The Way Back Machine

Way back in time that is. Here's an old post I ran across wherein I seem to nail what is commonly accepted these days...that Iraq was a distraction from the real mission in Afghanistan:

June 29, 2004

Dogsnot Bitch

Over at Dogsnot Diaries, one of my favorite cesspools of conservative whackos I like to wrestle with, I recently engaged in an exchange with Gordon the Magnificent in his post he titled Some Humble Pie in which he stated in the original post,

"I love hearing all the barking Moonbats blame the War on Terror on Bush. Morons. Anyone who plays by the reasonable man theory knows the storm was brewing long before he stepped in office."

Being a Moonbat of high rank, and prodded by the first comment to the post by the other hawk in the creatively fouled Dogsnot nest, Geoffery, who deigned to interrogatively squawk:

The moonbats are oddly quiet.

Maria? Cul?

I of course forsook my treasured pastime of naval gazing and feather smoothing long enough to quack back thusly:

Sorry, I was busy picking the lint out of my well considered naval. I personally have never blamed the War on Terror on Bush. I've always blamed Bush for not being capable of prosecuting the War on Terror in any rational manner. The War on Iraq is a prime example of that. At least my distractions don't tend to tear other people's flesh. Now, back to my naval.

Gordon the Magnificient challenged me to committ to greater detail:

So how would you have handled the shit sandwich Cul?

Ever the sort of moonbat eager to bat at the moon, (irrespective of the fact that I had no idea what I would have done), I spontaneously offered:

I would have focused resources of cash, intelligence gathering and small elite commando type military strikes (backed up by our most cutting edge military technologies) on the enemy at hand. And I definitely would have used the opportunity of world sympathy for the US to create a nearly universal political/diplomatic and military intelligence coalition.

I certainly wouldn't have divided and conquered my citizenry with hysterical fear mongering and spread my military forces so thinly across so many fronts that success in any of the arenas was tenuous and unlikely.

Using Dubyas techniques hasn't won us anything so far in terms of 9/11. In fact it has lost us a great deal in terms of world opinion and stature, economy, opportunity and most importantly lives. In terms of the primary goal of defeating the terrorism that created 9/11, BushCo's make-it-up-as-you-go policies have actually made things worse. We whacked a giant beehive and now we will have to deal with the swarm.

Jumping over a few comments from others which took my beehive analogy down a couple of odd avenues, we have this enthusiastic assertion, from Gordon the Magnificient again:

The way I see it, the "Terrorists Fucks" that bombed America on 9/11 whacked the giant beehive and now THEY have to deal with it.

If there is a threat to America - anywhere - it needs to be eliminated.

Ooh...What could I do at that juncture but increase my quack rate?:

Ok. Let's start with the biggest threat to America which is its own ignorant self absorbtion which prevents it from being able to see itself as others do. It is this blind ignorance which allows for the sort of "ugly American" policies which have fomented in the hatreds that blew up the twin towers. Americans are so unaware of the damage done in their name around the world that it seems plausible to a great many of them when George Bush says things like "They hate us because we are free and because of what we have." as he did right after the 9/11 attack trying to rationalize why anyone would do this.

First of all they don't hate the American people. They hate the American government's policies based on economic and tactical considerations over many years by supporting tyrannical governments that have oppressed, tortured and murdered them wholesale. They see the US government and the wealthy interests guiding it as the power defending and propping up those dictatorships they must endure.

We created the Shah in Iran and we created Saddam in Iraq. We created and maintain the middle east conflict between Israel and Palestine and we created the Tailban resistance against the Russians in Afghanstan. We have a long history of supporting dictatorships in Central America and all around the world who were convenient to our economic and strategic needs of the moment. That is what they hate and that is what they were attacking when they attacked the twin towers and the Pentagon. They were attacking the economic and military symbols of the US...not the people. The people were as incidental to them as the 15,000+ Iraqis who are seen as "collateral damage" in our so called attempt to "free" Iraq or the thousands upon thousands of people elsewhere who have been trampled in our other attempts at liberating people - like Viet Nam for instance.

Given that, I find it completely rational that these oppressed people hate the US and would strike out against us. If we seriously want to defeat terrorism, the biggest single move we could make would be for Americans to become aware of what is being done in their name around the world and to demand that their government proceed internationally in a way that is consistent with all those noble ideals we tell ourselves we believe in and assume ourselves to represent. It is not our freedom or what we have that is hated; it is our blatant hypocrisy and refusal to be as responsible as we are wealthy and powerful citizens of the world.

We, the American people hold the key.

So it goes.

Thanx for the prod, Gord. :)