6 years pt. 2

(…continued from last entry)  I always had strong feelings about this war in Iraq, and though my views were relatively uninformed earlier on (I was acting on gut instinct), gathering further data and finding more facts for over 3 years have only led me futher in the same direction I was leaning to begin with.  Attacking Iraq was a bad idea.  I always thought we should have followed through with the 9/11 commissions reccomendations (to this date not 1 has been implimented), I thought that Iraq had nothing to do with the bombings of 9/11 (this has been confirmed in a multitude of ways by now), I thought that we should let the weapons inspectors finish their inspections (they found nothing after we invaded, and would have found nothing in any case because the intelligence was fabricated), and I thought we should have dealt with Saddam diplomaticly and with harsh sanctions (but that’s irrelevant now because he’s dead and his government is out of power).

It really wasn’t until years later after Bush declared an end to major combat operations under his retarded "Mission Accomplished" banner that I found out about the no-bid defense contracts that were issued and the way they fit in to the whole picture and it wasn’t until even later that I learned how deeply the corruption in them ran, but back home, the Bush administration was fraught with scandal, corruption, cronyism, and shameful resignations.  EVERY FUCKING YEAR.  TO THIS DAY.  People (mostly right wingers) are being indicted, convicted, or accused of MAJOR violations of the law across the board.  In the beginning most of the foremost experts that stayed on fromt he Clinton administration resigned en masse either in disgust or outright protest of Bush’s INSANE policies.  Bush was quick to replace each of them with loyalists and buddies only to see Libby, DeLay, Abramoff, Gonzales, Meyers, Wolfowitz, Powell among a whole assfuckbuggerload more… get utterly blasted for being first degree douchebags.  The president’s cabinet is full of numbskulls and criminals, and the Vice President is even worse, shooting his hunting buddy in the face with a shotgun.  OOPSIE I thought you were a flightless bird bred in captivity standing there for me to shoot just for fun.  wait not fun, for sport.  Whatever.

So THIS is who is running this war.  I see the "Patriot Act" signed into law and hate every bit of it… and you want to know something else?  All of this excessive spending, pork, earmarks, appropriations, ALL that shit is President Bush’s fault.  Not only does he *promise* that he will not veto a single bill his entire presidency, he also admits he isn’t going to read a single one.  I’m sure he STILL hasn’t read a single bill to cross his desk, including the one he broke his promise and vetoed and he’s not going to read the two bills from the house and senate NOW either because I honestly don’t think he knows HOW to read.  Why does that make this all his fault?  because saying that sort of thing to a congress that your party has control of is code talk for "make bills that will get passed by your buddies and in closed door secret sessions add anything you want to the bill, delete any part you want, I’m not going to even LOOK at it, I’m not going to veto it, whatever passes will be the LAW."  That’s why it’s his fault.  He let them do this and now we’re totally fucked.  Not only did Bush reverse the surplus that Clinton created, he DOUBLED the national debt in his first 4 years in office.  over 200 years of debt doubled in just 4 years.  Oh and by the way, George W. Bush makes $400,000 per year.  that’s twice the $200,000 Clinton, H.W. Bush, and Reagan made.  In fact the last president to raise the president’s salary was Nixon.  he raised it from $100,000 to $200,000.  Also double his predecessor.  We all saw what happened to him.  At least Nixon was intelligent, if evil and paranoid.

He’s running this war into the ground with our checkbooks riding shotgun.  Now, all that being said, and with the revelation that we are going to fail in Iraq, let me say that I think our military (despite the scandal and bad worldwide reputation) is actually doing a really good job.  I think they’re being effective and I think all the improvements they’re making and the progress with training the Iraqis is commendable.  I honestly believe that 99% of the US military is doing a GOOD JOB AND I SUPPORT THEM.  I also wholeheartedly believe that 100% of thier good effort is being undermined by a vast multitude of other forces.  First and foremost being the independant no-bid Haliburton defense contractors.  They’re not held responsible to the military OR the civilian courts here and they’re fucking things up.  Aside from that we have terrorists, Sunni militias, Shiite militias, religious fanatics, splintered warring factions, corrupt government officials, corrupt army leadership, the fucking CIA, the toothless interim government in Iraq, offshore prison facilities, death squads, gangs, insurgents, Baathists, Iranians, Jordanians, common criminals, lions tigers and bears all fucking up every last fucking thing the military is actually doing RIGHT in Iraq.  When they say that the military is doing well, I agree with them, but all these other forces are doing a world of bad.

