Now that they're Married

Let's talk about hypocrisy . . .

Now that the death toll climbs above 500 in Syria, where is the hue and cry to save the citizenry in that country?

I'm being facetious because the stated reason given by every war mongering politician from Cameron to Sarkozy to Hillary Clinton was that we needed to go there to save citizens from that mean old dictator.

Here's the lowdown:

The U.S. is involved, and the Europeans got very involved, due to Gaddafi's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moussa Koussa, who recently negotiated contracts to deliver Libyan oil to the Chinese. Mr. Koussa has since defected to Britain, which seems like an illogical place for an enemy of that state to defect to since Mr. Koussa was the Libyan who ok'd the Gaddafi's regime funding of the Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, which took place over Scotland in the 1980s. The bizarre ease of his defection to England this year, and his subsequent disappearance shortly afterwards, spells only one thing:

Moussa Koussa must have been a Western agent all along.

What gall! We're certainly not going to let the Chinese get that oil! How useful it is to have one's agents in foreign lands do the things that provide a justification for military action. No other act by Gaddafi could have angered the West as much as this, especially at a time of record oil prices.

One even thinks, that Gaddafi himself may have been duped, especially when one considers the timing of these contracts.

Back the thought process one notch. Suppose, just suppose, Mr. Koussa negotiated those contracts, offering to supply the Chinese, so that the Brits and froggies and everybody else with a quick trigger would have a flaming good reason to go in there and get the oil for Western oil companies. Maybe even one injured and limping company called BP perhaps.

Suppose Mr. Koussa who graduated with a BA in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1978, was recruited by the British or Americans to serve as an spy within the Gaddafi regime. Indulge this thought for a moment. It would have been his job to do things that would allow us to strike out at Libya when it was convenient, such as moments when the oil prices got high (Reagan years and currently). If Moussa Koussa was indeed responsible for the Pan Am 103 bombing, why on earth would he seek asylum in the UK, unless there was a pension waiting.

Recently, with oil going through the roof, and all the distractions of the 'Arab spring', it was necessary to think of a reason to divide Libya, between the half that produces oil, East Libya, and Tripoli, traditional home to pirates, and yes, the capital and current home of Moammar Gaddafi.

What action could produce a unilateral aggressive response from nearly all the powers in the West against Gaddafi? His being brutal with a few civilians who demonstrated against his dictatorship? No way. But on the other hand, deepening a relationship to sell oil to the Chinese, that would call for a huge response from the oil consuming nations of the West.

It would mean all hands on deck. 'Freedom Fighters' from all over the Muslim world would have to go to Bengazi to join the fight. We'd have to create the semblance of a growing democracy movement. We might even have to indulge the odd Al Queda fighter or two anxious to establish in a fractured Libya, and inhabit the power vacuum of a deposed Gaddafi.

Libyan economist, Ali Tarhouni, also a graduate of Michigan State University, MA 1978, recently left his wife and a position at the University of Washington to become Finance Minister of Libya's National Transitional Council in Bengazi. The press hardly mentions who's actually in charge of the new East Libya - perhaps that's why Mr. Tarhouni's 'position' with the new government is not clear. What is clear is that foreign powers who organized this rebellion, are the ones in charge.

Someone reliable is needed to stand by the spigot!

It does seem as if Michigan State has been a launch pad for pro-Western Libyans. It possibly even was a training course for deep cover Western agents sent to the Arab world.

Let's break for a moment from these suspicions and look instead at some facts. BP, as it turns out is responsible via its dividend payments for approximately 25% of all British pension incomes paid in that country. The UK, as most already know, has recently fallen on very hard times. A disruption in the flow of cash to small stockholders, mostly through pension funds, would be catastrophic trauma to the welfare state. Teachers, government workers, and retirees, all those relying upon the British till, actually need BP more than the rich. This fact has been heard by leadership around the world, and has had its uses, particularly for those owning large shares of BP and other European Oil companies.

The BP oil disaster in the US Gulf of Mexico, knocked approximately 40% off the value of BP's stock and did severe damage to its projected dividend stream. It is thus easy to understand why the impending threat of Libyan oil being sold to the Chinese may have been all that Britain. France and the US needed to manufacture the Libyan uprising and consequent war.

