Michael Owen Reeve 1/6/2004
All these "Remember 9/11" bumper stickers I see are starting to seriously irk me. Why? Because it has become increasingly apparent to me that we as an American people are forgetting about 1776.
The United States of America wasn't always United. We originally were colonies. Some madman named George (back then he was the King of England) was unjustly taxing the colonists. The man was completely off his rocker. Now, it was traditional for a king to believe he'd been ordained by God to be king & thus his rule was backed by this perceived divine right. (Heck, King John was so crazy he even had his scribes re-write the Bible for goodness sake so that it accommodated his own conception of it.) But George was especially wacko. Finally, the colonists decided they were fed up with being bossed around by some guy who was lived all the way across the ocean. They wanted to rule themselves, so they revolted. At the end of the American Revolutionary War, the colonists got their wish.
Skip ahead.
Iraq is currently within the turmoil that the American colonies had been in. They are no longer enthralled by the dictatorship of Saddam Hussien. But the people they'd believed to be their liberators are beginning to more & more like a new regime trying to control them. Some madman named George (now he is George Walker Bush, "President" of the US) who lives on the other side of an ocean. His soldiers bring them something far worse than taxes: they bring death. Many sacred traditions that have been in place for centuries are being defiled by infidels. The American news media labels these people who are fighting for their homes "terrorists" & "insurgents" while the truest name for them would be "Revolutionaries."
In Summary: We haven't always been America: The World Superpower. We were once a country as steeped in turmoil & confusion as Iraq is now. And, heck, maybe comparing the Iraqis to the Native Americans would be more acceptable? They were called savages & were hated & despised by the settlers of America. The American people, rather than contenting themselves with staying to the East, decided to take away nearly the whole of the continent. So end result is "America" is the country in the lower part of the North American continent & is bordered by Mexico.
Look at a map of Europe. See how all those countries co-exist there? Several small countries snuggled together. Imagine if the people of America had stopped 30 or 25 & left the other half to the "Indians"?
Fanatical Attitudes of the Right Wingers Clash with Fanatical Attitudes of the Muslim World. (Propaganda v.s. Propaganda. Hate v.s Hate.)
I believe there was a Time magazine published sometime this year that had the cover story "Should Christians Convert Muslims?" The bias of course is meant to say that Christianity was more valid in some people's eyes than Muslim. And the goal of the Bush administration is to establish a democracy in Iraq to replace the old dictatorship.
I fail to see how America isn't also guilty of this one-vision perspective. This my-way-or-the-highway theory.
And what do you know about the people of Iraq? What you've read in American newspapers or other news-sources. Which is essentially as propaganda-istic as the media is the Middle East. I've read the articles as you have. How "insurgents" are daily blamed for most of the bloodshed going on over there. They are people defending their homes. Homes that have been decimated by American mortar fire. They are people whose places are worship is under attack.
If a foreign country actively invaded American soil, you seriously believe people would go belly-up & surrender like, well,... Poland during WW II? Absolutely not. They'd get mad, get angry, and probably go completely berserk. The Right-To-Carry-Arms advocates especially.
I believe I had heard that during the American Revolution, the colonists had resorted to guerrilla warfare to fight off the Red Coats. They hid behind cover and fired at their targets. The Red Coats' style of warfare was to orderly march onto a battlefield, have both sides stand face-to-face, then fire at each other until one side had sustained more casualties than the other. It was a practice of very well-established rules. More ceremonial than practical.
"Those people are savages because they're beheading people!"
Yah... and making a bunch of guys gang-bang each other or decorating some guy up like a Christmas tree with electrodes on his nuts is "kind."...
The message is perfectly obvious: the US is not wanted in Iraq by those who live there. They're radicals who fight using guerrilla tactics who take shelter in the countries surrounding Iraq.
They haven't got the technology or the preparation or the capabilities of our troops. Why? Basically because they aren't as fortunate as we our when it comes to capital & resources. They use what means they have to combat us. They are willing to go to whatever extreme it takes to take back their own land.
Now these are simply my own opinions. I don't support the bloodshed; I'm just an observer as you are. I'm not significant enough to have my opinion respected. But I will still speak my mind. No matter who or how many disagree with me. My friend, THAT is what being an American is being about. (It's just not an American thing, I believe all people's voices should be heard on all matters.)
"Okay, bigshot! What would you do differently? HUH!?!? Cry to your mommy?"
The best tactic I can foresee for the US is to create a stronghold within Baghdad. Rebuild that city, do not chase anyone outside of that zone. Maintain a defensive front. Do our absolute best to show the Iraqi people we are serious about humanitarian resources. Make Baghdad into a safe-zone. Take care of the sick, feed the poor. Repair our reputation. PROVE to them we do not intend to be oppressors.
Running willy-nilly all over the country as if it were some stupid videogame or insipid action movie come life is definitely not the way to go.
