It’s the Issues not the Personalities

General Petraeus has stated that Israel is causing problems for U.S. interests in the Middle East. This is a very sane thing to say but before we get all dewy eyed over Petraeus I think we should consider just what Petraeus is really saying which is in order for America to continue to expand its imperial wars Israel must behave itself. So while Petraeus has a certain amount of sanity regarding the blatantly obvious his sanity ends where American imperialism begins.

Just to keep things in perspective if you look at a map of the Middle East we see that the northern most border of Iran is on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. We have invaded Iraq which lies on the western Iranian border and Afghanistan on Iran’s eastern borders. And I think you will see also that any pipeline from the Caspian Basin area would have its most direct route to the Persian Gulf right through Iran not Afghanistan. If you recall the Caspian Basin wherein lies trillions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas, perhaps the largest reserves in the world, became an area of intense interest for more than one nation after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. The prize is the oil in the Caspian Basin, not a pipeline through Afghanistan where it would be impossible to keep it free from attack not to mention a very long way to route a pipeline, much longer than a pipeline that ran through Iran. That we are in Afghanistan for a pipeline just doesn’t hold water, or oil if you prefer. However America would go to war over the immense oil fields of the Caspian Basin and Iran is obviously the quickest route for American access to these riches. 9/11 gave America the excuse to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan thereby sandwiching Iran between the two which gives the added advantage of now having large concentrations of U.S. soldiers readily at hand when the time comes for the invasion of Iran. And honestly you’d think that after being suckered once over WMD that people wouldn’t be so accepting of the same line regarding Iran.

This is what Petraeus is concerned about not the Palestinians that suffer under the thumb of Israeli brutality. Sometimes I’m baffled by the tendency for people to be dazzled by national leaders be they presidents or Generals. People are always looking for some hero to step up and save the day shouldering the world’s problems on Atlas shoulders and are inevitably correspondingly disappointed by their heroes.

Just today I was reading about Kucinich’s sellout on the so-called health care legislation being cooked up to provide socialism for the insurance industry. Kucinich went on about how this was important for Obama’s presidency and I say to hell with that. Leaders aren’t important, they’re a dime a dozen, what is important are the issues goddammit. What was important was making sure everyone has access to health care and no I don’t mean via the emergency ward. But the very idea that Obama is more important than poor people receiving the medical care they deserve if for no other reason than they are fellow human beings is so repugnant to me that I have no words to really express it.

Can we please stop worshiping these self glorifying prancing peacocks already? Let’s pay attention to the issues not the personalities that are paraded in front of our eyes. I believe it was Charles de Gaulle that said the graveyard is full of indispensible people. We’re all dispensable, especially in the eyes of the very people that people idolize and for most of us when we die the world moves on without a blink. That may not make us happy to think about but its true none-the-less.

Kucinich can say all he wants about the importance of Obama but it is particularly galling for me because of all people I am quite sure Kucinich knows better than that. He knows how important real reform is, how this legislation will affect the lives of millions of poor and elderly Americans in an adverse way by reducing Medicare benefits while enriching the already bloated and rapacious insurance industry which makes his fawning over Obama all the more odious.