One can imagine a conversation between BP's chairman Tony Hayward, President Barrack Obama, and Prime Minister David Cameron:

Hayward: The oil we're drilling for is too costly. Scotland's done. Your Gulf looks way too expensive. We can't continue at this pace. Underseas oil is ten times more expensive than the oil on land.

Obama: What can we do? You've got a debt to pay. Pay it. We'll try and help out on the business end.

Hayward: Well there's a ton of oil just off the Libyan coast. It's shallow there. The Italians have a sort of 'claim' on it from their old ties. Gaddafi can't afford to develop it. We can't do anything unless Gaddafi's out of the way.

Cameron: That would mean we'd have to start a war in Libya. Italy will not want a part in it Berlusconi has his hands full.

Hayward: War would be easy if the Chinese could be seen as moving in. Maybe only half of Libya needs erupt. We take Bengazi. We'll get the oil that's in the water, and on land both.

Cameron: Our man Moussa wants out. Things are getting hot. 

Hayward: Have him negotiate something with the Chinese. That'll get the Froggies on our side in a hurry. They're Lefties when it helps their cause, but if they see that crude going to Asia, Sarkozy'll lose it. We'll have to control him!

Very quickly the masters of deception form a 'To-do List' for Getting Libya's oil, and mineral Wealth:

1) First the populist uprising in Tripoli would have to be magnified. It would be necessary for Gaddafi to be seen doing some really loathsome acts, and let international sentiment build. If Moammar himself won't do it then Moussa Koussa can butcher a few people with what tenure he has left.

2) Create a caste of freedom fighters, we'll call them 'rebels' for now, in Bengazi, East Libya, where the oil is. Let them be seen fighting with inadequate arms and training.

3) Get those 'rebels' up and running with an aspiring government. Might as well base them in Bengazi, near where most of the oil comes from. Find Mr. Koussa's classmates from the University of Michigan  call them out of their professorial lives to head the new East Libyan state. They are spies after all.

The whole drama's a show, a very necessary show if what you want to do is take oil from under the noses of our economic rivals.

And to cover it all, let's talk big about saving the citizens of Libya!

Citizens of Libya?

It is not to save the citizenry. Never was. Whenever a government does or says anything to play upon your emotions, realize that you've been had. You've been duped.

Mr. Moussa Koussa and MI5 and their Washington cousins have played a fast one on the Chinese!

Good job guys. Well done!

Of course they, the Chinese, know it, but they can't do much about it because it's a plot that's too thick and too difficult for most people to understand.

Oh . . and last of all:

4) Put on a good show for the people back home - a Royal Wedding!

So, to those who watched today the poor sod that got born into the British Royalty, the son of a wonderful, and most likely murdered woman, to those who felt elevated when they watched him kiss a commoner and in the touch of his flesh, turn her into a Royal . . .  please realize . . .

It is ROYALS who are firing on demonstrators in Yemen.

It was ROYALS who murdered peaceful demonstrators in Bahrain.

It was ROYALS from Saudi Arabia who were given carte blanche to take off in their private jets moments after the twin towers exploded, and go home, DESPITE the fact that it was a SAUDI cousin of a friend of the SAUDI ROYALS, who caused 9/11 - Osama bin Laden.

Also remember it is ROYALS who are firing on demonstrators in Syria. [King, President who cares what the title is . . . I'm trying to make a point. While not all the Arab dictators are 'royal', they act like they are, spend like they are, and listen to their subjects just as carefully as 'Royals' do, when cornered.]

It was ROYALS who forced the colonists of this country to take matters into their own hands and create a democracy.

It was ROYALS then who called those American commoners 'terrorists'.

And it is ROYALS who help the common folk forget that it is actually not the ROYALS who are robbing them blind. It is the oil companies, the companies that make jet fighters and cruise missiles and all the machinery of war.

It's economics dummy! Is and always was. The nice Royalty just puts a clean face on an aggressive state.

So fly your helicopter safely Prince William, you're a married man now. I wish you and Kate all the best.

As those rotors turn, as you become older and wiser, give some thought to other theories regarding your mother's death. You may find the heart down the line, to forgive your father for his part in it. You may not. If you become king, you will be a truer king to your 'subjects' if you do away with this royal scam . . . forever.

Vierzon

I

Swallows flit above the tracks in the maze of high tension wires.
A jukebox mush clashes,
with the screech of a cappuccino machine.

Switching seats, I ripped my shirt - no matter, it's an old one.

