I am one war-weary MFer
Jan. 21st, 2007 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richYou know, I realize large-scale war and conflict will never end, despite Gene Roddenberry's fantastic writings to the contrary (then again, Gene was obviously never too sure of that - wars on Earth may have ended, but only because puny humans made it to space and found all kinds of new, exciting other species to fight!). And I know about the hypothesis that any time there are more young men than women in a society, there's more likely to be war waged. It doesn't make me understand any better, though, the sheer wastefulness of fighting a war for the sake of fighting it. I know this administration still hopes to plunder and ransack Iraqi resources like the cutthroat pirates they are, but so far, the only entities I see making a profit out of this are Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin, and other contractor Bush-Cheney-buddies. It's not like they're going to get all these barrels of oil - insurgents have been setting fire to pipelines and supplies for four years (I don't really blame them; I'd burn my new house down before I'd let some asshole illegally take it for himself, if I knew I couldn't get it back in short order).
But the icing that really frosts my cake are the parents who were happy to see their kids get shipped off as part of the military. I'm not talking about those who accepted it because their kid was an adult and they couldn't make them stay, nor even necessarily the ones who *truly* believed at one time that Hussein had something to do with 9/11 (all evidence all along to the contrary). I'm talking about the ones who STILL have no problem with their kid being stationed in this war zone, any more than they would with the son or daughter being stationed at Fort Bragg for a tour - STILL, after all the evidence and reporting and admissions that this war was predicated on a lie.
And I am aware there is a contingent of readers who believe if you join the military, you deserve whatever you get. At this point, I would agree that if you join the American military, you're stupid. But those people who joined before this invasion, before the 1991 invasion - I pity them. I'm sure most thought if there ever WAS a war, it would either be in defense of their own homeland or at least a justified repulsion of enemy forces invading an allied nation. Many soldiers undoubtedly thought that as a nation that we'd learned the lessons of Vietnam ... of course, here we are again, getting ready to do the "escalation" thing that just smacks so hard of Cambodia that I want to scream. The only thing escalation is going to do is raise the number of dead on both sides.
What would I do if I were in charge? Send covert orders to load up all soldiers and viable equipment (and destroy/malfunction equipment that can't be shipped) and get the hell out of there ASAP. This "we can't pull out without making sure there's a stable government in place" is horseshit. Whatever we prop up will collapse as soon as we leave anyway, whether it's in the next month or in ten years. Asshole that he was, Hussein kept the religious factions of Iraq out of any real power in government and in their separate corners. Nothing we do can top that, and someone's going to take over in the name of Allah whenever we leave - I mean, Muslims waited nearly a hundred years for the opportune moment to re-take Jerusalem in the 12th century; what's a decade or two for the original cradle of civilization? (Unfortunately, we can't even afford at this point to finish rebuilding what we destroyed for the civilians - not and support our own needs at home, too. I look like a selfish bitch for saying it, fine; I didn't support this invasion in the first place. This administration and its supporters have wreaked havoc, but even in light of that, I say we need to concentrate on our own economy first.)
Oh, and on the subject of dictators? Frankly, I'm getting sick of hearing, any time someone criticizes the invasion, someone else piping up with "But Saddam was so bad!" Yeah, he was. Is America now in the business of ousting evil dictators? Because I can think of a few even worse than Saddam that we haven't deigned to go after. Someone really needs to tell Bush that North Korea is perched on top of a derrick, I guess.
And I'm still pissed off about the 2008 presidential election because the best Democratic candidate is probably going to be someone who voted five years ago to OK the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and now "regrets" it. It was my big problem with Kerry/Edwards, and I'm sure it'll be my big problem with Whoever next year. All I can say for sure is that Jesus himself could run on the Republican ticket and I'd vote against him; overall, they're not really any more corrupt than the Democrats, but they've held power for too long and need to be taught a deep, scarring lesson and kept away from the prize for 8-12 more years.
But the icing that really frosts my cake are the parents who were happy to see their kids get shipped off as part of the military. I'm not talking about those who accepted it because their kid was an adult and they couldn't make them stay, nor even necessarily the ones who *truly* believed at one time that Hussein had something to do with 9/11 (all evidence all along to the contrary). I'm talking about the ones who STILL have no problem with their kid being stationed in this war zone, any more than they would with the son or daughter being stationed at Fort Bragg for a tour - STILL, after all the evidence and reporting and admissions that this war was predicated on a lie.
And I am aware there is a contingent of readers who believe if you join the military, you deserve whatever you get. At this point, I would agree that if you join the American military, you're stupid. But those people who joined before this invasion, before the 1991 invasion - I pity them. I'm sure most thought if there ever WAS a war, it would either be in defense of their own homeland or at least a justified repulsion of enemy forces invading an allied nation. Many soldiers undoubtedly thought that as a nation that we'd learned the lessons of Vietnam ... of course, here we are again, getting ready to do the "escalation" thing that just smacks so hard of Cambodia that I want to scream. The only thing escalation is going to do is raise the number of dead on both sides.
What would I do if I were in charge? Send covert orders to load up all soldiers and viable equipment (and destroy/malfunction equipment that can't be shipped) and get the hell out of there ASAP. This "we can't pull out without making sure there's a stable government in place" is horseshit. Whatever we prop up will collapse as soon as we leave anyway, whether it's in the next month or in ten years. Asshole that he was, Hussein kept the religious factions of Iraq out of any real power in government and in their separate corners. Nothing we do can top that, and someone's going to take over in the name of Allah whenever we leave - I mean, Muslims waited nearly a hundred years for the opportune moment to re-take Jerusalem in the 12th century; what's a decade or two for the original cradle of civilization? (Unfortunately, we can't even afford at this point to finish rebuilding what we destroyed for the civilians - not and support our own needs at home, too. I look like a selfish bitch for saying it, fine; I didn't support this invasion in the first place. This administration and its supporters have wreaked havoc, but even in light of that, I say we need to concentrate on our own economy first.)
Oh, and on the subject of dictators? Frankly, I'm getting sick of hearing, any time someone criticizes the invasion, someone else piping up with "But Saddam was so bad!" Yeah, he was. Is America now in the business of ousting evil dictators? Because I can think of a few even worse than Saddam that we haven't deigned to go after. Someone really needs to tell Bush that North Korea is perched on top of a derrick, I guess.
And I'm still pissed off about the 2008 presidential election because the best Democratic candidate is probably going to be someone who voted five years ago to OK the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and now "regrets" it. It was my big problem with Kerry/Edwards, and I'm sure it'll be my big problem with Whoever next year. All I can say for sure is that Jesus himself could run on the Republican ticket and I'd vote against him; overall, they're not really any more corrupt than the Democrats, but they've held power for too long and need to be taught a deep, scarring lesson and kept away from the prize for 8-12 more years.
