poppy seeds and afghan’s needs
You know what the problem in Afghanistan is? It is that America, in an attempted colonization, destroyed infrastructure and put people out of work. On a much smaller scale than in Iraq, but a large amount of people nonetheless. Well, that is no problem for the American forces and government.
You know what the problem is with thousands of people unable to secure normal jobs? They turn to whatever means necessary for survival. Unfortunately, in the Afghan countryside, they turn to poppy growing. Because poppy sells, and sells lots, and people can support their families. Unfortunately, much of the money feeds back to the Taliban.
See, every Afghan is not in the Taliban, even those that work the poppy fields. As with Iraq, we ignore the consequences of our invasion on the local population. We ignore it, that is, until the situation cycles around to the point that it rebecomes problematic for us. Case in point, Afghanistan, where the Taliban is problematic for us. And, as a shortsighted article in the NY Times pointed out, opium is tilled in heavily populated areas.
The presence of poppy and opium here has injected a huge measure of uncertainly into the war. Under NATO rules of engagement, American or other forces are prohibited from attacking targets or people related only to narcotics production. Those people are not considered combatants.
But American and other forces are allowed to attack drug smugglers or facilities that are assisting the Taliban. In an interview, General Nicholson said that opium production and the Taliban are so often intertwined that the rules do not usually inhibit American operations.
In other words, American forces will display the same kind of indiscriminate killing that they displayed in Iraq in searching for WMDs that were not there.
How can American forces have it so that the local populations are not involved in economic support of Taliban operations? Make it so that they want to be involved in the economic support of just, uncorrupt, Aghan leaders. Not corrupt puppet leaders, Hamid Karzai being an example, and not shoddy, false, American-backed excuses for local governance.
this land is our land
Finding thoughtful (not foul or violent) political or social commentary is difficult in contemporary American music. Don’t Drink the Water by Dave Matthews is a particularly subtle example. He sings from the point of view of an unnamed antagonist, to a similarly unnamed victim. Realizing what the song is about was difficult until I heard his “Live at Radio City” version, into which he inserts a verse of This Land is Your Land, written by Woody Guthrie in 1940.
That is to say, This Land is Your Land resonates nicely with the history of American imperialism and genocide in the land now known as the United States. It is subtle as well, many lines are relatively harmless:
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
Not of too much consequence. It is the punch line, repeated throughout, that drives home the idea of manifest destiny. The entire continent, it is spelled out, was made for you and me! It was waiting until we came to settle in it. Those indigenous peoples? Inconsequential, what happens to them. This land was not made for them.
This is where Dave Matthews brilliantly picks up.
Away, Away.
You have been banished.
Your land is gone, and given to me.
And here I will spread my wings;
Yes I will call this home.
What makes it subtle is that he could be speaking to anyone whose land he is trying to take. But the image of wings spreading points to the wings of an eagle, an oft-used symbol in American expansionism. Settlers and pioneers moved West in droves, claiming first stake on land that already belonged to someone else, whose claims they ignored. In many cases, superiority of arms coupled with vast doses of lying and diplomatic deception enabled their claims to be overriden (literally, by covered wagons and war horses).
As we listen to Dave Matthews, we can imagine a sequence of events unfolding. Settlers show up, claim some land, and begin fencing it off. Some natives protest, surprising the settlers, who had not expected any contention to the fulfilling of their destiny:
What’s this you say?
You feel the right to remain?
Then stay and I will bury you.
What’s that you say?
Your father’s spirit still lives in this place?
Well I will silence you.
And silence them the American expansionists did. Since then, few have discussed the destruction of myriad cultures, traditions, histories, and languages (not to mention animal and plant species, terrain, and ecosystems). What Native American leaders predicted back then that the white man, dishonest and deceptive, would remain so in the centuries to come. We speak of historical first right to lands abroad, but neglect (if we take that theory as valid) to apply it to our own.
I have no time to justify to you,
fool, you’re blind; move aside for me.
Almost appropriately, the audience in attendance at “Live in Radio City” cheers loudly when Dave Matthews begins singing This Land is Your Land. They understand not what he is saying and thus prove the inherence of manifest destiny as mission-accomplished in American thinking. The official music video, kudos to the band, makes all his points visually explicit.
