The Good German

People ask me, “Tarla, how can you be angry when you live in Paradise?” My answer, “The Bush Administration would make an angel angry, I am a mere mortal, so I'm furious.” For example: $400 BILLION for the War in Iraq.

Now, that is the annual budget for the Pentagon, but this $400 billion is actually a separate part of the Pentagon budget. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that $320 billion has been spent on Iraq and Afghanistan since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Bush just asked for $70 billion more.

That's $70 billion dollars more to pursue a war against a country that wasn't a threat to the US, that was virtually hamstrung by sanctions, and which possessed none of the qualities or dangers used to justify its invasion. This invasion was done by what essentially looks like a big ole bully making a grab for a smaller kid's ice cream. And they beat the living shit out of that kid while doing so! Even the Bush Administration admits to 30,000 Iraqi deaths.

Stop and think about that for a minute. Seriously consider just how big a number that is. I lived in OKC when the bombing happened. We lost 168 souls. Now think about how many more 30,000 is. It's ten times the number killed in NYC, and the Iraqis had nothing to do with that shit. Now...that's the number they concede to. What's the real count? Too frightening to consider, particularly when you consider that these deaths are occurring in a place where the culture includes a strong streak of revenge.

Here's a better way to spend that $70 billion: http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/

I've made my escape. Why should I care? Well, the US casts a rather large shadow, and I have to live the rest of my life with this accent. It's harder being an ex-pat when the country is run by venomous incompetents. It reflects badly on the rest of us. People are always asking me, “Why did the American people (re)elect him?” Then I have to go into a long explanation about how I'm not actually sure that the American people DID elect him, either time. As to answering why they continue to tolerate him, well, that one, I can't answer, and it's a big part of why I live here instead of there. For a nation that prides itself on being so brave and fearless and tough and all that shit, there aren't even enough people with the balls to get out in the streets and revolt. They just eat another bowl of I can't be bothered, and go to work, like good drugged clones. When I was a child, people used to wonder how the German people could allow the horrible things that Hitler did, why they didn't stand up and fight him. I watch America and say, “That's how.”