“God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here. They have no regard for our lives.” Those are the heart wrenching words of a brother whose sister has just been gunned down by trigger-happy young Marines in Samara, while she was racing towards her maternity hospital. For how many people is he speaking? Millions? Billions?
The youthful soldiers’ excuse is that he told them to stop and they didn’t. Where did such a war philosophy ferment itself? What sick minds are responsible for programming the captive brains of these delusional combatants, and now will be teaching them “Core Warrior Values”? Have none of them ever read a book other than high school required reading, which would perhaps have pictured for them the atrocities of Ancient Warriors? Is the word soldier insufficient to relate to what is now but a complex policing operation? Is the choice of that word a further gaffe for a Military that is becoming legendary in this area?
Few people would doubt that if this administration’s sole objective had been to surgically remove Saddam Hussein, as George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. asserted; the Iraq war would have received much support from many Arab states. The appearance is, however, that despite the U.S. air strike success in Kosovo, the Bush Administration nurtured a hidden agenda that required massive deployment of occupation forces, and the establishment of a loyal and friendly new controlling block in Iraq. This machination by an oil-impregnated administration was conceived as a manner of controlling a sufficient amount of world oil reserves, for the U.S. to be itself an influential factor in the world price for oil.
In modern history, as well as present times, there are numerous examples of dominant powers and individuals, venting their anger on the innocent, when the true culprits are beyond their reach. The U.S. Military and the current Administration at some point, must have decided that, using a surgical knife however was not time effective when seeking to carve out for itself a sizable niche in the world’s most desirable geography.
How else to explain the destruction of water services, telephone and other forms of communication, electric power grids and other installations dedicated to the care of citizens. These are services which innocent civilians cannot do without, but trained military insurgents have little need of. Yet, these Demolition Generals did not avoid doing precisely that, first in Baghdad, then in Fallujah, despite numerous claims by the U.S. military of possessing state of the art surgical weaponry.
In the war oriented minds of people such as George W. Bush and his blind followers, the simple solution of the wolf in the Fable was probably sufficient reasoning for them: “Maybe it wasn’t you that drank my water he says to the lamb, but it was probably one of your brothers or cousins” So he ate him. With similar logic they made Iraqis responsible for the 9/11 attack, and Iraqi citizens somewhat responsible for the acts of terrorism in Iraq, and thereby openly professed their unconcern for the innocent citizens of Iraq whom they had professed to save from tyranny
The primary instigators of this massacre tolerant philosophy were George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and tricky Dick II Cheney, and in so doing they created a trickle process readily embraced by the Army Commanders, and ultimately by lesser officers and soldiers, all of which led to the documented abuses at Abu Ghraib, the potentially greater abuses at Guantanamo, plus the Haditha carnage and now the latest random killing in Samarra, so reminiscent of the last year’s suspected assassination attempt of Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian leftist newspaperwoman just released by her kidnappers. This question is well justified:” Are these the whole enchilada, or only the tip of a giant iceberg?” The probable answer of choice is ugly.
The latest media fad as a replacement for hard work is the unending polling of viewers on the most trite of subjects. Perhaps someone could ask for answers to the following question:
What is George W. Bush’s instinctive reaction when apprised of such events for the first time.
A) Mad as a hornet at those soldiers for getting caught?
B) Disappointment in his Generals for allowing such matters to occur?
C) Sorrow for the victims and their family?
D) A fleeting touch of delusive satisfaction?
E) Unavoidable collateral damage?
At some point, George W. Bush and his band of merry mensas, will be made to realize that the formula that was applied in the mid-twentieth century, when Germany and Japan were defeated, and then were immediately aided in developing strong industrialized economies, will not succeed in this case. The people now involved simply do not want an American system of governance which openly enables massive corruption, nor would they exchange any part of their own culture dating over thousands of years, for that which is represented nightly on American TV.
The shortsighted view is that terrorism could once again strike U.S. soil, and occasional utterances by the Sultan of Terror confirm that this could be in fact their intent. Should a disastrous terrorist act again occur on U.S. soil, the fear mongers in the White House will feel vindicated by the tangible validation of their long held views, and they will point fingers at their detractors. These, in turn, should angrily reply that a more conciliatory attitude by the Administration towards the Arab/Muslim people, replacing the current crusading course of action, might well have prevented that which, by then, will have taken place.
The longer-term implications, however, are that Arab investments in the U.S., which are now valued at more than 2 trillion dollars, will dry up, and may in fact be downsized in favor of investments in the growing, potentially friendly and peace loving European Community, whose currency is currently in the process of supplanting the Dollar as the principle world currency. The U.S. treasury and financial markets have been surviving on a steady inflow of outside capital, and would then be caught in a war of financial attrition, which they are in no position to win.
These dire overall consequences have stealthily begun to show, and are freely experienced by anyone approaching a Foreign Exchange counter. Graver concerns may occur sooner than we might normally expect at the current rate of irresponsible deficit spending, gargantuan trade deficits, progressively increasing labor outsourcing, and tax gifts to the wealthy, unless a total policy reversal is implemented, though the likeliness of this occurring with this ineffectual White House crew, is nil.
No one can permanently reverse the momentum of militant intervention by Muslim terrorists without a complete agreement between warring parties in Israel and Palestine. Any potential solution to this basic Middle East conflict must take the form of an agreement acceptable to the Palestinians, of their own free will
For starters, the U.S. could surely find a way to express their traditional support for Israel, without openly exhibiting hostility towards the Arab/Muslim community, its culture, and their leaders. To that end, Israel, whose only real benefit in the Middle East conflict has till now been the ephemeral inflow of U.S. capital and military resources should join the U.S. in this resolve. New lines must be drawn in the sand, which would provide a redefined Palestine with a significant Mediterranean shoreline, a united West Bank and Gaza and Palestine lands south of the West Bank. Unhappily however this would require from Israel the ceding of lands grabbed with the aid of US military hardware, an occurrence as unlikely to occur as the abandonment of Nuclear Technology by Iran or North Korea.
This would, however, create conditions for a lasting peace in the area, and probably engender a commercial and political union between Jordan and Palestine. It is likely that Saudi Arabia, which would benefit greatly from an access to the Mediterranean Sea, might complete that alliance and, as a friendly neighbor perhaps Israel, in time, would greatly benefit commercially, an area they have always prospered in.
Good commerce has been known to provide good peace. At the height of optimism, It should be possible to visualize a peaceful Israel, clearly separated from the equally peaceful states of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, not by a wall, but by a highway under the watchful supervision of the U.N. or a coalition.
George W. Bush, the borderline-elected President, has professed that his inspiration is found in Christianity, and yet, his actions appear to reflect the exact opposite of the dogma that Jesus Christ extolled for three years. If Jesus Christ were a decision maker in the present Government, would he have sent his army of angels across the world to chastise a whole country for crimes he knew they did not commit? If George W. Bush is truly imbued with the Christian spirit, and therefore, believes in the after life, should he not worry as to the location of his final destination, where it appears presently that he is very unlikely to find his professed savior?
The truth is, George W. Bush like many other simple minded people we all know, is unable to let go of any idea which he has come up with, no matter how little thought has gone into it in the first place. Unless he suddenly becomes imbued with the ability or intuition to value common sense, this ongoing crisis will linger on and become the colossal disaster that his inviolable instincts have unwittingly charted for decades to come.