5 posts tagged “terrorism”
This year we (the USA) established the Iraq Study Group, a ten-person bipartisan panel consisting of five Republicans and five Democrats who had held posts such as Supreme Court Justice, Secretary of State, US Attorney General, White House Chief of Staff, and US Secretary of Defense. This commission's job was to assess the condition in Iraq and make recommendations to policy regarding Iraq. Among other things, this panel recommended a phased withdraw of troops and open dialog with Syria and Iran. While this group was conducting their study a growing sentiment in our Capitol on all sides of the issues, and among the Military leaders, that we did have to start getting our troops out of Iraq. This of course has been the belief of a majority of the rest of the world's population. Support for the Iraq occupation dropped to an all time low below 30% here in the States. Even the Secretary of Defense that Bush himself appointed after Rumsfeld resigned, Robert Gates, served on the Iraq Study Group and only resigned the group after he was nominated for his current position.
After the commission's findings were publicized, George W. Bush said he would listen to all his advisers and formulate a plan to "win the war" in Iraq. Leaks have been coming out of the White House saying Bush's plan is "Surge and Escalate," which will bring an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. This goes against the advice of the military leaders here, the Iraq leaders there, and pretty much every expert in policy.
This is a disastrous plan. The "US Invasion" of Iraq has been seen as a "US Occupation" and sending in more troops when a wide majority of Iraqis want us to leave will only solidify this belief. The entire Middle East region is afraid we'll have a permanent military presence in Iraq, and adding to this belief may "escalate" in a way quite unintended. The only people who think this is a good idea are the Washington neo-cons who thought every idea Bush had was a good one only to see it fail miserably in a foreign policy disaster. We're losing face all over the world and every decision we make only adds to this distrust.
We do need to open dialog with the neighboring states in the Middle East. These places are not nationalistic like western countries are, they're tribal, they're religious, and these things extend beyond borders. Everything in the Middle East is intertwined. In a recent Iran election, results showed anti-Ahmadinejad vote. The people of Iran have showed they're not in support of the hard-line President that is the thorn in Bush's heal. Recently, Flynt Leverett wrote an op-ed in the New York Times (which the White House censored even after the CIA cleared it) pressing how important it is for this President to not miss the opportunity to fix relations with the most powerful nation-state in the Middle East before it's too late. I agree. We can't afford to let our relationship smelt.
And the Democrats can't really do anything about this either because they've only got control of the war chest, not the troops, and if they cut funding the neo-cons will say how the Dems are weak on terror and how they want to put the troops in vulnerable positions without enough body armor and bullets. So basically living in the States is currently like living under a heavy cloud with nothign we can do except wait out the last two years of this administration. It's depressing.
As it turns out, the annual production of marijuana in the States is worth more than corn and wheat combined. The U.S. growers produce nearly $35 billion worth of marijuana annually. We should get all over that market and tax the hell out of it like we do with alcohol and tobacco. Get our national debts paid off and stop relying on China to pay them for us. Give relief to law enforcement agencies that are already over-taxed in resources. Hell, it may even help stabilize South America if we got into this highly competitive global market; cartels would have to work together to compete with the US producers. We'd also stop funding "terrorism" by taking sales from Afghanistan and other "terror-friendly states".
In conclusion: if you're pro-American and tough on terror, you should support legalizing marijuana.
It has already begun in some places, signed off by Donald Rumsfeld and in extension the commander-in-chief himself. There are even videos of boys being sodomized by US operatives in front of their parents.
(source: MSNBC)RUMSFELD: There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.
MIKLASZEWSKI: U.S. military officials tell NBC News, the unreleased images, show American soldiers severely beating one Iraqi prisoner to near death; apparently, raping an Iraqi female prisoner; acting inappropriately with a dead body; and Iraqi guards apparently videotaped by U.S. soldiers raping young boys.
SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We're talking about rape and murder here, we`re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience, we`re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Senator Carl Levin raised questions about one photo which appeared to show the abuse of prisoners may not be random, but part of routine operations.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: That the conduct we were witnessing and watching was not aberrant conduct of a few individuals, but part of an organized and conscious process to extract information.
