[GCFL-discuss] Putting Things into perspective

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

Siarlys

The original "letter" was indeed simplistic.  It was also written to show a
certain slant.  Your response is much more indepth, and shows a much bigger
political slant.  I will not discuss it further, it would do no good.

Daniel

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net>
To: "Daniel Doty" <ddoty at rgv.rr.com>
Cc: "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List" <gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net>
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: [GCFL-discuss] Putting Things into perspective


> That letter to the editor from the Durham NC paper has some facts wrong:
>
> (Durham is a nice town, I've stopped there by Greyhound several times to
> visit friends, also Raleigh and Greensboro).
>
> The conclusion is of course correct. Our military is great. Those who
> serve in it are brave and dedicated, also highly skilled. Certainly the
> Republican Guard was no match for them. Those who serve are serving for
> all of us -- our nation must have an army, so someone has to fill the
> ranks, and we are all in debt to those who do.
>
> But those who decide how the armed forces will be employed are way off
> base:
>
> President Bush didn't start the war with al Qaeda. They attacked us
> first. But Bush decided to DIVERT our brave service men and women FROM
> the war with al Qaeda to fulfill his own fixation on invading Iraq.
> Saddam Hussein is a brutal egomaniac, and its always a good idea to get
> rid of his type, but he was not an ally of bin-Laden. They hate and
> despise each other. Al Qaeda was not allowed in Iraq, for the simple
> reason that any power center other than Hussein's was a threat to
> Hussein. He ran a tightly secular state, where high school students
> disappeared for bringing a Quran to school. Bin-Laden called Hussein's
> government apostates. We could find a way to get Hussein later. One war
> at a time, as Abraham Lincoln said.
>
> Also, Bush was so determined to be a cowboy and go it alone, he didn't
> look at how we would deal with Iraq once we took it. We have the capacity
> to crush the whole nation and all its people, if that is what we want and
> what we stand for. But the truth is, it is made up of several factions
> that despise each other and, while happy to see us knock off Hussein,
> then wanted us out so they could get on with their own agendas. And what
> did WE offer as their "new leader"? Ahmed Chalabi, an international
> fugitive from justice, convicted in Jordan of bank scams that sound a lot
> like Enron.
>
> Now in a few other historical details:
>
> Germany did not attack us, but they had a treaty of alliance with Japan,
> and they declared war on us as soon as we declared war on Japan. Their
> U-boats were already sinking our merchant shipping before a formal
> declaration of war.
>
> Casualties in WW II were huge compared to any recent war. Just about
> every American had at least a cousin or neighbor, if not an immediate
> family member, who was a casualty. But every American knew what the
> stakes were, and they were huge. We were not fighting to liberate the
> German people from their despotic government; we were fighting to crush
> Germany, militarily, economically, taking out as many civilians as got in
> the way, and leaving a good part of the rest homeless. We bombed their
> cities into rubble and occupied their cities with military governments.
>
> We could do that to Iraq. It would cost us, and the stakes are not worth
> it, nor is it what our national administration told us we were going to
> do. Also, while the world rallied to support us against the Axis powers,
> the world would turn against us for doing that to Iraq today.
>
> Kennedy did not start the Vietnam War in 1962. Richard M. Nixon started
> the Vietnam War, as vice-president, when he persuaded Eisenhower to throw
> the support of the U.S. behind a petty despot in the same mold as Saddam
> Hussein, Ngo Dinh Diem, and cancel the elections that would have unified
> Vietnam in 1956. Kennedy just inherited the mess, and he was thinking of
> getting us out when he was assassinated.
>
> True, Vietnam never attacked us, and we never should have gone in. Ho Chi
> Minh asked US to support his declaration of independence from the French
> in 1945. Think how much better off the world would be today if we HAD.
> Vietnam would have been OUR ally, and that war would never have been
> fought. Do we really care that France would have been upset?
>
> Success in Afghanistan was a no-brainer, and no credit to Bush. Probably
> nobody could have gone in without a reason as powerful as 3000 lives lost
> in a ruthless attack on a major American city. But how lucky can we get,
> that those we need to retaliate against and destroy have isolated
> themselves in a barren landlocked country, which has on its northern
> borders an army of veterans hardened by 30 years of warfare, just waiting
> for a nice superpower to give them ammunition and tactical air support.
> The fighting was mostly done by the Northern Alliance, and they knew the
> ground, they knew all the tribal chiefs to negotiate with. If we went in
> cold to take the situation on our own, we'd be deeper into it than we are
> in Iraq, but, we would have HAD to persist, because there we WERE going
> after an enemy that just DID attack us whom we HAD to root out
> immediately.
>
> Those Americans who did serve in Afghanistan served honorably, and those
> who died deserve to be remembered and honored for it. But it was not
> brilliant strategy on the part of our leaders that we won a rapid
> success.
>
> And incidentally, we haven't liberated Iraq, all we have accomplished is
> to create a free fire zone. Nor did we liberate Afghanistan. We assisted
> a shaky coalition of warlords in taking power from another shaky
> coalition of warlords. Those in control right now allow us to do what we
> need to do, and are happy to accept our aid as long as it runs through
> them. Its workable, but its not liberation.
>
> Does anyone remember how the whole world reached out to the United States
> in September 2001? What kind of foolishness has it been that could throw
> most of that away in less than three years?
>
> Siarlys
>
>
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