War and More War

        The United Nations Assistance Mission reports that civilian deaths in Afghanistan reached an all time high in 2011, as security conditions deteriorate and the Taliban, growing stronger rather than weaker, waits out the end of the American incursion.

And David Bromwhich reports on the neocon cabal that pushes us toward war with Iran, while Obama conducts his presidency as an empty place holder drifting reluctantly on the currents of those who are stronger than he, more devious than he, more passionate than he.

In the mirror of infinite war, each step toward a new war looks necessary.  The empire of the mirror multiplies our enemies until they are legion.

Trita Parsi’s book, “A Single Roll of the Dice,” tells the long sad story of America’s eccentric negotiations with Iran, which were cleverly seeded to fail, while Obama poses aloofly as a man of peace driven reluctantly to war.  A Narcissus who believes in the mirror.

Democracy has vanished in favor of empire.  The management of our peaceful domesticity and fabulous illusions demands drug wars and drone wars and sweat shops and “surgical’ incursions.  These unfortunate things are kept out of sight as much as possible, except to serve as sources of terror, that universal energy of capital that goads us toward servility and an emergent new world of technology and medievalism.

There are all sorts of evil things, subliminally crawling beneath the screen of our super bowl ads.