The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Let me say right off the get-go here: I’m no pacifist, don’t play one on TV, don’t really believe in non-violence in a world that’s inherently violent. I’m no Martin Luther King and I’m no Mahatma Ghandi. On the other hand, I don’t go out of my way to get into fights and I’m happy to look like a coward if it will help me avoid one. Once, in high school our band went to some redneck town across the state and some banty hen yahoo wanted to fight me, I forget what the reasons were now, something stupid no doubt, probably the reason I forget. “Let’s go,” I said, seemingly raring to get into it. My would-be duelist put up his dukes right then and there in the pizza joint and I said, “Whoa, Tiger, I see your game. You start a fight right here in public and right away the owner comes over and stops it. You think I’m stupid, you just haven’t got the guts to fight.”

Well, this stopped my pugilist in his tracks. “Whadda ya mean?” he asked, worried that our bout was about to be cancelled. “I mean, you go out the back door first. We don’t go out together, don’t want to call attention to this. I’ll be out in half a minute and then you better be ready to take a beating like you never got before but you obviously need.” This guy was way dumber than I could believe, but he looked like he didn’t need brains to knock mine out. As soon as the back door closed, I was up and out the front, running down the empty streets of that yahoo town, hoping like hell he wouldn’t see me before I got to my hotel.

We just dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan. Taliban, I assume, the boyz we used to give SAM missiles to when they were fighting the Russians. Mother of all Bombs. Cute name, right? We launched 59 cruise missiles on Syria in response to them, somebody over there, using sarin gas to kill babies and kids and moms and dads. We don’t approve of sarin gas. We do approve of big ass bombs. Trump just sent an armada over to menace N. Korea, a show of force to maybe get them to rethink their nuclear ambitions. Okay for us to have nuclear ambitions, not for anybody else. Except maybe Pakistan. India. Oh, Isreal. Not Iran, though. Destabilize the Middle East. Did I mention Isreal?

It’s not that I’m okay with chemical warfare, don’t get me wrong. Mustard gas, sarin gas, bad, very bad. Nuclear, way bad. Bio-warfare, well, probably not okay. Cluster bombs, pretty bad. Nuclear tipped artillery, not as bad. Mines, sometimes okay, sometimes not. Saturation bombing, like in Germany, firestorms, deaths in the many thousands, nobody said much against that, so probably okay. MOAB, bunker busters, have at it. Drones, sure.

I realize the gentility of old school warfare is passe. Line up the archers on each side, let loose the longbows, next wave steps up, another round of arrows flies. At least we kept the civilians out of it. These days, collateral damage is justified, but not every version of weaponry. What I think is, killing is pretty much killing. Might be better to acknowledge that. Or just run out the front door.

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You have to love a man who’s willing, in less than a day, to change his mind on important foreign affairs. Give him a TV show to watch and if it shows children being Sarin gassed, well, the man’s heart bleeds and the policy he announced just the past week to let the Syrians decide for themselves regarding Assad’s presidency gets reversed. He was opposed to bombing them back in the first chemical attacks on Assad’s own people, but now, well, that was one powerful TV program apparently.

Most of the Congress seems to love a good war. Especially one that’s short and sweet and doesn’t involve our own troops. Send 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to destroy an airbase, hey, they can rally around that flag. Course, we had to warn the Russians to evacuate and they warned their Syrian allies, but if you want great visuals for TV coverage, nothing beats 59 Tomahawk missiles homing in on one target. Unless it’s 60. We do love air power.

Me, I like to be a bit more judicious when I attack a country whose ally is Russia. Maybe consider the geopolitical consequences. But most Americans like decisiveness. They like revenge. And so what if Iraq turned into a quagmire and the rest of the Middle East is ablaze? We showed those Arabs strength and if there’s one thing we believe, it’s that nations respect strength. You go the route of peaceful negotiation, well, they’ll mock you behind your back. They’ll play you for a chump. Just like we learned watching 1950’s sitcoms, bullies respect the kid who stands up to them. Because deep down they’re cowards….

I used to believe that too. Until I stood up to a couple of them when I was a kid. I got some great lessons. I learned they’re not actually cowards, they’re mean and they’re bullies because they’re assholes. I also learned I really didn’t know how to fight. I got the stuffing beat out of me every time. And I learned that principals and teachers, those folks who say they’ll back you up if you stand up to a bully, they won’t. They’ll drag you down to the office and they’ll call your parents and they’ll lecture you on the senselessness of violence.

My parents, raised in hard scrabble small towns in the backwashes of Maine, told me you only fight when someone hits you first, but then you knock the bejabbers out of them. If you can. Trouble is, you have to wait for that first punch. And that first punch, more often than not, finished me off. Somewhere around the start of high school I decided that I wasn’t the cop who righted wrongs. If I wasn’t attacked, then a better plan was to avoid the punks and the thugs. Not every wrong was a call to battle.

Trump ran on something similar. It was one thing I liked about him, maybe the only thing. It’s hard to tell what this guy believes, but one thing is for sure, whatever it is, it can change overnight. Keeps the enemy off balance. Actually, keeps all of us off balance.

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