Readjustment Blues - The Pentagon

Readjustment Blues - The Pentagon reports that a C-130 is en route from Doha, Qatar to Tikrit with a load of 300-pound altos.

The war is not over, but the Pentagon is feeling confident enough to say the "major fighting is over".

Just out of the infantry this morning,
I had to pay my dues across the sea.
No one back in boot camp ever warned me
what the readjustment blues would do to me.

"Welcome to Havana", said the pilot.
“We must have made a wrong turn on the way.
Let's buy some cigars and keep it quiet,
if they don't know we're here we'll get away."

I think it was a Tom Paxton song - I remember learning the chords and words when I was a kid, learning the guitar.

118 American dead so far - 29 fewer in four weeks than died in four days in the first Gulf War. Each one a personal, human tragedy, to be sure - my prayers, for what they're worth, are with each of them, and the 30 Brits who died as well.

They died to free 26 million people - at least, give them a chance at freedeom, and God save them if they blow this one. The mission for which they died dragged Kim Jong-Il back to the negotiation table, his nuke program on the table. While the Syrians are still making some defiant noises, there must be something going on behind the scenes that prompts Ariel Sharon to concede on the settlements; Israel never compromises on safety. Something is making them feel safe enough to deal away this buffer zone. Maybe - perhaps - we'll know in the next few weeks, if the waves of Syrian (and Iraqi) supported suicide bombers dry up, if our action, and our sacrifice, affected Israel's war on terror.

If you read around the media, and especially the blogosphere, there's a palpable sense of readjustment; "what's next?" combined with the realization that the tension of the past year is relaxing. It feels like the world - and the blogosphere, and my humble blog for that matter - are all taking the sort of deep breath you take when your kids have just trashed a room. "Gaaaa. Gotta clean this up now - and while I'm at it, maybe rearrange it, to boot". The intensity of war is replaced by the endless, niggling adminstrative challenges of hard-won peace; we've made the collar, now we have to fill out the arrest report.

One needs to be realistic about the results of these things: World War One didn't end all wars; the fall of the Wall didn't end conflict; the "New World Order" George HW Bush declared after the liberation of Kuwait wasn't much different than the old one. New orders don't change old habits, or the human condition.

But, with any luck, there are three people on this world who are right now telling their flunkies to cool it with the dynamite vests; to consider getting out of the Nuke business; to think about moderating their mullocracy.

Worth it? We'll know soon enough. And a great enterprise, in any case.

Posted by Mitch at April 15, 2003 03:24 AM