Very fine column today by Robert Scheer on what used to be called The Lessons of Vietnam. I know that to most readers on the Internet the Vietnam war is a remoter piece of history than the Spanish Civil War was when I was a kid; but it has a certain relevance.
Meanwhile, the inexorable advance of democracy in the Middle East continues. Kuwait, which was saved for freedom and love by the Senior Bush in a war for which the balance of positive and negative arguments had some positives that actually weren't lies, is having elections, in which women can't run.
Years since we liberated (no scare quotes here) Kuwait from Saddam Hussein: 15.
Percentage of Kuwaiti population eligible to vote: 15.
This just in, from Basra: not relevant to anything, you understand; I just like the sentence: "Under pressure, al-Sadr's office issued a statement promising not to attack any more picnics."
Further update: Once the upcoming elections were safely in hand, in male hands, the legislature did finally pass a liberalization of the rules for later elections. This is a good thing. It will be even better when it actually happens; after all, as Islam insists in a principle that ought to have wider acceptance, only Allah knows what the future holds. Meanwhile, the 15 and 15 still stand.
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(Hey, I'm totally gonna call you guys tonight, by the way. I got back from Canada and then it was Renn Fayre...Got a little distracted.)
I know that to most readers on the Internet the Vietnam war is a remoter piece of history than the Spanish Civil War was when I was a kid; but it has a certain relevance.
Not so remote, I think, except in terms of simple quantity of years passed since then. During the election cycle, at least, it felt like the Vietnam war would be more distant for My Generation [tm] if Your Generation [tm] could just stop fighting it.
(But then, it being the 4th, the bloggers have been showing me Kent State pictures all day.
"We're finally on our own...")
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