Lance
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Terry Woods
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Mike O
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jack3566A ‘War on Terror’ - When ‘Insanity’ Ruled the World
Reporting on the progress of America’s ‘war on terror’ beginning Tuesday of this last week, both U.S. General David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker appeared before the House Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations. Preceding President Bush’s announcement on Thursday to cut Army combat tours from 18 to 12 months, their respective testimonies voiced the Administration’s concerns over an Iranian Shiia’s role in undermining its prospects for Iraqi democracy.
In light of what seems like an interminable nightmare, I wonder whether any amongst us remembers their pre-9/11 reality? Try. Remember a time when life was still relatively simple and straightforward? I do.
I was an American. I wasn’t perfect, but I was a reasonably ‘good guy’. Intelligent. Passionate. Hopeful. Along with my fellow countrymen I held in abhorrence radical factions who would wantonly sacrifice innocent lives to further their own ideological agenda. We shared a common, readily identifiable enemy embodied by Al-Qaeda. Victory was a foregone assurance, the price of which, any patriot would willingly pay.
. . . and then what happened? This lie we otherwise refer to as the Matrix?
By the end of the week however, and amidst the clamor of Pat Buchanan’s warnings that Petraeus’ remarks pointed to war with Iran and Alireza Jafarzadeh’s proposal of A Road Map for Success in Iraq, an explosion blasted a Shiite mosque in southern Iran, killing at least 10 and wounding another 160. In keeping with the rarity of such occurrences in the region, at least to this point, the incident was said to have resulted from ‘live munitions’ which “may have been left behind at that location which could have been the cause of the explosion”.
With little or no reason to believe the U.S. is even capable of ‘good faith’ negotiations given its diplomatic history and snubbing of Iranian President Ahmadinejad during his visit in September; renewing effective talks between the two nations seems doubtful. Where American leadership to this juncture has only brought a burden of financial ruin and economic hardship to its people, and considering the circumstances, perhaps we should (re)consider our status as ‘global citizens’.
Update Added April 15, 2008
In response to those who insist on portraying U.S. occupation of Iraq as an ‘Awakening’, here’s a YouTube contribution containing President Bush’s pledge of continued military support last Thursday.
WARNING - This video contains extremely graphic content (images).
Filed under: Geopolitics, News | Tagged: 9/11, Ahmadinejad, Crocker, Jafarzadeh, Matrix, Petraeus, Shiraz
The whole problem started when we actually toppled Afghanistan’s government and then stuck around to try to create a new nation out of it. We should have went in under the authorization of Congress through Letters of Marque and Reprisal, captured Osama bin Laden instead of playing a political military game, and this whole “war on terror” nonsense would have been over.
Instead Bush decided to try to be Woodrow Wilson v 3.0 (Clinton was 2.0) and try to establish a good ole’ Democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whenever we leave they will turn against us, it’s happened before and it will happen again. The only way Iraq will ever “support” us is through permanent occupation.
I actually have that same picture- as it exists on the cover of the book you so desperately need to read to have some understanding- here.
Life was not simple pre-9/11; you (and many of us) just imagined it was. The Matrix is the pre 9/11 world of your imagination, not the current one; the first World Trade Center attack, the Cole the embassy bombings, etc. were some of the signs. Bosnia occurred pre 9/11; that first interventionist effort just didn’t occur at Bush’s hands, so it was OK, I guess.
And Lance, after Hitler was dead, I guess we should have just moved out as well right then and there, too.
BTW: The little girl’s name was Farah and she did unfortunately die. She died when a suicide bomber waited until one of our vehicles was surrounded by children to perform his attack. Major Mark Bieger (yes, all of these people have real names) rushed her into his Stryker vehicle to get her to a hospital where she died.
This picture- in Iraq- had a devastating impact; on the cause of the terrorists. It showed the American soldier care; the terrorist does not. And that lesson, shown over and over again, is what was responsable for the Awakening.
I agree with Mike here. This is not the first time the US has been involved in a complicated situation overseas, and life pre-9/11 was not perfect. Romanticizing the past is a path that leads to despair. I’d advise against it.
“Remember a time when life was still relatively simple and straightforward?”
Do you mean day to day, or globally?
Unless you’re involved in the military, on a day to day basis your life is probably exactly the same as before. I’d put money on it.
Globally, actually, the same is true.
You have a very skewed sense of the past. 9/11 changed a lot, but it didn’t change the world.
The point you’re missing gentlemen, is that the violence of our military assault on a Muslim people is unjustified. We initiated it as the result of an attack on America by a nefarious radical.
Now, the United States arrogantly sustains this madness rather than acknowledging the LIE and our own folly in respect to it. God help us.
gospelnous, it appears that you are over-simplifying the current situation; maybe in an attmept to get back to the ’simpler pre-9/11 days’? Muslims are no more monilithic than we are; neither are Iraqis, as you’d well know if you did a little of the reading I suggested.
Iraqis know we are not assaulting them as a people; if they thought otherwise, there would be multiple daily body bag flights from Badhad. The forces we’ve trained up ourselves outnumber us more than 2 to 1 now (and please show a little respect for Iraqis by not suggesting brainwashing was involved).
We assaulted two tyrannical regimes; the justification of the assaults aside, those regime assaults have been the most selective in history (short of single-point assasinations) in terms of avoiding civilian deathes. And well over 90% of all civilian deaths since have been due to the direct targeting of them by the enemy.
It is that targeting, coupled with the consistently humane actions of our own troops that are responsible for the Awakening. And that Awakening very likely will have very important carryover in the future. That and the mass education of our people in Arabic methods of dealing with things.
A very steep price to pay for both, admittedly.
You know Mike, your blind arrogance is nothing less than appalling. What ‘two tyrannical regimes’ are you referring to?
A United States military helped dispose of a Sunni backed Saddam Hussein in favor of a Shiite led Iraqi government. In the last two weeks, Iranian Quds (proxies) used Shiites in Basra as a Mahdi Army clashed with Maliki’s (Iraqi Security Force (ISF).
I can see how believing that 90% of 700,000 to 1.3 million (Iraqi) civilian deaths are ‘due to direct enemy targeting’ would allow you sleep at night, but then U.S. violence would only account for the loss of 100,000 innocent lives, compared to our 4,000.
Given the reality, your so-called ‘Awakening’ is nothing but a contemptible lie, born of a bloodthirsty god inhabiting the pits of hell . . . and you, his apparent hireling.
I wonder whether it’s too late to save your soul?
Gospelnous reuses those famously debunked civilian death figures and worries about my soul; I am so touched; at least not in the head like himself. Too much time spent in the BDS cult compounds, I guess, since he talks about bloodthirsty gods and pits of hell.
The Awakening is real; anyone who has actually been there reports it to be so. Even a fair number of Democratic leaders.
Naturally, the two tyrannical regimes I speak of were Sadaam’s and the Taliban; you’re welcome to argue that they weren’t, but the vast majority of opinion of those living there would refute you.
Mike, if you’ve got more reliable death figures than those mentioned, please enlighten us. If not . . . well frankly, I’m tired of your prattle. Unfortunately, for those like myself, as loud as the voices may be in your head, I do better with documented content.
For me, your expressed views lack critical perspective, representing only subjective emotion . . . ‘My country, right or wrong.’ Clinging to that little mantra only excuses you from assuming the responsibility to think for yourself, further promoting the idea that if you say something repeatedly enough, it becomes true. An objective evaluation of that level of ‘conscience’ would fall somewhere between amoral and immoral.
Hmm, maybe there’s no soul to save . . .