At one point, I actually enjoyed listening to 98-Rock when Mickey Cucchiella was DJing and his show was at night. And then, in one swift act, he made me hate him. As I recall, I was listening to Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song” on my way back to the store from a delivery, and halfway through, Mickey decided it would be funny to interupt the song, just because he could. Apparently, Mickey forgot that most people listen to rock stations, not for the witty, intelligent, stimulating conversations, usually held with porn stars and strippers (which kind of defeats the purpose — seriously, the problem with porn stars and strippers on the radio is, y’know, the lack of seeing boobies); but rather, for the fucking rock music. Actually, even that isn’t true because I wake up to the KMS Morning Show.
Anyway, since then, I rarely tune in to 98-Rock during his show, which is mid-afternoon weekdays (thank goodness for Don & Mike). So I’m flipping through stations earlier today, and I stop on WBAL, and I find to my chagrin, Mickey is on a serious political talk show — Chip Franklin’s, I believe (did you know Chip has posted on my blog before? I’m bragging now) — voicing his opinion on the possible regime change going on in Cuba.
I’m a loser pizza guy with a blog, and that blog is the reason for which is why I will on occasion believe people have any interest in what I have to say on things like politics, so I’m not busting on Mickey for thinking that anyone cares what he thinks on politics. I’m sure his viewpoints are well thought out and reasoned. But here’s the fucking thing: he interupted Led Zeppelin, and I hate him. It’s not that I’m a particularly big fan of Led Zeppelin or anything, more because I was really getting into the song and then he just decided to be dumb, and I’m carrying a grudge here, ‘k?
So I hit over to FM (since WBAL is the only AM station I listen to, it occupies all of my AM presets), hit scan, found a lite station, and wound up listening to Dan Fogelberg, because even “Sometimes When We Touch” is better than giving the man who interupted Led Zeppelin more than the smallest fraction of my attention.
(I say that, then devote ten minutes to writing a blog post all about him. I’m such a hipocrite).
(I actually like “Sometimes When We Touch.” I mean, not like I like “Mexican Radio” or Led Zeppelin, but I won’t change the station if it’s on or anything).
Tuesday night, I met up with Charissa at Bayou Blue at the Avenue in White Marsh. Fearing I might be some combination of stalker, psycho or killer, she staged a “happy hour” for her work so that in the case I should indeed turn out to be a stalker/psycho/killer, there would be plenty of people to protect her — it was nice meeting all of you coworkers turned bodyguards: Heather, Jill, John, Rob, Richie, Todd, and Dave. Fortunatly, it turns out (much to my surprise) that I’m not a stalker, psycho, or killer, and Charissa and I even posed for this adorable photo which reveals both my double chin and aversion to shaving.
Yes. I know. A photo of me without holding a bottle of beer in front of my face. The wonders, will they never cease?
No. Really. Is it that fucking difficult? Flick the fucking stalk. It doesn’t take a motherfuckin’ second.
And while I’m ranting … if you’re in the left-hand turn lane, turn fucking left. Don’t gun forward and try to run me off the road ‘cuz you got in the wrong lane. Fuck you! If I got in the wrong lane by mistake, know what I’d do? Yep, go with it and find a place to turn around, ‘cuz that’d still take less time than causing an accident and having to wait for the cops and trade information. (Not that, y’know, you caused an accident, but if I hadn’t yielded to your illegal, irresponsible, unthinking manuever of completely total retarded stupidity, you could have).
Asshate fuckers.
Right. So you’ve probably figured that in terms of politics, I’m either a liberal or a left-leaning libertarian. You may have figured, also, that I’m not a peacenik — there are evil and bad people in the world who do, on occasion, need to be on the recieving end of some forceful ass-kicking. Anyway, here goes:
1. I believe Saddam Hussein was a dangerous brutal man who killed many thousands of his own people to secure his rule, and that he should’ve been deposed by force.