(see also: TOPDOG08.COM)
If all of this isn't shocking enough, the legislation passed this week regarding torture and the Geneva Convention retroactively gives the Bush administration immunity to war crimes from 2001-09-11 to present. Of course this became priority number one after the Supreme Court determined the Geneva Convention applies to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, along with all "illegal enemy combatants".
I remember back in 1994 when Rev. Jerry Falwell put out The Clinton Chronicles and I thought our country was coming to its despotic end. In the last three years it's been getting closer and closer still. The latest legislation gives the President sole discretion for defining what torture tactics are acceptable under Geneva Convention guidelines. Other legislation has been giving the executive branch extreme gains in power without having to answer to neither the judicial or legislative branches. Things don't seem to be headed in the right direction, to put it gently.
Last night, the Discovery Channel held a special by Ted Koppel called The Price of Security, which dealt with the questions around what has happened since 9/11 concerning security and civil and privacy rights. It was very informative, broke some misconceptions, and brought up some very important questions. The first ninety minutes was a documentary style about what had happened, and the second ninety minutes was a live forum discussion about the issues with people involved. If you have the opportunity to watch this, I think you probably should.
There were some important questions raised about how we're supposed to fight this Global War on Terror and preserve our American values and Constitution. However, I think the question that needs to be asked is, "Can we win a war on terror?" I don't think we can win a war on terror anymore than we can win a war against any ideology, and an example of this is the war on Marxism in South America. Terror is a nonentity. You cannot fight what is intangible with what is tangible. Because it is a nonentity, there are no defined enemies, there are no defined goals and objectives, there is no gauging success and failure. As a result, there is no winning this war. This isn't because we will lose, but because there is nothing to tell us when we can declare the war over. This is what I fear the most.
When the war never ends, the executive branch has expanded powers indefinitely. They can do whatever they want under the guise of fighting this war. They can (and have) take people off the street and detain them for as long as they want without ever having to explain why they were taken, or bring evidence against them. The executive branch of our government turns into the military branch, and we become a military power, not a civil power. The Constitution does not afford a military branch, and it frightens me to think we're moved in that direction. We're now looking at pax americana through expanded military presence in every part of the world.
I was thinking about when Dick Cheney said (source):
What the Democrats are suggesting, basically, about a withdrawal -- you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it. Basically, it in effect validates the terrorists' strategy. You've got to remember that the Osama bin Laden-types, the al Qaeda-types, the Zarqawi-types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States' will. There's no way they can defeat us militarily. Their whole strategy, if you look at what bin Laden's been saying for 10 years, is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we'll get tired of the fight, that we don't have the stomach for a long, tough battle and that we'll pack it in and go home.
A few thoughts here:
This administration makes it sound like everyone is a terrorist that doesn't want America to be in Iraq. This comes from their confusing the war on terror and the Iraq war. They say if we pull out of Iraq, we'll be fighting terrorists here. Of course the fighting in Iraq is not against the USA (mostly). The Iraqis are fighting each other because there are so many factions (Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, etc) fighting for control. there are terrorists fighting the Iraqi government because they see it as a US puppet govt. attacks on US targets has been slowing down, and our troops' deaths are coming from actions we're taking.
"Validating the terrorist strategy" by pulling out or redeploying means the terrorists are looking for us to leave the region. Most people in the Middle East want us out of the region as well, so they're supporting the terrorist strategy!
"Breaking the United States' will" to do what? Fight? We’re fighting because the terrorists don't want us to fight? We’re fighting to show them we have a strong will to fight?
Cheney says Bin Laden and the others "believe they can, in fact, force us to quit." and what if we do quit? Then the terrorists win because there is no more war? No more senseless death? No more hostility?
Cheney makes it sound like we're fighting for pride. We’ve got the guts to fight, and keep on fighting. It’s pointless. Fighting because someone else doesn't want you to is adolescent.
I guess they're right when they say we won't lose this one because we've already lost it. If terrorists want to fight us so much, why do we satisfy their desires?
