Imagine that you were being told that someone (or a group of “someones”) are very bad and have done horrible things to you and those who think like you. And imagine that, despite some actions that you and your immediate followers have taken against those “someones”, they haven’t really done much to hurt you or your followers in the past.
Assuming that, while this person may have some reasons that you consider valid, you don’t have too strongly of an opinion since these “someones” haven’t really done anything to directly impact you in such a way that you would kill or die for.
Now, let’s say that in order to further this person’s cause, he and his followers committed a tremendously heinous act that caused tremendous outrage in the international community as well as an outpouring of support for those “someones” who you were told were very very bad. And, let’s also assume that in response to this, many of the same people who were being told about how bad these “someones” are were actually trying to help them defeat that very cause that you were being told was “noble”.
There wouldn’t be much support overall for this cause, and those “someones” would be looked upon as victims – with pity, support and with solidarity by much of the world. And suddenly, that cause would have a lot fewer followers, and that individual (or individuals) who were saying how “bad” those “someones” were would descend into irrelevancy pretty quickly.
Unless those “someones” twisted the truth, manufactured reasons, lied and strongarmed their way into attacking the loud and annoying kid a few towns over who, while a menace to some around him, was never really a direct threat. And then let’s say that those “someones” were responsible for finding ways to torture that annoying kid. And all of his friends.
THEN, I would think that more people would think that those “someones” really aren’t such great people after all.
So here we are, four years into an occupation of Iraq, a country that most definitively did NOT have a connection to 9/11, most definitively did NOT have a connection to al Qaeda (in fact it was just reported that “al Qaeda in Iraq” is more of a threat to our troops there and not much of a threat to us here in the US.) And, four years in, it has pretty much been established that all of the reasons and evidence that was given was, at best, blatantly falsified.
And here we are, four years in, with Democrats trying (albeit not as hard as some of us may want) to find a way out of this disaster, only to have the obstructionist republicans shut down debate or votes on ending this occupation. There is a country which is now in the middle of a horrific civil war created and implemented by the republican and neoconservative policies. There is a country that now has a substantial percentage of its’ population approving of attacks on US forces.
There is a country where entire cities have been turned into chaotic war zones – where a continuation of republican policies and pig-headedness have led to substantially increased and more sophisticated attacks on US troops, and millions of people displaced. There is a country that has rampant unemployment, a lack of electricity and clean water. There is a country who had one of its cities bombed with illegal chemical weapons as ordered and approved by the republican commander-in-chief and the rubber stamp republican Congress.
The worst thing that could happen to al Qaeda’s cause would have been for the US led-international coalition destroyed them and eliminated their financing back in 2002. The best thing that could have happened to al Qaeda’s (and Islamic extremists) cause is what is happening in Iraq. To continue the misguided occupation of Iraq, ordering the killing of any Iraqi that defends his or her home IN THEIR OWN HOME (besides doing a great disservice to our troops) is the best recruiting tool that Osama could have asked for.
And for those who are too busy calling Democrats or those of us who are sane enough to realize how much this continued occupation is accomplishing exactly the opposite of what its’ “stated intent” can do one of two things: (1) shut the fuck up, and (2) get your own ass to Iraq.
But let’s have no illusions here – it is those who are in support of continuing this occupation, and those who speak in terms of “winning” without having the faintest idea of what “winning” is anyway, if it were even possible are the ones who are doing the most to help spread the hatred for the US and its failed policies of world domination.
It is those who scream the loudest about others “supporting the terrorists” whose actions and words are, as I said in occams hatchet’s diary last week “Osama’s wet dream”. He couldn’t have scripted a better recruiting tool than the republicans and the cheerleaders for the continued occupation of Iraq.
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