Excuses For Excuses

One time when my son was a teenager he was sitting in the living room arguing with me about some bogus unfairness that was suffered only by teenagers and the fault of all adults. It was quite typical of him to talk that way during those years when we couldn't do anything right and the world was there to please him. During the course of one of these conversations, I remember saying to him. "Your problem is that you blame everyone else for your problems." His response was, "Well whose fault is that?" This could have been a comedy act. But that's how it was for us back then.

Today he's in his thirties, married, a father, has his own home, a good job. In short, everything I thought he would never have. He's out of excuses, has no need for them, lives up to his part of the bargain; he's made something of himself in a world where things just seem to get a little bit harder every day. In a world like that, you have to get rid of the excuses first.

That's a tough thing to do in the U.S. where excuses have become a way of life for nearly every part of society, the rich, the poor, the in-between, the politicians, the president. Even some of the major religions need a good excuse. Look at the Roman Catholic Church and child sexual abuse through the ages. There are so many excuses today because there are so many mistakes. It works that way, More mistakes. More Excuses. The idea of actually admitting to a mistake in an environment where mistakes are the policy, would be irrelevant. And so we listen to excuses for everything.

The Bush Administration didn't make a "mistake" invading Iraq. It believed (mistakenly, oops, can't say that) the Iraqi government was going to attack the U.S., perhaps even with nuclear weapons. It could happen at any time. Dr Strangelove Cheney had no doubt. He had no trouble talking Little George into it. And so we watched our television screens as something looking a lot like fire works killed thousands of innocent Iraqis in their own nation, on their own land, and for no reason at all. No chemical weapons. No Nukes. The Iraqi Army hardly bothered to fight back. So it qualifies as a "mistake war."

And, as such, it requires a good excuse. Here's one. "Well we thought they had these weapons and we were working on that premise." What a lousy excuse. Here's another Saddam was crazy; we could never be sure what he was going to do. Yes, we installed him, but he didn't work out in that position. What we need in nations like that is a good temp," There can really be no excuse for the War in Iraq. We will keep making them though. And one day, we just might find one that's credible enough to be put in a history book so we can explain this monstrosity to our children.

Afghanistan is another mistake that requires excuses. Why? Well because the 9/11 hijackers were not from Afghanistan. They were from Saudi Arabia, our ally, who also, it is believed provided some of the funds for 9/11. The hijackers themselves were in Afghanistan, training on monkey bars, if you are to believe the news media, for a few weeks, then they left. Where did they go? A lot of them came here to attend flight training school. In fact the FBI even knew they were here. Their routine was pretty simple.

Spend the morning learning to fly jets into building. Afterward, go to the strip club and have a few beers, then maybe to the track . . .

So the Taliban in Afghanistan provided them with monkey bar training. The whole plan, some will tell you was cooked up by the intelligence services of our ally, Pakistan. Osama Bin Laden probably lives there too. But who knows if this 9/11 thing was his idea, really. Didn't that also come from Dr. Strangelove Cheney and Little George? As far as I know, that was their story.

But really, what is the excuse for our continued involvement in a war with Afghanistan? Russia went broke there. Remember? We're already broke. So we must be there for a good reason. It would have to be existential, wouldn't it? Something like, if we leave Afghanistan, it will attack the U.S. and kill us. Well, that's not going to happen. The various war lords in Afghanistan will go on fighting for the remainder of time and there is nothing we can do about it. And any general officer who tells you anything different, simply didn't pay attention in history class.

But the excuses. So awful are they that one is embarrassed to write them down. The major excuse is that we are going to improve their government through their acceptance of a diagnosed manic depressive with major drug problems who lives in Kabul and designs his own clothes, some guy named Karzi. He is also known as the Mayor of Kabul, because outside of that city, no one considers him to be the president of anything.

Recently, Egypt's people, one of our mistakes, for which excuses are being made as I write this, have decided not to go with the dictator/police state thing they've been crushed under for so long. Thirty years of friendship and billions of dollars in aid - mostly military - from the U.S., which means from you and me. And it is similar to another mistake in Iran, only these students don't seem to have a fundamentalist Islamist movement behind them at this point. I believe the U.S. would just like Mubarac to leave. Put in some other guy with not so strong an arm and a mild police state the students can accept.

But it doesn't look like the excuses are working this time. All our police state allies might have problems in the Middle East and the whole thing could go sideways. The following is going to sound like a transition into an entirely different subject. But give it a chance.

I remember the Shah had a sister or sister-in-law who was what you might call clinically oversexed. It was one of these rumor things that just circulated. Everyone knew. Hell, the CIA did a report on it. I forget her name but she just popped into my head a few minutes ago. I was thinking about what her excuse was for her untamed desires.

I figure it had to be something like, "I can't help it," or "It feels good."

Better than some U.S. excuses.