Rain in abundance, the grass,
the trees, the leaves and flowers all in abundance.

The sun peeks through clouds
There is plenty, abandoned, growing, with abandon.
The trees grow, the weeds grow.
No one stops them.


II

Stuck in Vierzon,

"A life view, belongs, as you belong, to them,
  Your life even is not your own, your awareness is not of one life but of all life,

  Courage, you may take in this."


III

Slender water in furrows slender by the tracks
A calm yielding fog, misting.
Barns loom a river swollen, over its banks
Trees midstream, below water,
A man in a garden shed
Where hoes and rakes are kept.

Rails grinding, metal polishing metal
Small leaves on trees, soft yellow
Sheep in field, tufts of cotton
An aqueduct monorail spanning sage.


IV

The next train doesn’t come.

I write - when thinking can't.
Future tidal forces of change
My mind is distended by super gravitation
A sphere, a hollow tube, by super gravitation.

Pride in achievement, all yours,
All dreams, all truths, all that is, grows, or dies, yours,
Now, you must leave it here, you too must leave yourself behind, when you go.

"I'm stuck in Vierzon."
I ask myself:
"Who is talking?"

Drunken Fighters

The river is high,
Roses sit in vases,
Bright sun burns the hedges.

A season takes the sun away.
but the sky changes.
Clouds blow darkly,
shadows pace about,
masking streets, casting gloom,

Clouds tumble,
onto rooftops, unsteady.
Drunken fighters reel,
against a weighty sky.

Small Words

Pictures emote words,
And words give back pictures,
imprecise dreams that last.
One has to learn what they mean, just ask.

Differing from others by size and race,
Compact, compressed to a smallish space
Best bring in imagination,
Come in order, to understand them.

Pencils endowed with leads of tears,
Lenses won't enlarge us here.
Tiny moments justly charged,
Should I pretend greater, not small not large?

Words pack ways of seeing,
into spaces that lack in meaning.

Small Locket

When the locket sprung open
a delicate boned girl,
mane framing shoulders,

leaps out.
She hides a poem in a shell, lying curled
guarded, for ten years - a conch
so lonely
slicing through time.

She rattles the door
to my boat, won't even leave me in peace
for a decent hour.

Grey sky now.

Has the locket sprung open?
An alert of other forces?

Unerringly she points to questions,
that are supercilious,
about the times we should have taken.

Yoga

Take your pain,

Bring it to your heart

And burn it . . like fuel. 

Watch it light up your third eye. 

Take all your pains 

Get them to the center of what you are,

And meditate,

So it becomes a white light,

That illuminates the world.

Take each pain,

And move it from the hands,

From the pit of gut, out the memory, the book of hurts,

The slashes of loves lost,

The burns of friendships that were false,

Take them all

Heap them in a pile

And burn them.

In your heart.

Still Here

I think of the times I almost bought it.

Walking down 9th Avenue, a tractor trailer blocked the crosswalk - I decided to crab-crawl beneath it. The driver got his green light - the truck roared to life. I imagined Michelangelo's Christ jumping out of his tomb, just as that rear tire almost got me.

But it didn't.

High on scaffolding thirty feet over State Street, John Keefer and I spread a tarp over the face of the scaffold. Suddenly a gust of wind caught the tarp like a jib on a sloop, and pulled the whole structure away from the building. It teetered on two legs, both of us clinging to it.

But it didn't go over.

Next time, if there is one, I'll bolt the scaffold to the building.

At a bar in Matamoros, I got a bad feeling, after I chatted up the one pretty gal who was waiting table. One of the locals grimaced and stabbed a knife into the wood.

A big knife.

They all laughed - I can't believe I called him a gringo. My Spanish was never good enough to know how to do it again.

So I won't.

Ladders, spalling to one side, as I grabbed for a piece of pipe. Dropped like a monkey into a spilled mass of paint and broken stepladder.

Fought in the car at seventy miles an hour.

Dove into the deep water at the foot of a boiling waterfall before I understood the physics of waterfalls.

The first time I ever smoked datura I did way too much.

Still around though.

And then there was that flight through thunderstorms with my VFR pilot brother. Visibility zero. His instrument experience was just a few hours. We landed in a forty mile per hour crosswind at Westchester airport.

Still here though.

What about the time I split two fingers up the middle with a table-saw? Could have been my wrist.

But I still have my fingers.

And I still have the life that moves them.

