Letters to the Editor
EMStoveken
Published Letters: 391 Editor's Choice: 44
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*Sigh*
[Read the article: From Bush, more of the same]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason that certain insurgents in Iraq have taken up the Al Qaeda banner is simple. We failed in our original mission to find, isolate and dismantle the ideological/strategic core of the organization which orchestrated the September 11 attacks.
These operatives were and are located in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region where they have been since the CIA funded them and MSM called them "heroic Taliban freedom fighters" in the 1980s.
Our inability to capture Osama Bin Ladin has made this poor little richboy the poster child for radical extremism throughout the world. Having killed 3000+ Americans on our own soil and having escaped the most powerful military in the world has made a legend out of a man who had previously been regarded as little more than a mildly charismatic nutjob.
Bush redirected forces from the valid task of dismantling Al Queda in Aghanistan so that he could follow through on "finishing" his father's long over war in Iraq. If Bush had even an iota of intelligence he would have understood that the Iraqi mission would have been infinitely more successful if conducted with the head of Bin Ladin figurative mounted on the front of our tanks.
Instead, we plod through the mess we have today, and Bush acts as if it is the Democrats fault that our enemies have been so emboldened. Homegrown insurgents adopt the name of a folk hero that Bush helped create, and we're supposed to believe that they are the same people who attacked us 6 years ago.
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I'll give you one perfect example . . .
[Read the article: Quote of the Day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Bush -vs- Kerry "Town Hall" debates. A little girl, age 11 at the oldest, dressed in her Sunday best right down to the patent leather maryjanes, is handed the microphone and says:
"Mr. President, how are you going to keep us safe from the bad people and terrorists?"
I burst out laughing at that one. I swear the girl may have been a drugged up Dakota Fanning.
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I cannot recall . . .
[Read the article: Miers will appear before House Judiciary Committee after all]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm sure that Harriet Miers will soon be sitting down on the throne of skulls, holding aloft the jeweled Chalice of the Amnesiacs and chugging back that sweet sweet Kool-Aid that has been the beverage of choice for every other White House witness in this farce. She will not be able to recall things because she will have no recollection of the events in question as she will not be entirely sure whether she was party to such incidents which, of course, she has no reason to believe ever occurred.
And again why are these people (now private citizens) still in possession of documents that the White House feels are secret? I work in the private sector and the day I leave here, I won't have access to outdated stationery let alone proprietary information. WTF!
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Iraq and Roll
[Read the article: If we leave Iraq, do we lose for good?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The thing that continuously baffles me is the fact that nobody has pointed out Bush and Co.'s self-fulfilling prophesy. They imagined Iraq as a nation filled with Al-Qaeda style extremists chomping at the bit to blow up as many Americans as possible.
And now, thanks to our infrastructure shattering blitzkrieg and ongoing military operations there, we have just that. Now understand, that I am not saying that Iraq was some sort of elysian wonderland prior to 2002. I know that it was a brutal dictatorship and that Saddam Hussein was your classic Little Hitler in the Qadafi mold. He was also a paper tiger who was willing to settle for talking up the occasional international controversy while lounging about in his oppulent palaces. With the strong dictatorship gone, the lid was off. Pandora's box had been opened and the hell on Earth that we now have there was unleashed.
The mission that the Idiot Child-Emperor envisioned was not there when we went into Iraq. It is there now. The men and women who are over there are now fighting a real enemy that our administration helped to radicalize.
In addition to radicalizing this group, our government has also enboldened them. The unifying figure of radical extemism is Osama Bin Ladin. Not in any strategic or operation sense, though I am sure the original Al-Qaeda line up would love to get back together for a very blood reunion tour, but in the sense that he is the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and our government stopped our soldiers from apprehending him.
George Bush diverted troops and resources from the valid mission in Afghanistan so that he could play out his kinky Freudian issues in Mesopotamia by trying to "finish" Daddy's long over war.
Just as Americans have long looked to the archetypal "Joneses", they of the 4 bedroom McMansion, 100K+ income, 2.5 honor student kids etc, radical extremists can look to Osama Bin Ladin as proof that you can strike out (in quite a devastating fashion) against "The Great Satan" and get away with it.
I want to emphasize that this is not because a lack of commitment, competence or skill among our soldiers; but because of a lack of purpose, forsight or intelligence among our leaders. They wanted to get into Iraq so badly that they could not see how much easier things would have been if we rolled into Iraq with the head of Bin Ladin on a pike. Our soldiers are now paying the price for these miscalculations.
So there we have it, a nightmare in Iraq, of our government's own making. Bush told us to gear up for a long war, and his policies have helped guarantee just that. Not a long period of hostile engagement along the lines of the Cold War, but a true honest to Gods explosions and gunfire war.
We've made a mess so big, I doubt that the real solution has been presented yet.