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Aug. 4th, 2005 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockAs always you should really be reading Digby, particularly his latest entry on a courageous soldier who blew the whistle on some truly horrific events he had the misfortune of witnessing in Iraq. Everything from extortion to torture to murder. If not for his bravery these hideous acts would have been neatly swept under the rug, and I expect that all he'll get in return for doing what was right is villification from the Right.
After discussing the story Digby goes on to make one of the most heartfelt and deeply moving posts I've yet read:
I know that war is hell and all, but it's really important to keep in perspective one particular thing. We invaded Iraq; it didn't attack us. We weren't invited in either. We just did it. And as we now know, the reasons we gave for doing it were false. And when we got there we were so unprepared that we allowed the country to immediately devolve into chaos. Out of that chaos an insurgency developed. Our reaction was to "take the gloves off" -- in a country we had allegedly just liberated -- the same way we "took the gloves off" with al Qaeda.
The vast majority of Iraqis were not Saddam's bitter-enders, not insurgents and certainly not terrorists. They had just spent 30 years under the thumb of a totalitarian dictator. And yet we were rampaging through their homes, "hunting insurgents" and treating them as if they were an enemy. We sent in too few troops and those we sent were untrained and inexperienced. And we let the CIA and other unacountables have a free hand.
Again, these were Iraqis, the people we claimed to be liberating --- not a country of terrorists who threatened our way of life. And yet I think many of our troops did not understand this. And why would they? The president of the United States constantly made it sound as if they were one in the same. He evoked 9/11 in the same breath as Iraq over and over again. Many of our troops believed that the Iraqis were responsible for the terrorist attacks. And with the instructions to "take the gloves off" they took out their rage against those they believed were responsible.
This is why the chickenhawks should be forced go to war. It's not that they must be willing to die for their country; nobody's dying for America over there --- they are dying for George W. Bush. It's because if young (and not so young) men and women are going to be forced to have blood on their hands like this; to be involved in the killing of innocents and torture and abuse due to political incompetence, then the political supporters of this war should have to share in their nightmares and their guilt. Let them be the ones fending off nervous breakdowns and suicide, let them have this on their consciences. The chickenhawks who support "taking the gloves off" in an unjust war should be forced to be the ones who do this barbaric dirty work on behalf of the man they see as the great deliverer of freedom and democracy.
I sincerely hope that George W. Bush's God exists. Because if he does, he's sending that SOB straight to hell.
After discussing the story Digby goes on to make one of the most heartfelt and deeply moving posts I've yet read:
I know that war is hell and all, but it's really important to keep in perspective one particular thing. We invaded Iraq; it didn't attack us. We weren't invited in either. We just did it. And as we now know, the reasons we gave for doing it were false. And when we got there we were so unprepared that we allowed the country to immediately devolve into chaos. Out of that chaos an insurgency developed. Our reaction was to "take the gloves off" -- in a country we had allegedly just liberated -- the same way we "took the gloves off" with al Qaeda.
The vast majority of Iraqis were not Saddam's bitter-enders, not insurgents and certainly not terrorists. They had just spent 30 years under the thumb of a totalitarian dictator. And yet we were rampaging through their homes, "hunting insurgents" and treating them as if they were an enemy. We sent in too few troops and those we sent were untrained and inexperienced. And we let the CIA and other unacountables have a free hand.
Again, these were Iraqis, the people we claimed to be liberating --- not a country of terrorists who threatened our way of life. And yet I think many of our troops did not understand this. And why would they? The president of the United States constantly made it sound as if they were one in the same. He evoked 9/11 in the same breath as Iraq over and over again. Many of our troops believed that the Iraqis were responsible for the terrorist attacks. And with the instructions to "take the gloves off" they took out their rage against those they believed were responsible.
This is why the chickenhawks should be forced go to war. It's not that they must be willing to die for their country; nobody's dying for America over there --- they are dying for George W. Bush. It's because if young (and not so young) men and women are going to be forced to have blood on their hands like this; to be involved in the killing of innocents and torture and abuse due to political incompetence, then the political supporters of this war should have to share in their nightmares and their guilt. Let them be the ones fending off nervous breakdowns and suicide, let them have this on their consciences. The chickenhawks who support "taking the gloves off" in an unjust war should be forced to be the ones who do this barbaric dirty work on behalf of the man they see as the great deliverer of freedom and democracy.
I sincerely hope that George W. Bush's God exists. Because if he does, he's sending that SOB straight to hell.
