we care so much about helping a country that "had weapons of mass destruction" find freedom?

And did you know that the first 70 contracts -- maybe more -- given out to American companies when the rebuilding began were distributed to firms whose high-level suits were once Washington politicians?

We're running out of room here within our own borders, so it's time to start building America West. Our companies need to keep advancing that bottom line, and we've milked our own countrymen for all they have, so we now need to exploit the hell out of many other countries.

"What's that, Ahmed, you don't like Starbucks? Too bad. But your English is getting much better."

(Side Note: I didn't know if there was an apostrophe in Starbucks. Know how I quenched that curiosity? I stood up from my chair and looked out the window, diagonally across the street, where a Starbucks just went up a month ago. Disgusting. And true.)

What I think a lot of Americans do -- and I'm sometimes guilty of this -- is wonder in how many months when our military is going to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and really lots of places and come home. Months? We don't think about the long term. We think in chunks no longer than six and 12 months, and we're perpetually driven by instant gratification. We think even just half a year is so far away that the Bush administration has convinced us that major troop withdrawals will begin in midyear 2007, signaling the beginning of the end of the war.

"That sounds great. And yes, I'd like to supersize that, please."

But this war will stretch well beyond 2007. And the longer it goes, the easier it gets for the extremists to recruit believers. It took hundreds of years of struggle for Christians and Jews to spread their religion. And as fucked up as their religion seems to us, we're witnessing what could be the early stages of a much larger, more modern Islam.

And as the war continues, governments will weaken in countries other than the ones currently making headlines. Regimes in Syria and Jordan, perhaps even Egypt and Saudi Arabia, could be toppled in such a way that a gigantic Islamic army is organized in 20 years. And don't think al-Qaida doesn't have a strong presence in South America either. Are we slowly being surrounded? Sure it sounds paranoid, but don't be surprised if Alaska is a smart place to live in 2020. I just hope they have Starbucks.