To understand what’s up with President Obama as he escalates the war in Afghanistan, there may be no better place to look than a book published 25 years ago. “The March of Folly,” by historian Barbara Tuchman, is a chilling assessment of how very smart people in power can do very stupid things -- how a war effort, ordered from on high, goes from tic to repetition compulsion to obsession -- and how we, with undue deference and lethal restraint, pay our respects to the dominant moral torpor to such an extent that mass slaughter becomes normalized in our names.

What happens among policymakers is a “process of self-hypnosis,” Tuchman writes. After recounting examples from the Trojan War to the British moves against rebellious American colonists, she devotes the closing chapters of “The March of Folly” to the long arc of the U.S. war in Vietnam. The parallels with the current escalation of the war in Afghanistan are more than uncanny; they speak of deeply rooted patterns.

After 13 years of detention, Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been jailed again on trumped up charges by the brutal Burmese regime. Call on UN Secretary General to secure her and all political prisoners' release. Burma's democracy leader and Nobel Peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been locked up on new trumped up charges, just days before her 13 years of detention was due to expire. She and thousands of fellow monks and students have been imprisoned for bravely challenging the brutal military regime with peaceful calls for democracy. Risking danger to speak out for their jailed friends, Burmese activists are demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners and calling on the world to help. We have just six days to get a flood of petition signatures to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon calling on him to make their release a top priority -- he can make this a condition of any renewed international engagement. Follow the link to sign the petition, and forward this email on to friends to ensure Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners are freed. Burmese activists will present the global petition to the media on May 26th:

George W. Bush has been compared to Curious George the monkey for many years, but the comparison didn't quite fit until now. Every Curious George story must include these plot elements:

1. The man with the yellow hat shows George something irresistible, asks him to leave it alone, and then wanders off.

2. George resists everything except temptation and causes all kinds of trouble.

3. Someone makes the bizarre claim that George has done more good than harm, gives him a prize.

Rick Reyes is a former marine corporal who served in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan, 2001) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003). Since coming home in 2004, he has become increasingly disenchanted with our foreign policy. He contacted filmmaker Robert Greenwald through Facebook to thank him for his Rethink Afghanistan documentary campaign. Now, Greenwald and Reyes have joined forces.

Welcome to OpEdNews, Rick. You’ve been pretty busy on Capitol Hill lately. Tell us about it.

A few weeks ago, I testified before Senator John Kerry and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I sat where a young Kerry was once seated as he woke the country up to the grim realities of the war in Vietnam. I explained to the Committee that I always desired to serve my country, fight for justice and the American way. This had been my dream since childhood, a way to honor my Mexican immigrant parents, who worked tirelessly to give my family a better life, a way out of an East Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by gang violence. But what I witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq has forever shattered this once noble ambition.