Wild Bird

I listen.
to the crackle of my simple fire,
heating the hours of old age.
Blowing over the rages of my life,
I bath in memories of love, too strong to savor.

I pour out sadness into the cup of my heart
And release it, wild bird into the world.
And find another sad bird longing just beneath it
And let that one go too.

Distant Hammers

Lying on my bed,
distant hammers are banging.

Rooftop work?
I wonder about that cool air I felt on my face
As we rolled through the Housatonic valley, yesterday.

What happened to that cool air?

What happened to the cold streams filled with fish
that flowed,

Yesterday.

These Forests

Broken, slashed, lumbered bare,
How abused these forests are.
Hillsides scorched, soil exposed, gravel where.
Frozen trees, shrunken dwarfish bonsai cling to life.

We crept through woods without a bird, or sign of bear or deer,
And wondered where all the creatures went,
Cursed the lumbering, and acid rain.

Then as always,
we were astounded when grouse exploded from beneath our feet,
and came to a raven feasting upon a fisher’s kill, an otter’s tale, long in death,
hide rolled inside out and all devoured bones, skull crushed and swallowed.

A buck, all ten-spiked points of him sharp as pencils, pranced ahead of us
and turned back to match eyes with his, white nuzzle and giant neck,
grizzled grey unmoving.

Who dared think nobody lived here?

The Explorer and the Wanderer

Let's return to the subtle difference between ritual, and action with purpose, and inject into our hypothetical remote village of many centuries ago, two young visitors, who are there to go walking.

The first, an explorer is anxious to be the first to hike to the summit of a high mountain, overlooking a very remote lake. How should he get there?

The native people obediently detail to him the series of turns he will have to take, and the trails he will have to walk to get to that spot. Many have been to the lake, but not one has been to the top of the mountain.

It has never been climbed. The explorer is a conqueror. He wants to be the first.

The peak is a very long way, and his visualization skills are not perfect, he becomes lost. He breaks out of the jungle not at the treeless edge of a mountain, but at a beach on the coast. He finds his way back to base, rebuffed by the way events have turned out, yet determined to start again in the morning.

The second guest is a walker, who has no particular objective in mind. Upon arriving he asks, where should I go?

It is recommended that he make a journey to the coast, but on the way, he makes some other turns and ends up climbing the mountain.

Yesterday . . .

A sackful's hardly a newspaper,
an uproar, the only yearning, a cause shaking,
an umbrella racing.

Gamma trends will not occur to those who are impatient,
although begetters of grapevine tendencies may have the curb,
on togetherness.

Can the crack arm of God,
inform those who will not listen?
Utter the enormous calling
betray the enlisted?

Believe it or not, tumbledown make-believe firemen

have the urge to speak,

inveterate and bombastic.

They hear not,

the music of the pigeons.

Breath

His breath stops
goes under, 

races,
descends,
then resurrects.
decorates with grace,
the reborn heart.

The Giant Typewriter

My giant typewriter
prints on paper slowly,
with type of wood cubes,
children's blocks,
chunks of lead.

I ink them on command
rubber roller arms
move my thoughts
incrementally,
to the paper head.

I have a hundred opportunities
to let them fade away.
It happens so fast these days,
even my fingers punch at keys.

My thoughts are snatched away,
before can I ponder their worth.

Spring Snow

Grass at the road edge,
a rivulet of water ice
spears a clod of mud,
kicked by a farmer's wheel.

Hard wind, dark clouds,
over brown fields.
I am a warrior, jumping fences and hedges.

Snowflakes swim past,
ghosts of winter.

A single flake impaled on a barley stalk,
Is motionless.

All about me, large flakes melting, collapsing.

I examine their bodies.

Crystal memories of blizzards past.

The Pain, The Pain

The world hurts. Pain everywhere.

The pain of millions of Japanese who lost loved ones, lost homes, families, schools, cities, villages, everything.

The pain of the living Ivorian mothers and fathers who lost their children in Gbagbo's greedy and merciless ploy for power.

Pain of the sincere in Libya, who only want a chance to live freely.

Pain of the Palestinians who want to live free of Israeli oppression.

Pain of the Israeli families who've lost loved ones from missiles fired into their midst.

Pain everywhere.

In a world that hurts, what constitutes right conduct?

Eat the meal that is before you. Sleep on the ground that you have to sleep on. Do the work that you are given.

