War Du Jour, Part III

War, endless war. Evidently, Iraq and Afghanistan, even taken together, cannot sate the US's taste for armed combat and blood. No. Not a chance. Those are insufficient. Today we learned that the US was going to get involved in yet another war, a third one, this time in Libya, again complete with ill defined purpose, the possibility of massive and uncontrolled escalation, and no exit plans. Yes, I know. No ground troops are being committed. Yet. Right now. But this intervention is a lot more than just imposing a "no fly zone". Let's call it what it is: it's an open invitation for the US to get embroiled in yet a third, simultaneous, distant ground war.

How so? Let's suppose that air power can keep Libya's air force on the ground. But let's also suppose that Libyan armor attacks Benghazi. Or Libyan mercenaries and infantry attack some other civilian center in which there is resistance to the Gaddafi government and its tanks and infantry and mercenaries. It's clear that to defend the rebels (read: the less well armed Libyan people) there would have to be at the very least an air attack on the advancing forces. And the Libyan response to that would be an escalation of some kind, and the response to that, in turn, another escalation. Have we seen this particular sequence and its consequences before? Or more to the point, haven't we seen it far too often? And hasn't it killed enough US soldiers? And enough foreign soldiers? And enough civilians?

MSNBC reports:

NATO allies meeting in Brussels were drawing up plans to enforce a United Nations resolution authorizing military action to prevent the killing of Libyan civilians Friday as Western leaders delivered an ultimatum to Moammar Gadhafi.

Fighting continued Friday in Libya despite the government's declaration of a cease-fire to comply after the U.N. resolution passed a day earlier.

President Barack Obama and other Western leaders said military response would be swift if Gadhafi forces continue attacking protesters trying to end his 42-year rule.

I think we've heard that line about "swift" elsewhere, perhaps in the different context. At least so far we've been spared the silly prediction that the Libyan people would greet US troops in the streets of Tripoli with flowers. We'll have to wait until next week or next month for that. Right now there is already video of people in the streets with Libyan flags supposedly cheering the UN/US decision to intervene. Those videos are positively Chalabi-esque.

But it's the language about "military action to prevent the killing of Libyan citizens" that's the real problem. That very phrase opens the door wide to yet another quagmire. You remember quagmires. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Now Libya. What does this phrase mean about the limits, if any, of US/UN intervention in Libya? As far as I can tell, not so very much.

And how does our present War President explain (video) why the US cannot sit this out in the peanut gallery and try to nurse it's own economy and Japan back to a modicum of health? Ah. Well. He doesn't. You have to watch the entire statement. Very nice rhetoric. Very broad. Very fierce (where has this fierceness been hiding for the past two years that it gets to show off now?). Yes, it's intolerable that Gaddafi's forces are killing civilians. Yes, Gaddafi has abused the populace for more than four decades. Yes, he's violated human rights. Yes, he's suppressed expression and the right to assembled. And worse. We've heard all that before about Mubarak, and Saddam Hussein, and [fill in the name of the dictator who is now out of favor in the US]. Yes, he's a bad, bad man. And, yes, he has oil, oil, oil. How coincidental.

You would expect a large outcry about this newest of US wars. But so far, I don't hear much. I'm amazed that committing the US's military to anything like this can happen so easily. Have we become that desensitized, that habituated to war for oil?

Why I Find Myself Shrieking

I sighed uneasy relief with everyone else when BP finally stopped Deepwater Horizon from emptying itself in the Gulf. Yes, I knew it was temporary. Yes, I knew it could blow up again any minute. But there was, nevertheless, a relief. For a short time anyway, BP would stop turning the Gulf of Mexico into a disgusting oil gumbo garnished with oil soaked pelicans and dead dolphins.

But then I read this article in the New York Times:

A wellhead in southeastern Louisiana was spewing a mist of oil and gas up to 100 feet into the air after being hit by a tug boat early Tuesday morning, officials said. It is at least the third unrelated oil leak in the area since the Deepwater Horizon spill began 99 days earlier.

The well is about 65 miles south of New Orleans in Barataria Bay, which is surrounded by wildlife-rich wetlands and was a fertile area for fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen before the BP spill. By Tuesday afternoon, a reddish brown sheen 50 yards by one mile long was spotted near the well, according to a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said the well was owned by Cedyco, a company based in Houston.

The wellhead burst at 1 a.m. local time Tuesday after being hit by a tug boat, the Pere Ana C, that was pushing a dredge barge, Captain Buford Berry, though details were still being investigated.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, there is more oil and gas being deposited in the Gulf as you read this. And they haven't started stopping it yet, and are booming. Booming. Booming with 6000 feet of boom. Pardon me, but didn't we all decide in the past 3 months that that is worthless. Oh, but excuse me again, this is a new day. And a new leak. And so we get to try stuff that didn't work before all over again. Because we're crazy and think it'll be different this time.

And then we have this gem:

No specific flow rate has been determined, officials said.

Mama mia. Oy gevalt.

And this, dear reader, is why I find myself shrieking. And uttering strings of profanity. Join me.

Taking Care Of Old Mom Earth

The oddest thoughts.

If I lived in suburbia and my dog ran out and pooped on my neighbor's lawn, my neighbor would be angry. My neighbor might tell me to clean it up. S/he'd be much angrier if I spilled a truck full of chemical fertilizer or garbage on the lawn, something that would be hard to clean up and looked and smelled bad.

