“We fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”
Let me know if ever there was a greater gutless, barbaric, remorseless, cannabilistic statement invoked concerning the engagement of terrorists and terrorism.
Yes, we can authentically supply the facts about how George Bush created an “over there,” a place where cumulative death tolls are exceeding the savagry of even Saddam’s butchery but a thoroughly overlooked, more important aspect of “over there” is the banal acceptance by so many in this country that the lost lives in Iraq somehow count less and mean less than those innocents slaughtered in The Twin Towers.
It’s an attitude of dismissiveness, of ‘who cares about some foreigners being wasted in a cauldron of our making’ of ‘keep death and destruction away from us and we won’t be bothered by what happens somewhere else.’
It’s shades of that despicable racist canard from the 1960s and 1970s in Southeast Asia that the Vietnamese somehow felt differently about death, that is was no big deal to them to lose family members.
Yes, much of the bloodshed and carnage in Iraq involves internal Sunni and Shiite strife, plus that of the foreign jihadists. But the killing and maiming of the guiltless by U.S. military firepower is just as abominable. We are ‘in control’ of Iraq–it is the creation of our current government leaders–those who made the decisions not to fully staff the invasion force, not to secure borders and ammo dumps, not to accept, let alone, embrace U.S. State Department reconstruction parameters and plans, those who chose ‘rosy scenarios’ because they better fit the the overriding geo-political mindset, those who drew up no plan of departure from Iraq because none would be necessary.
I do credit those in the various military branches who have pushed and continue to do so for investigations and charges when our military is suspected of exceeding ‘acceptable’ boundaries in time of war. These are true patriots, trying to do what is moral in a landscape of immorality.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol–all these milquetoast wusses so intent on re-establishing the ‘muscularity’ of American military might as long as someone else, U.S. or foreign, does the hurting, all deserve a public scarlet ‘S’ branding, standing for scorned. These are individuals so personally insufficient that they chose to scurriously employ a jingoistic ‘fight, fight, fight’ chant and fabricate ‘fait accompli-NOT’ national defense information but not to march to or get anywhere close to the frontlines in standing up for their perverted values. That’s the hallmark of ‘leadership’ for these spineless cowards.
And those U.S. civilians unwilling to contemplate or care that those outside our country hurt and bleed in the exact same manner as we do, who profess no concern or chagrin when non-Americans die regardless of U.S. responsibility, well, get in line for your smaller scarlet ‘s’ for you too have forfeited the right to call yourself human.
