May 13, 2004
Doing The Dirty Work
Apparently the only thing you need to know about anything bad Americans might do in Iraq is "we're not as bad as Saddam/Osama/al Qaida." Since we're now on the terrorist morality scale, I think we should prove that we're at least up to snuff on the macho front, lest the terrorists say "at least we're not as cowardly as America, who needs tanks and helicopters and airplanes to beat us." Today we hear that the guy who actually wielded the knife that decapitated American civilian Nick Berg was al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. See? Their evil leaders get actual blood on their hands, while we only get a head of state with metaphorical blood on his hands.
Time for George to get back in that flight suit and drop some bunker busters over Najaf. Or would that be as cowardly as flying a jetliner into a tall building? Oh wait, it would be moreso, no "suicider-ing" involved.
Carter was, well, Carter. Reagan ran away in Beirut. Bush I wouldn't close the book on Saddam. Clinton probably could have gotten Osama before 9/11, but didn't. Bush II probably could have gotten al-Zarqawi after 9/11, but didn't. CAN ANYONE DEAL WITH THESE PEOPLE!? And this year we get to chose between Dubya, a proven bungler of the war on terror and Kerry, a probable bungler in the war on terror. Great. Instead of debates we should see who's more manly by giving them each a "probably" guilty Iraqi detainee and seeing who degrades, tortures and sexually molests their prisoner worst (or best, depending on your POV).
If that sounds like a disgusting idea, well at least it's not as bad as Saddam. Or something.
Posted by Gabriel Stoel at May 13, 2004 06:43 PM | TrackBackConfusing, isn't it all? I'm guessing the paralysis and malaise that is setting in is what Vietnam must have done to the U.S. psyche in the 60's and 70's.
Everyone *must* remember one key difference between then and now, though. When we pulled out of Vietnam, they weren't coming here to get us... The Islamists will... That's why the battle can never end entirely...
The key question is this... What can we (and the world) do to get the Muslim/Islamic world to clean up its own act and police itself?
Garris
Posted by: Garris at May 14, 2004 01:29 AM : Link this commentYeah, nice one Gabe.
And the Communists weren't coming here to get us?! What the hell was the point of the Cold War!? Or did you mean the Vietnamese? Because last I checked, there weren't too many Iraqi Islamists coming to get us. Although now that we've given them a reason to...
Posted by: Bil at May 14, 2004 05:38 PM : Link this commentThe Vietnamese weren't coming to get us... The problem is this virulent strain of Islam that's everywhere: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Britain, the U.S... That's what we have to be afraid of.
One of my co-workers is an Assyrian Christian from Egypt who has lived in various places (Iran, Kuwait, England). Her view is that we really have no idea how brutal and barbaric all these Islamic nations' societies are (some of her stories of growing up in Egypt are frightening to the bone). She believes they are so far gone into despotism and conservative Islam that they're essentially lost causes and will need to implode and explode amongst themselves until reform comes from within. She thinks the West should close itself off from the Islamic world until that happens, believing that our (the West's) open immigration policies (of which she's the first to admit she has benefitted) is going to eventually drag us down with them as their hatred infiltrates Western nations.
I don't think it's going to happen, and it does rankle my liberal ideals, but I don't see any other way to make progress in a more positive sense.
Garris
Posted by: Garris at May 14, 2004 06:51 PM : Link this commentHA! If the West closed itself off to Islamic nations it'd destroy western civilization more completely than anything violent ideologues could hope to accomplish.
Posted by: Bil at May 14, 2004 07:06 PM : Link this commentExactly... Between the rock and the hard place...
Garris
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