Tomorrow’s War, Yesterday’s Script

Is there anything about that sanctimonious weenie Joseph Lieberman that doesn’t induce nausea?

Um, no:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) Sunday said that Yemen could be the ground of America’s next overseas war if Washington does not take preemptive action to root out al-Qaeda interests there.

Lieberman, who helms the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the U.S. will have to take an active approach in Yemen after multiple recent terrorist attacks on the U.S. were linked back to the Middle Eastern nation.

The Connecticut senator said that a government official in the Yemeni capital told him that “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”

Yeah, we’d better keep bombing Yemen. Look how well its worked in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Afterwards, let’s move on to Iran, Somalia, Ethiopia, Indonesia. If the recent past has any lesson for us at all, it’s that heavy-handed military responses to vague ‘terrorist threats’ work like a charm.

I love Joe’s reasoning. Let’s start a war in Yemen to prevent a war in Yemen from starting. By that logic, why not cut your wrists right now to prevent the certain death that awaits you in the future?

I think, but cannot prove, that this is the way civilizations fall.

It’s not surprising that Lieberman supports an endless string of wars and bombings. He’s a loyal employee of powerful interests who profit from them. What’s disturbing is how easily this bankrupt vision of American foreign policy gets disseminated through our culture and becomes the accepted, conventional wisdom. No one will doubt the premise that evil al Qaeda types are operating in Yemen and that military force is the only way to handle the problem. The only argument we’ll hear in the glitzy, neon sewer of the mainstream media will be a pre-school level debate about how we attack Yemen. Should we settle for more drone strikes, or should we go balls deep with a full-scale invasion? Special-Ops, anyone? How about we train an indigenous security force? Call up Tom Friedman and Bill Kristol and let’s get the action started.

At what point does this futile charade grow old? When do Americans reject this tired, stale, false and endlessly regurgitated script? I look around and see a nation of people held in thrall by an overblown, over-marketed science fiction movie that is essentially a cartoon (Avatar), and I know the answer. A nation whose grown-ups are entertained by cartoons is a nation whose grown-ups will go on swallowing the superficial, cartoonish narratives that drive our foreign policy.