The Urge for Going

"One of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy." -Sir Richard Francis Burton

How true that statement made by the intrepid explorer rings in my ears. There really is nothing more exhilirating than embarking on a voyage to distant, unseen lands. The mind races, the heart pounds, all else is forgotten as the trip takes precedence. Truly a wonderful sensation, and one that I miss greatly.
It has been 10 years since I graduated from Cayuga Secondary School (as of Feb. 6th, infact). A decade. Unfathomable. Another 7 years since my first tour of duty in an academic institution. Dear god how the time has flown, like a raging torrent impossible to slow. One must simply go with the stream and hope that perils can be staved away and avoided, it would seem. And these days I can almost feel that passage of time, hear the clock ticking in the kitchen, admonishing me for not making the most of what I have been given.
My friend and trail mate Brad called me the other day, just to say "hi", and to ask if I were feeling it as well. "Feeling what?" I lamely asked. "The travel bug." Ah, yes, that urge for going. You see, ever since my maiden voyage in 2003, Brad and I experience the same longing to be abroad at about the same time of year. Late winter into early spring, or longer given the mood I am in. It is a gripping sensation, demanding my attention like few other emotions can. I burn with the desire to be elsewhere, hate the feeling of stasis that inevitably accompanies day to day living. It is not that I dislike my life, or that I am sorry in any way for decisions I have made, it is just simply that I feel the need to be going. There is so much left for me to see. I sit and concoct plans, ideas for future quests - I just hope that I can actually enact the plans, and not let them die forgotten in the cupboards of my mind.
Guy Gavriel Kay explains the sensation perfectly, this impossible to describe-and-yet-ever-present feeling that sits in my breast, in his poem Night Drive: Elegy.
"Driving through Winnipeg this autumn
twilight, a sensationhas lodged
somewhere behind my breastbone
(impossible to be more precise).
It is at once a lightness and a weight,
press of memory and a feeling"
The sad reality is, however, is that I have begun to be trapped in cages of my own creation - student debt being the largest of those worries, worries which become fetters and shackles that hold you to the mundane. Time to braek free, to follow my gut, and embrace the urge to go, as I have in the past.
10 years out of highschool, 7 since Guelph University, 6 since my first European adventure, 3 since the second, and 1 since Lakehead. It seems like the proper time to seriously plan the next giant leap of faith, to fare out without fail...."for the end of the trip is not the end of the dream" I once wrote, in 2002. And that sentiment remains true to this day. It is time to dream again.

Beware the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

I have warned against the new messiah in the White House, which has been a difficult task. He is well protected by a brilliant PR staff, and a public that is desperate to believe in heroes and miracles after 8 years of military debacle. We, and by we I mean the people of the West, need to be on our guard against a Wolf in Sheep’s clothing in this case. The face of the presidency has altered, but has policy? Lets us look into the issue of Afghanistan.
The Obama regime has promised that it will withdraw from Iraq. But it is not withdrawing from the “war on terror”. Oh yes, the War will continue, business (in every sense of the word) as usual for the Corpocratic regime in Washington. Troops removed from the Iraqi theatre will be reinserted into the Afghan conflict, doubling the American commitment to the region. The US force will not be under NATO command, but rather self directed, alongside the NATO effort. Operation Enduring Freedom, enough to make you sick.
Not only will there now be 60,000 troops deployed by America in the region, but, according to Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defence (the man who was secretary of defence for the late Bush administration as well), the American troops are planning on “de-emphasizing nation building efforts”. As such, more troops will be on the ground, but less effort will be made to help construct the Afghan nation. Rather, the troops will be focussed more on “a combat role”; again, according to Mr. Gates. Shame on you, Mr. Obama. What was the famous Bush-ism? “Fool me once, shame on me…Fool me twice, well…you won’t fool me again.” And so I sit here, isolated in my criticism, refusing to be misled, and I question the motives and the integrity of this new Chief of Chiefs, this messiah of the “people”, who will “change our world for the better.” While he postures and pontificates safe at home in the industrial world, carnage will reign in the cities and pasture lands of this poor and enfeebled land. Innocents will bleed, and bleed mightily. And we are to believe he is different than other presidents? If so, HOW?
On a side note, it is interesting that Obama quits Iraq. Or maybe not. Think on this: there are more mercenaries employed in Iraq than there are regular US combat troops, employed by the oil companies (who of course created the need to rid the world of Saddam). As such, the oil, our primary objective, is quite safe, well guarded. The shattered remains of cities are quagmires of carnage. We can leave them to destroy themselves, so long as hired guns protect the oil. Fuck the citizenry. We have seen this before, when rioters looted hospitals and museums, free to pillage what they liked, while the soldiery protected the fields of Black Gold…
Another note of interest is the US request that NATO troops now target poppy producers in Afghanistan, as there is suddenly a “nexus between opium sales and Taliban funding.” How intriguing. I need not remind the brilliant minds in the NATO coalition that under Mullah Omar, the famed, and feared leader of the Taliban (now deceased, as is his 10 year old son who shared the car with him) opium production in Afghanistan was down 97%. Indeed, it was illegal to grow poppies and to produce the narcotic. In the territory held by the Northern Alliance, opium trading was booming – accounting for almost all of the 3% missed by the Taliban. Now, after toppling the Taliban, the narcotic trade is again booming, but I for one remain sceptical that it funds Taliban operations. I find it a much more likely hypothesis that the dogs of the Northern Alliance (and other tribal groups led by warlords) are simply biting the Imperial Hands that fed them. NATO has been slow to hand over regional power, and if they do, they tend to try and give it to the government of Karzai, NOT the war lords. And so they fight against us, to claim the power they clearly thought was their due. Make no mistake; these men were not good men. The Northern Alliance was responsible for massacring hundreds in the streets of Kabul in the late 1990’s, as they fought against other groups of ruthless strongmen. But, after the Taliban won that struggle, the Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend was the thinking that prevailed in Washington, Ottawa, and other capitals. We would make deals with devils to further our own objectives (not a new phenomenon – look at Saddam, circa 1983, making nice with Donny Rumsfeld on camera).
BUT we will NEVER admit to the error, admit that we would deal with monsters – we fight them, we do not nurture them. And so, we create the myth of a nexus between a booming drug trade and the Taliban. We also spew lies that we are at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan; in fact we are at war with any warlord who wants us gone, wants to increase his own personal power and political agenda, warlords who, 6 years ago, we gave money and guns to. They sell drugs to fund their war now. We call them Taliban to hide our error; and We, the West, are so obtuse and wilfully ignorant and racist, that we unthinkingly agree to the claim without thinking just once that other groups, other factions, are present and hostile in Afghanistan as well. Any Turban wearing hostile is a member of the Taliban to our media, which is untrue. If we would only think, we would see that.