Do not blame your neighbor or someone elses neighbor for where you sleep or what you eat.

If the person next to you is hungry, share your food.

If the person next to you is dying from poverty, share your wealth.

If the person next to you is tired, stand up so he can lie down.

If the people next to you are fighting, help their wounded. Offer to feed them. Offer to clothe them and house them.

Don't make war where there is already conflict. Make peace where there is war. Educate where there is ignorance.

Return lies with truth, so be strong where there is weakness. Beneath all strength lies love, the only true gift.

A Good Drama

Photo: B-52 over Afghanistan, Uncyclopedia

With our imaginations, we who experience world events over the internet, almost as if by magic, make our projections real. As with all dramas, they take on a life of their own, once conceived.

Take the Western intervention in Libya, for example . . .

It's not a big war, though you might think it huge by the amount media attention, and military hardware we've brought to bear on the project, and the amount of fuel being used, not to mention missiles expended at nearly three quarters of a million dollars a shot. It's a good war to get re-elected by.

What about lives saved? Initially it was again believed the precision of Western led air technology would actually prevent bloodshed; certainly it was not believed that the totals would mount, as the imbroglio became more and more complex.

President Obama cooled on the project since Hillary Clinton's initial enthusiasm. Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President, and David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, each have their own reasons for wanting the involvement. For Cameron, it may be a distraction from deepening economic troubles at home.

The French president meanwhile is trying to galvanize support with an election coming, an impending takeover by the far right. Sarkozy's early actions in the Ivory Coast, (French attacks on Laurent Gbagbo's compound) apparently solidified his political self-esteem, and may account for early hawkish actions by the French in Libya.

"Saving lives', to use the sound-byte, by employing our Air Force above Libya, seemed the right thing to do. The rebels asked us and the Arab League seconded any actions that could save civilians.

The rebel leadership seemed well organized at the onset of the crisis, but as of early April is wildly disorganized, and now blames NATO , claiming the West is not utilizing its firepower effectively. Allied forces, anxious not to cause civilian damage, or repeat deaths caused by friendly fire, are taking too long to respond to harried calls for air support from commanders on the ground.

By April 7th five more accidental deaths, and ten rebels wounded by NATO strikes have provoked outright hostility towards the West from the very people we're trying to help. "NATO fired two rockets at us," claimed one rebel. "NATO are liars. They are siding with Gaddafi."

The West will never know who it helps, and who it hinders, since this is not an experiment with a controlled experiment set off to one side. There is no parallel planet with a Libya left to its own devices to compare with the Libya we're creating with our heavy handed intervention. Powerful jet fighters, cruise missiles, and off-shore carrier strike forces that rely on satellite gathered intelligence will never be able to sort the biting ants, from the non-biting.

Wikipedia has a page tallying deaths from the Libyan Civil War. On April 3rd, the total spiked considerably. Bodies of Sub-Saharan migrants were found, apparently killed fleeing the country. They were dead in the water and on the beaches not far from Tripoli. As of early April total dead reached the thousands, comparable to the slaughter of citizens in the Ivory Coast for example, or the heinous and willful machine gunning and execution of protestors in Yemen, both places which are far more dangerous to intervene.

Every action bears and equal and opposite reaction.. Yet our leaders' initial points are well taken. A slaughter of some kind may have been averted in Bengazi. Qadaffi's troups would have taken prisoners, and killed many of the rebels as spies or traitors, not to mention the deadly effects of heavy shelling within or upon a populated city.

By April 4th that slaughter merely moved to a different place. In an angry plea for more co-ordinated NATO strikes, the rebel commander on April 4th displayed frustration about Qadaffi forces destroying Misurata, causing starvation and deaths of innocent citizens and children, caught in a war-ravaged city without water.

Most glaringly apparent throughout this conflict, is that the West has no end-game plan at all. We do not know what we want from this war, (except for oil) or how we'd like things to end up. Consider these realities: a) we're not on the ground except for our spies - who trusts spies?  b) we don't speak any of the languages fluently enough, or understand the tribal discords well enough to interpret local leaders, c) our weaponry is so vastly oversized in scale to the conflict we're attempting to influence, these factors combine to make the Libyan crisis, more a Libyan disaster.

At most our motivations seem to flow from economic necessity, a kind of periodic hostile bloodletting that  we've grown addicted to.

