First Pakistan and now Afghanistan (with thanks and a hat tip to Radioman)

Remember that CIA agent--I mean American diplomat--who shot and killed two Pakistani civilians that upset the Pakistanis so much?

Yeah, that one.

Did you read where we paid $2 million in literal "blood money" to the families so he could get out?

Yeah, well, we did.

Did you also hear that THE VERY NEXT DAY we sent in drone missiles to Pakistan and killed a bunch of them?

Yeah, we did that, too.

Well, all this comes on top of the fact that right now, all over Europe and Pakistan and Afghanistan and who knows where all, people are seeing pictures of our own American soldiers posing with people they killed.  Apparently the dead are easily proven to be civilians--innocent ones, at that--and that our guys murdered them.

Yeah.  Great news, huh?

Radioman covered it pretty well over at his site.  (See link below).

It seems a few soldiers, at least, killed a bunch of Afghanis and then took what are being called "trophy pictures" of their work.  It's all over Der Speigel magazine (again, see link below), etc.

Between the cost of this war, first in American soldiers and then in money and materiel, and then the damage it's doing to us being over there, with the very people we're supposed to be liberating, we're absolutely going to have to leave, one way or another and sooner rather than later.

I mean that and the fact that we've been over there, what, now?  10 years.

This is insanity, is it not?  "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  A Einstein.

And now we're making friends over in Libya.

The fun just never stops.

Final side note:  As I mentioned at Radioman's blog, it seems you don't see or hear anything of the war atrocities over here in our media, either, in spite of the fact that it's a very hot topic around the world right now.  Der Speigel describes it as possibly unleashing a "Major Public Backlash".

Funny, I thought our media and reporters were like our health care system---the "best in the world".

Links:  http://radiomankc.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-kill-teams-trophy-photos-more.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-05-27-longest-war-afghanistan_N.htm
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=length+of+afghan+war&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=ee6ab499cd4cc77a
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/76699  
http://theweek.com/article/index/213402/a-us-kill-teams-trophy-photos-more-damaging-than-abu-ghraib

Can we stop kidding ourselves?

I pose a question for you today:

If you're "middle class" in America, but you live better than 90% of the people on the planet, is the term "middle class" accurate?

To wit, say you're living in a $200,000.00 house out in a former corn field with a bunch of other suburbanites, you travel the 1/2 hour in to your job in the city each day with all the other travelers, your house is what? 3,000 square feet, it has a lawn sprinkler system, it's either brand new or looks it, the household income is, again, what? $125,000.00 to $150,000.00 per year (I'm trying to shoot low here and stay well under that magic $200,000.00/year range), you go on regular, dependable vacations, you have a late-model automobile, etc., etc.

You get the picture, I think.

This, in America, is considered solidly "middle class". There are lots of people for whom this is an accurate description of their social and financial status.

And, again, it's WAY over 80% of America's population, in terms of wealth and status and, I believe, much more than 90% of the world's population's status and financial situation.

So could we stop kidding ourselves, just to feel good?

It's decidedly NOT "middle class."