And The Point of It All Is?
Jonny began the journey back to Iraq today.
Last night over dinner he talked about the country and the mission of the military and the whole shebang. He said that the vast majority of the people there are ignorant, uneducated with no real chance to ever do better than eek out a subsistence living. Because of their ignorance their views are closed minded and difficult to change. Everything is tribal and patriarchal, women are treated horrendously and pretty much everyone has a hidden agenda.
In short, the whole country is stuck in the middle ages.
Which got me thinking (yep I'm gonna vent but my next posts will be about pretty flashing lights, fires and blood and gore, don't worry) what the hell are we doing over there? Our last president couldn't find Osama Bin Ladden, the guy responsible for the 9/11 attacks so he did what any good politician would do, he strapped on his Texas Six Shooter, put on a flight suit and flew a fighter jet onto a carrier and beat the shit out of a fifth world nation under the banner of "human rights" well for the years since the end of the first Gulf War we really could have cared less about the human rights problem in Iraq. But then magically we have the right to commit a war crime (yes invading a sovereign nation without provocation is a UN war crime for which Bush will never be tried) when public oppion dwindles on the hunt for bin Ladden.
So now countless friends and family members are trying to change thousands of years worth of culture in order to place a barely functioning form of government in effect in a place where Church and State are one. The theocratic regime that rules the Mid East knows no boarders just as the Papacy knew no boarders in the Middle Ages. American troops with sophisiticated weaponary and equipment are not going to change the way of thinking in that area just like armed Middle East troops invading America would not change our way of thinking.
When American troops leave Iraq, and in my oppinion it can't come soon enough, the puppet government we set up over there WILL crumble. They will go right back to slitting each others throats because they don't fear God the same way and they always will.
America was founded on relgious tolerance yet we force our own ideals on other nations because their standards of decency don't measure up to ours. We have no real right to go to Iraq and say "You know how you've lived for the past thousand years, well its wrong. Do it like this."
I often piss my wife off because I call myself a liberal and she feels that views such as I am expressing now are closed minded and very conservative because I am basically preaching isolationism. And maybe this is a new form of isolationism but I really don't see how we can look at a culture that has sustained itself for thousands of years and think we can change it in any amount of time with any amount of firepower. If armed troops came here and told us how to live we would fight tooth and nail to send them packing and we would never submit to their ideals. Why should we expect anything less from a far more violent culture with litterally nothing to loose.
Religion is so imbued into the politics of the Mid East that we can never sepperate the two. So what is the point of sending people like my brother in law to an area that will never change?
Last night over dinner he talked about the country and the mission of the military and the whole shebang. He said that the vast majority of the people there are ignorant, uneducated with no real chance to ever do better than eek out a subsistence living. Because of their ignorance their views are closed minded and difficult to change. Everything is tribal and patriarchal, women are treated horrendously and pretty much everyone has a hidden agenda.
In short, the whole country is stuck in the middle ages.
Which got me thinking (yep I'm gonna vent but my next posts will be about pretty flashing lights, fires and blood and gore, don't worry) what the hell are we doing over there? Our last president couldn't find Osama Bin Ladden, the guy responsible for the 9/11 attacks so he did what any good politician would do, he strapped on his Texas Six Shooter, put on a flight suit and flew a fighter jet onto a carrier and beat the shit out of a fifth world nation under the banner of "human rights" well for the years since the end of the first Gulf War we really could have cared less about the human rights problem in Iraq. But then magically we have the right to commit a war crime (yes invading a sovereign nation without provocation is a UN war crime for which Bush will never be tried) when public oppion dwindles on the hunt for bin Ladden.
So now countless friends and family members are trying to change thousands of years worth of culture in order to place a barely functioning form of government in effect in a place where Church and State are one. The theocratic regime that rules the Mid East knows no boarders just as the Papacy knew no boarders in the Middle Ages. American troops with sophisiticated weaponary and equipment are not going to change the way of thinking in that area just like armed Middle East troops invading America would not change our way of thinking.
When American troops leave Iraq, and in my oppinion it can't come soon enough, the puppet government we set up over there WILL crumble. They will go right back to slitting each others throats because they don't fear God the same way and they always will.
America was founded on relgious tolerance yet we force our own ideals on other nations because their standards of decency don't measure up to ours. We have no real right to go to Iraq and say "You know how you've lived for the past thousand years, well its wrong. Do it like this."
I often piss my wife off because I call myself a liberal and she feels that views such as I am expressing now are closed minded and very conservative because I am basically preaching isolationism. And maybe this is a new form of isolationism but I really don't see how we can look at a culture that has sustained itself for thousands of years and think we can change it in any amount of time with any amount of firepower. If armed troops came here and told us how to live we would fight tooth and nail to send them packing and we would never submit to their ideals. Why should we expect anything less from a far more violent culture with litterally nothing to loose.
Religion is so imbued into the politics of the Mid East that we can never sepperate the two. So what is the point of sending people like my brother in law to an area that will never change?
posted by Nick Stabile at 12:11 PM
3 Comments:
I don't want to fight with you. But I did want to respond to a few of your points.
(yes invading a sovereign nation without provocation is a UN war crime for which Bush will never be tried)Considering the sovereign nation in question was in daily violation of more UN resolutions than I can count and, more importantly, the ceasefire to the 1991 war, they could have been invaded anytime PRIOR to 2003.
If armed troops came here and told us how to live we would fight tooth and nail to send them packing and we would never submit to their ideals.I'm not so sure. The Baby Boomers and their offspring are, for the most part, a far cry from the generation that saved the world and cemented America as the greatest, most powerful nation on Earth. I don't think we (as a nation) have it in us anymore. If D-Day happened today Eisenhower would be fired, the troops withdrawn from France, and Congressional investigations out the ass, and probably the impeachment of the President.
There are news pictures from December 8th 1941 showing thousands of men lined up all over the country to enlist in the Navy, wanting to be part of the fight against Japan.
Nothing like that on September 12th 2001.
Why should we expect anything less from a far more violent culture with litterally nothing to loose.We shouldn't. The people we're fighting against don't "hate us for our freedom." I always hated that phrase, I voted for Bush twice and I wanted to slap him every time he said it.
They don't hate our freedom, or even necessarily our decadent, excessive Western lifestyles. What they want is what the Qur'an tells them to do- spread Sharia throughout the world and force all infidels to submit to it, or be kill them.
So you're right- religion and politics are closely intertwined in Muslim society. I don't think standing up to that is a bad thing, and when they attack us at home and establish bases abroad, I don't see the problem in attacking wherever we find them.
When we find a government that supports terrorism as a matter of state policy (Afghanistan, Syria, Iran), I think we need to address it by whatever means necessary to ensure our safety. Reagan bombed Libya, which got close enough to the Gaddafi himself that his daughter was killed.
That was in response to the deaths of two Americans. TWO.
Never heard from him again, did we?
Fortunately or unfortunately, Clinton proved that just blowing up random crap with no actual value using million-dollar cruise missiles doesn't actually accomplish anything against Islam's latest manifestation of crazy. As a result, the boots-on-the-ground approach is the only way to get anything done. Unfortunately, that means brave young men and women, like your brother in law, will continue to be sent to dirty, backwards, far-away places in order to guarantee our safety here at home.
I wish him Godspeed, good luck, and good hunting.
hey buddy, been a while. dont worry about starting a fight, remember how we used to go at it in S-8?
Negative, you worked my overnight on 19. The only shift I actually remember at this point was the one we did that NICU run out of Newport.
"I can has right of way?"
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