Reasons for war are always abundant. Appeals for intervention will always sound louder than peaceful silence. Yet as the West follows the course charted long ago by Spengler, we seem less and less able to keep our powder dry. As always, the badge of truly powerful is inaction. Mountains that move tend to crumble. Clearly the superpowers have lost the strength to sit this war out.

Should we let ants fight one another, or do we try to eliminate the anthills? We certainly will be bitten for our efforts and there won't be a whole lot of ants left when we're done.

This little war that is making big headlines, is ideal for economically hungry arms businesses and Western governments. High visibility makes it easy to report, seemingly low-risk makes it a perfect op. Media attention keeps our noses out of more incendiary places, that are more dangerous to Western interests. Palestine, Syria, Yemen.

Paradoxically 1973 is the year that Congress put an end to US bombing over Cambodia. Some of you may remember Henry Kissinger's not-so-secret war, in which, to quote Wikipedia: "2,756,941 tons of ordnance were dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites." A tally of lives lost is not presented in that page of 'history' [one wonders why Wiki omitted this statistic], but I leave you to imagine a suitable figure.

I'll digress by noting that not one of those items dropped contained any first aid, food, doctors, or nurses, or burn bandages. We carpet bombed a country almost for the fun of it. Dr. Kissinger, who unbelievably received the Nobel Peace prize (money from dynamite), will in the end enter the annals of history as one of the great butchers of all mankind. In the end, North Vietnam defeated us soundly, and we beat it out of the region. I say all this only to note that any fools who believe that bombs save lives, should have their heads examined. It's an oxymoron, yet indulged by some of the best educated people in the world. I have far more admiration for those that want war simply to get restocking orders, which is a much more general truth about human combat. 

War's a wealth transfer.

I meet the Producer in a Bar

"Pull up a seat. Get this man a drink"

"Waiter, make that a coffee, I want to be sober when moneybags here tells me what he's got."

"Get him the bourbon, a double. He'll need it."

"Jesus you are serious. Tell me."

"I need to see you with that drink in your hand first."

"Fine, fine. One day before shooting you pull a stunt like this. I was sleeping. I've got a four-thirty call."

"No you don't. Not any more."

"What the hell's happened? Didn't you get the advance from Tripod?"

"Oh we got it. . . and it's going back. All two mill. The show's not happening. You're going home tomorrow. We've already bought your ticket. Unless you want to pay for it yourself."

"WhaT THE F . . ?"

"Exactly. Now let me see if you can guess why this show's not going to happen."

"Marcy quit."

"Wrong. She's here. In her hotel sleeping, like you a moment ago. As soon as you walk out, I'm waking her up too."

"The state legislature revoked our permit?"

"Wrong again. In fact they gave us a financial incentive to shoot all the scenes here. They love us. But we can't use it."

"So are you going to tell me or what?"

"Sure thing. Crag quit, won't play the part. Says he looks too good. We've lost our villain."

"Find a new one."

"Can't. Villains are harder to find than heroes. You get the money, but they determine what gets shot and when. Without a baddie YOU are nothing more than this miserable napkin. Hell I have a hundred replacements for you, but none for Crag. Now beat it, and don't make me drink more than I have to."

"You know there's a cancellation fee for me. My agent will be in touch."

"We know we know. You good guys are always cheap. But the show depends on having someone who is BAD . . not on having someone who is GOOD. If you want to go where the future is I'd invest in a transplant of some bad skin, or a hat that looks foreign, or a nasty accent. Now beat it."

The Sand-Box War

The advantage seen through the eyes of France and the UK, of a Libyan intervention, is that they don't have to come up against an enemy that they might lose to. It's a practice war, and a showcase for arms.

The agressors can rough up Gaddafi the way a cat plays with a half-dead mouse. 'Hey, we're in charge. We've got the power!'

I say 'we' but as of early April, the US is getting a case of indigestion. We ate too much in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama's lost his appetite. Maybe someone made the case for a covert war, and a return to operating old style, no boots.

Just spooks.

I get so thrilled seeing how tough we are!

Our stateswoman really means what she says.  Hillary wears that all blue suit, again and again! David Cameron shows the world his good schoolboy accent. "We're there to save citizens! Here here!"

No boots on the ground! We're a citizen-saving team! God will shower us with praise. The rhetoric is positively Sunday Baptist! We're Saints, going to Heaven. Gaddafi should understand!

