Desultory Post

The ‘bored soldier’ has made it to his destination and is enjoying the sights and sounds and refreshments of the mother country. Bauer’s whereabouts are currently not known. What follows is another broken-bat single from your pinch-hitter, TFDad.

desultory\DES-uhl-tor-ee\, adjective 1)Jumping or passing from one thing to another without order or rational connection.

Had to look this word up the other day. Its one of those words I’m sure I’ve read a hundred times but can’t recall ever looking it up. Who wants to go get a dictionary when its easier to look at the context and guess what it probably means. Or maybe there was a time when I looked it up and for a time knew what it meant but now I forget. My favorite saying is, "I’ve got a good memory, its just short." Since I say it about every day, there’s no doubt its my family’s least favorite saying of mine.

Anyway, ‘desultory’ (which also means, ‘disgression", but I digress). When I discovered what it meant, I thought- "Exactly. That perfectly describes my current sense about the various things flittering about my mind that somehow seem connected, but probably only in a way that would be comprehended by a daily user of medicinal marijuana." Which by the way, my church- the PCUSA (Presbyterian Church in the USA)- recently voted at General Assembly to approve, right after apologizing for previously passing a Divestment From Israel statement (which they continue, I guess, to pursue) and after backing away somewhat from their previous endorsement of partial birth abortion and after affirming the standard for ordination that precludes avowed, practicing homosexuals, though the ‘Peace, Unity and Purity Report’ was adopted which will make it easier for churches so wishing to ordain avowed, practicing homosexuals (not, heaven forfend, that there’s anything wrong with that). The upside to this is that on the golf course, when I use an expletive deleted to describe my satisfaction with a shot, I can apologize by saying, "Forgive me, I’m a Presbyterian and I’m under a lot of stress", and all heads nod understandingly.

"At any rate," he said desultorily. Let’s start with this thwarted plot to blow up British planes either a) over water so the evidence is irretrievable, or b) over New York, LA, Boston, or anywhere except Dearborn Michigan. I haven’t yet read a coherent account of this whole thing, and probably won’t anyway, but it seems to have begun to unravel when the Pakistani Intelligence (I won’t do it, but any Muslims care to say, "Is that an oxymoron"?) got hold of two British muslim suspects. Apparently they spilt the beans (more on this in a minute) which led to the identification of the rest of the ring, which was put under surveillance and, as we know, were eventually arrested.

I’m no expert on these things but it seems I’ve heard that Pakistan’s intelligence services have a bit of a reputation for disdaining the disapproval of Human Rights Watch. Might we suppose that due to this reputation, the two unlucky bad guys- Nabeel and Umir (or perhaps Assan and Waheed, or Abdullah and Muhammed) might have thought it the better part of wisdom to cooperate than to see whether they, Nabeel and Umir, are as tough as they’ve always prayed to Allah they would be. Or might we suppose that the Paks beat the living tar out of them for the sheer sport of it (they are, after all, Euroweenies. Who among us could have resisted just one whack with a 2 X 4 upside their heads) and then called in the stenographer. I didn’t spend last night in a Holiday Inn but I’ve been watching a lot of poker on ESPN and I’m betting there was some "rough interrogation" involved.

Back in January, I believe it was, Christianity Today had as its cover story, "Why Torture Is Always Wrong". Besides the shoddiness of their logic, not to mention their misunderstanding exactly what the Bible does and doesn’t say about these matters (ever wonder what Peter was doing with a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane?), they assumed as fact the common myth that torture never produces actionable information. I sent them my copy of ‘Guarding Tess", starring Shirley MacClaine and Nicholas Cage. I suggested the editor and his staff watch it some afternoon and discuss whether they really know enough about these matters to make such bold statements. (Of course, maybe they’re all Presbyterians and the lack of knowledge or actual expertise is not a factor in deciding whether to shoot their mouths off.) The little prick never acknowledged my letter or my gracious gift.

Gitmo. Have you heard of how much fun it is to guard these (fill in the blank) and thought , "How could I get a job like that where you’re subjected to having feces and urine thrown at you and you can’t do a damn thing about it?" I can tell you that if the BoredSoldier ever worked Gitmo and had that happen, his mother would organize all the other mothers and they would knock Cindy Sheehan on her code pink ass to get past her to the Top Brass at the Pentagon to give them a little much-needed reality check. Really, how many votes would a politician loose that refused to get exercised by one of those Marine drill sargents I saw last year at Paris Island (I swear they don’t make biceps that big in the NFL!) explaining in his own inimitable way, that Achmed ought to behave a little better as a special guest of the U.S. of A. I understand that doing the suicide belt thing might have a certain appeal for one itching to meet one of those 72 year old virgins, but I don’t think a half hour with Sgt Rock is quite as appealing. In fact, I can’t imagine that it would take more than 72 hours to solve that problem!

After 3,000 civilians and 2,600 or so of our fighting men and women lost so far in this war, not counting the many hundreds lost before we admitted we were in a war, how many more will it take before this country accepts this prescription. Don’t doubt for a minute that we will gladly take the gloves off and untie the hand we’ve tied behind our backs when we reach that number.

Is it 10,000 more? A hundred thousand? Or will it take a larger number such that its too late?

Here’s an idea that I read Michael Reagan come up with recently. He said if he were President, his first act would be to get rid of all embedded reporters. His second act would be to declare a news blackout on the war for 6 months. He asked a Lt Col. how long he thought it would take to end this war if that were to happen. The Lt Col said, "30 days!"