2. I believed that the invasion of Iraq by U.S. & Allied troops was a mistake because I do not believe: a.) that Iraq was collaborating with Al Queda; b.) that Iraq was capable of providing a threat to the United States or other Western nations beyond that which could be put down with air-strikes; c.) that the President and his staff considered what resources would be needed after the invasion, hoping instead for the best; d.) that other, more dangerous countries, ruled by evil regimes, posed more dangerous threats (i.e., North Korea).
3. I believe that the President of the United States had motives other than the War on Terror to invade Iraq.
4. For the reasons cited above as numbers 3 & 4, I opposed the decision to invade Iraq. I still oppose that decision. I believe it was the wrong one to make. That said…
5. I believe that when one country decides to invade another country, obstensively for the purposes of “liberation”, certain resposibilities are undertaken by the invading country, and that these include the establishment of a provisional government to be replaced by a democratic one as quickly as possible; for the provision of enough troops to secure order until these goals can be accomplished, or until the invaded country can again provide this for itself. While the first point has apparently been accomplished, I think it’s pretty clear that the second hasn’t. That country isn’t fucking safe.
So while I opposed the invasion of Iraq, I also oppose a withdrawl of U.S. & coalition troops from Iraq, because, der! The country is reportedly on the verge of civil war, which can only mean the later need of a Western military commitment. Speaking as only the armchair quarterback I am, all I can guess is that the Kurds’ll form their own country — possibly provoking an armed reaction from Turkey? — while the Shiite and Sunnis kill each other until religious extremist warlords take control and the place makes Taliban ruled Afghanistan look like a hippy concert.
If asked to provide blame, the obvious answer is to point a finger at the President who gave the order to invade. I’d settle for those who planned the invasion — did they actually expect everything to be honkey-dorey post-invasion? Why didn’t our troops have the equipment they needed before the invasion? Why did we send so few troops? Did we have a plan to actually win the war? Or was all of this executed like me, bored in Civilization 3? If it goes wrong, and I get my ass kicked, I can just exit without saving — that’s not possible in real life, Mister President!
What I’d like to see is an increase of troops in Iraq, enough to actually secure the country — I keep reading about armed insurgents running across the Syrian border while the troops trying to secure it don’t have enough manpower — , put down the insurrection, evict the foreign trouble-stirrers, and bring the domestic trouble-stirrers (domestic to Iraq) ones to either jail, or the democratic process.
On the U.S. domestic side, the piss-poor planning that went into this poorly conceived war needs to be looked at, and looked at hard — resignations shouldn’t be allowed, those responsible should be fired, prosecuted, and locked-the-motherfuck-up. There’s a country “over there” that unfortunatly was a lot more secure under a brutal warlord than under the aegis of the Stars & Stripes, and that’s a fucking crime. Sixty years ago, when Allied tanks and troops rolled through European, African and Asian cities, and Allied warships sailed through hostile seas, and Allied bombers and fighters soared overhead, people cheered because they knew their occupiers were fleeing and their lives were beginning to return to normal. Christ, can you imagine if we’ve got to invade another country anytime soon? People’ll see the Stars & Stripes and instead of thinking about their soon-to-be-secured-freedom, they’ll be thinking, “Oh. Great. We’re the next Iraq.”
(That, of course, assumes that we’ve got the capability of invading another country. Even if we’ve got the troops, I don’t think any politician could muster the political will to launch such an invasion, which is essentially why it’s up to, for example, Japan to lead the way against North Korea).
Here’s my prediction: if we withdraw troops from Iraq without first setting Iraq on its feet — even it that means splitting the country into three different ones — then it’s the children of my generation that are going to have to go back and set things right. This is easy for me to say, I don’t wear a military uniform, and I’m old enough that a draft would probably pass me by, and frankly, any desire I may once have had to serve dried up years ago. But it’s my prediction, and I’ll stick with it.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a pessimist. Unfortunatly, as the years pass, I think this post will seem strangely prophetic.