It's a Crusade after all.

I mean, the coalition got to choose a war, fabricate it, then engage in it. Why there's even a tinpot dictator who might even resign his post, or defect, if we make it too tough. Please, oh please, don't let that happen! It would be awful if Gaddafi should quit, and move to Venezuela, or Uganda.Who would we fight then? Afghanistan and Iraq are starting to feel like old history.

Another question. Who are these 'rebels'? Have we even heard or read a single word in the free press anywhere about a rebel movement in Libya? What are its roots? Is there even a Facebook revolution in Libya? That should tell you what's bogus.

And why is Egypt so silent on what is going on in Libya? Oh, also Israel, and Iran. why are they all being so darned quiet? Maybe they're not being quiet, perhaps their voices aren't reaching us, through the filters of modern media.

Are the 'opposition forces' really 'rebels'? Most of them are young. Many have journeyed to Libya from Europe or other parts of the Middle East. Most can hardly fire a gun, except the people teaching them. Who are they?

Why do they waste their ammo at the drop of a hat and fire in the air whenever the Al Jazeera camera points in their direction? When they shoot off their rocket launchers they set fire to mattresses in the backs of their trucks! They run up and down the coast road like a bunch of surfers following a keg of free beer!

They also need walkie-talkies!

I ask, how organized is this rebellion, if it still needs walkie-talkies?

What of the Al Queda allegations? Libya seems a perfect place for Al Queda to land, and earn a bit of cash by selling oil. Al Queda has to be there. The question is how many are there? Couldn't Al Queda afford to buy the rebels some walkie-talkies?

I'm sure Iran fomented the rebel's cause. 'After Dinner Jihad' helped get us there, now his agents are on the side of the dictator, undermining the 'rebels'. Israel? Israel wants the rebels to win. Or do they?

Israel's a freedom-loving democracy after all, and is pro-human rights (note to self: check this).  Eqypt? Egypt's hoping to firm up some before looking outside its borders. At last report, weapons deliveries to the 'rebels' came through Egypt. Make of that what you want.

This 'Battle for Libya' - I'll use the sound byte now - drags on. Al Jazeera has provided superb coverage of the highway battles, west from Bengazi to Ajdabiya, Brega, Ras Lanuf. They almost made it to Sirte! Now they're on the retreat east again, as Gaddafi's better trained troops beat them back along Route 1.

I'm just calling it Route 1, since it seems like the only road. Again and again we see shots of the same mix of vehicles. Time and time again, the same crowd, the same pickup trucks! The same license plates, the same rust.

What if our airstrikes were to wipe them all out? We'd see on the news mile after mile of destroyed hulks, just as we did on the road from Kuwait back to Baghdad after Bush Sr's war.

How good is your memory for details? My trade-craft is unerring! ;) I have lists of vehicle plate numbers. I know who drives the Al Queda, excuse me, Al Jazeera, staff around. I know which rocket launchers on which pickups are there for show and which ones are actually fighting. I know when the camera's pointed east or north, or west.

I'd love to meet the assistant director on the set. Perhaps he'd give me a job. My question for him is, 'Who's directing this show? We've met producers, our elected officials. The investors? You and me of course. Who's directing? Is he back at Langley, negotiating a sequel, while this pilot is still being edited?'

Is the CIA directing this show? If so, the guys in the pickup trucks are unwitting victims in a drama directed by forces they can't even see . . .

Or can't they?

Lately the rebels have complicated the picture by contenting that Gaddafi'a fighters are amongst them, driving similar pickup trucks, with similar weapons in the back. And, someone's finding time to put land mines on the side of the road. Hmmm. . . this sounds awfully like Al Queda's trained fighters are on the ground amongst them, making a good show of not knowing how to fight until they can get their hands on some real weaponry. Or waiting until the oil ports are turned over to their waiting hands so they can earn some cash.

Cash, and Al Queda. If there is one lesson learned from 9/11, it should be that it doesn't pay to wipe out your enemy. Instead, what pays, is help your enemy do the thing to you that you can't do to yourself, so you have an enemy to fight. If Al Queda's on the ground, amidst the rebels, then they have to be there with the help and assistance of the CIA. After all, a worthy adversary is what a good drama's all about!

Telegram to Hollywood, I mean Langley: We need to hire more extras!

