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Alternatives (Free verse) by Dovina Let the war go on three more brutal years.
Double our losses, double theirs too.
Itâs worth the cost if during that time
technologists come to our cure
for a sickness we all endure.
If by then the carnage persists,
admit weâre defeated,
sit down with the winners.
Save what we can of all we admire,
And give them their wishes, as much as we must
to stop the killings and grant us some peace.
So, you with the math, the physics, the code,
we give you three years of our blood and our souls.
Go into battle with all of your heart,
Root out the evil, force them to stop,
because you, my friends, are all that weâve got.
Up the ladder:
It don't wanna be summer
Down the ladder:
Fastened to my belt
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 5.75
Posted: January 28, 2007 5:33 AM PST; Last modified: January 28, 2007 5:33 AM PSTWeighted score: 5.089402 Overall Rank: 6311 Comments:
In the eyes of the world we're already standing at precipice of defeat.
But defeat is so disasterous that I think we should give it three more years, double our losses if necessary, giving scientific and technological methods a chance. It's a high price, and demands high motivation of capable people.
I love how, overall, your position bobs as perfectly still as a cut and clear turd in a tsunami. So what you're saying is if we win we'd be right, and if we lose we can still say "I'm sorry, how's about a hug abdhula", and still be sort of okay sort of like maybe. okay in forgiveness, and just, well chatting about our issues.
Like for one: America is babylon, the new atlantis, so you fucking rags and negroes, and wild eyed gooks have best understand, we will get your trees, your oil, your jewels and the little girls, so play ball ball, or possibly die, or be hugged.
Who do we admit defeat to. The other side resembles the volcano God. We placate it by being sufficiently beastly to the Jewish people and crossing our fingers that it will not erupt. We can't actually talk to it. And what is this technology? Is it a humane way of wasting people? The free range chicken method of genocide. We can only hope.
Exactly. There is no such thing as a single, unified "other side" anyway. It's barely coherent enough to call it a volcano God. A myriad of factions, all fighting each other, united, perhaps, by a hatred of America, but divided by far too many other things to ever co-operate. People see the headlines: SCORES KILLED IN BAGHDAD. They put their thinking caps on: Gosh what an evil man Bush is for going in there and killing all those civilians. Perhaps if they'd read beyond the first paragraph, they'd know it wasn't that simple. That it was muslim vs muslim now. It's muslim vs hindu in the semis, then muslim vs Jesu in the final.
Operation Enduring Freedom wins, or everybody loses.
"Operation Enduring Freedom"--how pleased David Frum would be that you used the proper name. I think it was he who coined the term before going off to save duckies and bunnies. I always suspected there was a bit of irony in the moniker, but, hey, I'm just a little cynical.
What's winning? Is being mired there for the next god-knows-how-many decades fighting in an internal civil war "winning"? Are the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, in their various flavors, and anyone else with a yen for a share of wealth and power and some ancient festering grudge to avenge, going to start getting along if we drop enough bombs and fire enough rounds? Honestly, that's been one of the biggest fuck-ups of this entire war--we went in with no idea how to get out. The entire premise was bullshit, the "expert" predictions were bullshit, and the end result--where we are now--predictable and ignored. So is "winning" just "staying the course" and praying that--well, what? And I think you oversimplify how many people view the war. (Or maybe you don't.) I don't think Bush is "evil"--I think he's out of his league and ill-advised and pigheaded and determined to save his legacy at all costs. Like Dovina (apparently), he believes that the cost in blood and treasure is worth it to save him/us from "embarassment." All other things aside, there is no political or popular WILL to stay as long as we would need to stay--to spend the thousands of lives and trillions of dollars--to see any real improvement or real, measurable progress. Thus the opposition to benchmarks. Sending 20,000 additional troops is bunk. And no one else is going to step in with offers of aid at this point, because they know a losing proposition, in every sense, when they see it. There is no cavalry. "Operation Enduring Freedom wins," you say, "or everyone loses." But I always come back to the same question--if this is, as claimed, simply a front in the global war on "terra," how, exactly, does ensuring that another several generations of Muslims hate us help us in the end? As for "solutions," I have no fucking idea. I think we owe it to the Iraqis to help them get to some point of stability, quite honestly, but I don't know if that's even possible and I'm quite certain that neither the US nor the UK are going to commit to keeping troops there much longer (when Bush goes, so does our army, at the latest)--so where does that leave us?
SUGGESTION: Winning = control of Middle Eastern oil supplies = the ability to tell Russia where to stick it when they cut off our resources.
Oh Christ, I think I just broke out in pimples.
LOL--you are far too young to be so cynical, Ranger. Please, earn it like the rest of us. ;)
Excuse me, I'm off to feed some orphans.
Did you ever read/see Children of Men?
I saw it a couple of weeks back in NYC. Thought it was ace.
It was, although I told my dad about it and he thought the idea of a world without children was heaven.
No, he's thinking of a world without ethnics. So was Lenon.
Imagine there's no muslims. It's easy if you dare. No need for duncely prayer matts, Or unsightly facial hair. Imagine all the normals Living for today... You may say I'm a racist But it's just a point of view. And I hope someday you'll join me Unless you're ethnic too.
If we want to tell them something like, âYou win. Lets meet and discuss the terms of our surrender,â itâs simpleâjust put Bush on television and have him say it. I hope we win this mess and save ourselves the embarrassment and chaos, but at the rate weâre going, who knows.
Technologists just might, for example, develop a super-sniffer to tell us where the bombs are, or where they make them, or how they distribute them. We might learn to track their movements, their meetings, where they sleep, with a badguy-resonance-gizmo. Iâm trying to kick technology butt here, and show how much we depend on them. Ok, kicking butt isnât the way to do it, you say. Suggest something else then.
Why do you get so many comments on your poems? they are veritable common rooms for 'rankers. And, in much the same way as a common room is an empty vessel waiting for the chatter of a bunch of "know it all" spotty drug addicts with amusingly grown facial hair, the appearance of the room is of little import in connection with conversations had therein.
Is it because I'm beautiful, provocative conversationalist, lovable humanitarian, or irresistible logician? You decide, and step right in, let your hair down.
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I applaud your efforts here though! Well done! Very proactive!
I failed to open my discourse with some implication of Bush as a bloated idiot, and failed again by not pointing out the warâs sordid history. Then I failed to post a poem having metaphor, image, clever wording . . . . Without these openings, any suggestions regarding courses of action in the war fall on ears of ire. Oh, I tingle with the last verse of my ditty, but the first two are just spouting.
My little learning about what Iâm calling the Islamic mindset, referring to the common people of Iraq, comes mostly from a Bengali Muslim who thinks Americaâs greatest failing in Iraq is our resistance to taking their mindset seriouslyâthe old âknow your enemyâ maxim.
If my uninformed support for technology as our âbest hopeâ raises eyebrows, then my only sacrifice to the cause is a little ridicule. I wish a greater sacrifice for the folks with knowledge and brainsâhard work and risk of their jobs. And for the soldiers who are buying them time, I wish fewer losses.
Anybody out there, Q-cleared, with a clue on the whereabouts of Weberâs magic bullets of Der Freischutz, the kind that hit whatever you shoot at, Go for it and forget the bosses! Youâre our best hope.
Admittedly, it's not as though the English can talk about having effective hospitals.
Besides, we used to say* that the Irish would never be reconciled, and look at the progress there.
*okay, so *I* never actually said that, but the people who were alive and fighting then did.