In fact it is so much and so complex that it boggles the mind.  Fact: a majority of Iraqis are Shiite muslims.  Fact: the majority of Saddam’s Baath party are Sunni.  Fact: Iran is a majority Shiite nation.  Fact: In the greater muslim world Shiites are actually the MINORITY.  Fact: People in the middle-eastern region of the world are devoutly religious, and for them government and religion are often very similar concepts so it is natural for them to lean in favor of religious governments.  Fact: Bush repeatedly has called Sunnis the enemy, and this actually angers most of the muslims in the world, because most of them are sunni.  I could go on all day with this and draw every connection that I’m aware of, but there are too many for me to list here.  Suffice it to say that with all the displaced people from Iraq, all those who have died in the fighting, all those who have died because OF the fighting, those that remain are largely either part of the government, part of the military, part of the police force, or part of the problem.  The distinction between Sunni and Shiite in Iraq can mean life or death, and so MOST Iraqi civilians that still remain will readily lie about this to avoid being KILLED.  Most every Iraqi that remains has close relational ties with or is blood related to one of those people that I mentioned were part of the problem.

The more that reveals itself, the more convoluded the conflict in Iraq becomes.  The administration INSISTS that we see this as 2 completely seperate sides in a clearly defined not-quite civil war with a clear military solution, but what are we going to solve by killing ANYONE in Iraq?  Every terrorist we kill is some poor Iraqi’s SON or DAUGHTER or FATHER or UNCLE or COUSIN or BEST FRIEND.  Sometimes several connections are applicable in a given circumstance.  every Iraqi that is killed by someonewho is part of the problem is also some poor Iraqi’s SON or DAUGHTER or FATHER or UNCLE or COUSIN or BEST FRIEND.  EVERY Iraqi knows more than one person who is dead, and having that many deaths that close to you will wear on anyone’s psyche.  People who were once quiet citizens of a totalitarian asshole are suddenly having to deal with their country ripped apart but war on all sides and the sensless death ALL around them, and some of them are committing attrocities against what they deem as "the other side" because at some point, you just snap.

We now have Shiite death squads murdering and kidnapping Sunnis, we have Sunni insurgents posing as or even infiltratign the ranks of the police force and causing havok for Shiites, then there’s the revelation that a lot of people there are lying about who they are to try and stay alive, and a lot of them are choosing the wrong answer and are being wrongfully killed by their own brethren, because no one knows when they are captured who it is that has captured them.  They are often never told and must guess.  Even the legitimate Iraqi police wear facemasks to hide their identities to protect their families from retaliation, but how can you trust a man who doesn’t trust you enough to show you his face?  And with so many insurgents in fake or stolen police uniforms, who also wear masks, it’s impossible to tell.

And the reason I listed the Iraqi government as part of the problem, is that the people have essentially elected a government that is highly religious and highly muslim, and the Bush administration doesn’t want that and so is actively trying to curb that trend, and some powerful Iraqis are fighting back politically, while others view it as an attack on Islam by Christianity and so they kill any Americans they can because they seriously want our hand out of their politics.  They DO want a democraticly elected government btu they want to do it their way.  We are tryign to accomplish in a space of about 5 years what took the US over 150 to come to.  We didn’t have anyone attack the colonies to get the Brittish out for us, we waited until we were so fed up with it we did it our fucking selves and acted in unison.  When we had our civil war, we didn’t have the French fighting to protect both sides from both sides.  We had neighbors fighting neighbors until we couldn’t fight any more and Lee HAD to surrender to Grant in traditional military fashion.  Grant had the utmost respect for Lee as one of the most honorable and worthy opponents he had ever faced in battle, though he thought Lee fought for the most despicable thing any human being could believe in.  There is a serious paucity of respect for anything in Iraq at the moment.

Considering all this shit, there is simply no way that the US can win ANY sort of military victory in Iraq.  That is why I say the war is going to fail.  I support MY FRIENDS in the armed forces who are doing a great job, but their efforts are wasted, and the President is too much of an asshole to admit it.  We need to pull out of Iraq and let their revolution take place.  The Shiites so outnumber the Sunnis in Iraq that they’ll definitely win, especially since they’ll have the aid of Iran.  There is no ambiguity there.  Once that happens, peace will be slightly easier to enforce.  We could redeploy our current military into the surrounding regions to help contain the fighting in Iraq, and to help re-secure the one thing we did right in attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan.  We could come to dimplomatic end to this mess if Bush would jsut get his head out of his ass, or his ass out of office.  I strongly believe that the president should be on trial for grievous abuses of presidential power while in office, because ALL 3 branches of our government, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, are supposed to be seperate but EQUAL in power.  Even in war.  And Iraq is not a war we shoudl morally be in.  There is too much going on and the commander-in-chief refuses to acknowledge that he doesn’t have the slightest clue how deep things run in the country he’s helping to tear apart.  Where does it end?