Are they all unwitting? I mean, how did the 'rebels' get their organization together to begin with? Not even Al Jazeera, I'll even say especially not Al Jazeera, has asked this question, or attempted to answer it. Who are the Rebels?

That's my primary question regarding our new show,  . . .

 . . . the SAND BOX WAR . . . !

Everything we need!  A conflict where the stakes are symbolic, but the real risks will hopefully be low. Cast is free. A place were the West can foment ancient ire for the Saracen Muslim in a crusade that amounts to little more than a show of fireworks in the sand.

Look at the advantages a war in Libya has, versus, for example a war in Syria. . . or Saudi Arabia! We should feel blessed!

a) Winnability. Well, let me rephrase, that to 'Not apparently Lose-able'. We can beat Gaddafi anytime we chose. Is this why we've sworn 'no boots on the ground', so that we don't have to beat the man, and end our fun?

b) No collateral Threat. Gaddafi has no friends who are powerful enough and willing to do an end-run on our homes while we sleep. Hugo Chavez won't be launching a Pearl Harbor style attack against Miami.

c) Safe Test War Zone. Libya's a good place to test and expend military hardware without too much risk of civilian casualties. Keeps us sharp, for now. There's a lot of sand for weapons to blow up in. Every explosion translates into a order for an arms company, in the US, Britain, France, Israel, even Russia. Given the huge expanse of desert, it even pays to miss targets!

d) A nice well-cast Villain. A villain we can continually paint as more and more evil. Requirement for the part: Must eschew Western clothes. Not wear coat or tie. Must have bandana, beret or something pseudo-Communist or Prole. He must be so bad, this guy who plays Gaddafi, that his senior minister Moussa Koussa, suspected of killing upwards of a dozen people in Europe, can defect to England and look like a nice guy! The sons just won't cut it - they're not bad enough. Maybe they'll grow up to be bad like the father, but for now, our insurance policy's on Dad.

e) Ideal media distraction. This keeps the limited slots for Middle East conflict off the more deadly and serious revolts going on in Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria.

f) Doesn't involve Israel. At least they aren't visible. They may have their people on the ground helping to arm the 'rebels', but we won't ever know who they are.

g) Fantastic Economic Stimulus. This keeps workers in the UK busy at the task of educating, making ammo, picking up trash and doing the things that workers do. Ditto the US. We've got a war to fight. It's expensive. Domestic agenda stuff can wait until the war's over.

Anther important question:

Why did Libya Foreign Minister Mr. Moussa Koussa defect to England of all places? Are we really to believe that a man who is alleged to have partial responsibility for the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 bombing, would defect to the country where that act of terrorism took place? This would be akin to Osama Bin Laden seeking political asylum at the Marine compound in Guantanamo. Could Mr. Moussa Koussa have deeper ties with the UK than either he, or the UK is willing to admit?

Such a 'late-stage' defection has all the earmarks of an agent returning to spy-central.

'You're simply too valuable to the free world Mr. Koussa, to lose in a desperate squabble for power in Tripoli. Come home, your pension's waiting.'

"Careful Mr. Mark Potter, are you in any way implying that your government or a foreign ally of your government might actually install an agent deep in the heart of the Gaddafi regime?"

"Absolutely."

"Furthermore Mr. Potter, are you for a moment implying, even sideways, that your country might aid or abet a foreign national in committing terrorism against its own people? Of what use could that possibly be?"

"Well it would keep us believing how bad and dangerous the Muslim world is, and if push came to shove we'd just have to fight with Libya, not Syria or Iran."

"Are you saying Mr. Potter, that Mr. Koussa is really an agent of the United Kingdom?"

"No I am not. But I am saying it certainly LOOKS like Mr. Moussa Koussa is an agent for the Brits, returning home after a successful career as Gaddafi's number-one man. Of course part of his cover would have required him to help commit terrorism against the US and UK, as well as taking blame for the hit of an innocent Police sergeant in London. These acts ultimately would have kept our national interests focused on Gaddafi, and deflected away from other more lethal powers such as . .

Russia, China, Iran . . .

"I mean isn't it in the interests of Western security to preserve a weak kingdom you can go to war against at any time, if the need ever arose to flex muscle in the region?"

"This is an unthinkable thought Mr. Potter. I suggest you retract that implication immediately."

I shall. As soon as someone explains satisfactorily who Mr. Moussa Koussa is really working for, who the 'rebels' are, and what our objectives are in this sand-box war.