I live in the country. I go for a walk in the fields with my dog. On my own land I come upon an enormous horse poop. Later, I see my neighbor and ask if she's been riding on my land. I shake my head, no, at her. She says she'll clean it up. I think, well, what if she had left instead a few leaking barrels of hazardous material or poison. What if she left behind baited leg traps so my dog and pets could be injured. I'd be much angrier.

If BP were pouring its oil on my roof, or in my yard, or in my street, I'd tell them to cut it out and to clean it up. I'd probably also get angry at BP. I would plot ways of having my sweet revenge on them for making a mess of my house, or land, or street. I'd think about all of the demonstrations, lawsuits, administrative actions, and so on I could instigate against them.

But BP's not pouring it directly on me, or my family, or my house, or my land. No. They're spilling it, lots and lots of it in the Gulf of Mexico. I notice that I'm less angry about this than if they were filling my basement with crude oil. I notice that nobody's really picketing BP gas stations or their corporate headquarters. I notice that people are not screaming at them to cut it out and clear it up. I notice that people are not asking that they be nationalized or seized or confiscated. I notice that their gas stations are still open for business. Same for their refineries. I notice that their bank accounts still work, their stock is still traded. I notice business as usual. I notice that I can turn away from them and do other things. Like go to work. And sleep.

Why is that? Is it because the Gulf of Mexico isn't my physical backyard? Or my fields? Or my street? Is it because it seems farther away from me? Is it because we're just beginning to see the devastation that this will bring to the Gulf Coast? Is it because we don't believe that it is destroying the Gulf and our planet? Is it because the oil isn't going directly into my basement and disrupting my life at this second and befouling my every breath and making me sick?

I like to think that we humans are stewards for mother earth. That we take care of her. It's like the old song, "The earth is my mother/I must take care of her." I like to think that we belong to the earth, that she does not belong to us. I like to think that our precious, small, blue planet will support and nurture us and give us all we need. And all she needs in exchange is that we take good care of her. But I don't think we're taking good car of her right now. I think we're destroying her. It's not just the oil in the Gulf, not by a long shot, but the oil in the Gulf is the latest, quickest, more egregious example of the failure of our husbandry.

If somebody insulted my mother, or harmed her, I would be outraged. I would protect her. I would do whatever was in my power to keep her from harm. Goodness. Some people will actually fight if somebody even says something bad about their mother. Well, this is worse than saying something bad. This is actually harming, defiling, injuring the planet and the creatures that live on it. Here we are, our mother is actually being harmed. And somehow, somehow we sit idly by.

We think about the situation. While we think, the oil is still flowing. Out of control. We hope that some new contraption will stop the leak. The last one didn't but maybe this one will. Or the well that arrives in July. We hope the damage won't be too great. We hope BP will stop the damage, the spill. We hope the government will get involved. We sit on our hands. We stare at the ceiling. We hope this isn't the beginning of our planet's death rattle.

And, of course, we make arguments about policies we will need in the future. And we talk about how it's our fault that there is a gigantic oil leak in the sea because we're addicted to oil. We blame ourselves in some regard for this rapidly expanding injury to our planet. But we still stare at the ceiling. And we hope this isn't the beginning of our planet's death rattle. And that something will save our pearly blue planet from harm.

The truth, I'm afraid, is that we're in a trance. We've been drugged by darts. We're immobilized. We sit and stare. We think. We talk. We type. But until the end we won't do anything to respond to this, to embody our fury, to protect ourselves and our planet and our oceans. We'll wait and hope that the damage stops. And we'll talk about our planet's remarkable capacity to stabilize itself and heal itself and repair itself.

I wonder. Are we trying to kill our planet? Is this a slow form of attempted planetary suicide?

Why are we letting our mother down like this? Where is our gratitude for all she does for us?

Baby Beluga

A Beluga Whale

Some great news, and a slap in the face to Sarah Palin. The New York Times reports:

The federal government on Friday placed beluga whales that live in Alaska’s Cook Inlet on the endangered species list, rejecting efforts by Gov. Sarah Palin to keep the whales from coming under the increased protections.

The relatively small, whitish whales, sometimes visible from downtown Anchorage in the inlet’s silvery water, declined by almost 50 percent during the late 1990’s, and federal scientists say they have not rebounded despite protections that included limiting subsistence hunting by Native Alaskans. About 375 whales have been counted in Cook Inlet each of the last two years, according to scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"In spite of protections already in place, Cook Inlet beluga whales are not recovering," James Balsiger, an acting assistant administrator in charge of the agency’s fisheries programs, said in a written statement announcing that the whales were in danger of extinction.

The announcement, whose timing was tied to a predetermined schedule under the Endangered Species Act, drew attention once again to Ms. Palin’s positions on environmental issues. The governor, the Republican nominee for vice president, has come under scrutiny for her ambiguous statements about climate change and her administration’s effort to prevent another species, the polar bear, from being declared a threatened species.

And why is Governor Palin opposed to Belugas? Wanna guess?

As with the polar bear, Ms. Palin’s administration had fought the beluga listing because of its potential to restrict coastal and offshore oil and gas development. The beluga listing also could affect a proposed bridge over Knik Arm that would connect Anchorage to the Matanuska-Valley and Ms. Palin’s hometown of Wasilla.

Arrgh.

And here's an appropriate way to celebrate: