After just watching President Obama speak about what we, as a nation, are going to do in Afghanistan, I wanted to reflect within this blog and discuss my own thoughts on the matter. I will start off with stating three things:
1. I am against any war that is not just & even a just war must be held accountable both in terms of life, transparency, cost & operation. I do not believe Afghanistan is the just war it began as, so I am opposed to any continuation of the war.
2. President Obama brings to the table a couple of things – he uses better language of unity than some of our previous presidents have done & he is able to say it elegantly. I do believe words make a difference & we are at least one step forward in this aspect. However, this does not make his words any more true & actions speak louder than words.
3. For those of you who have followed my blog over the past year & if you were lucky enough to know my blogs before I went public, you know that I was a strong supporter of Barack Obama. When the primary election process began, I was still living in Illinois, going to graduate school a few hours from his announcement speech in Springfield. I got to see his work as a State Senator & then as an US Senator. He gave inspiring speeches that I believed were important for our nation to have, speeches of hope & unity. Whereas the GOP was filled more with hatred, division, fear. I still believe that Obama, now as President, wants to bring us together & he stated so in his speech today. However, I have learned over the course of the year, watching as he made his cabinet appointments, this was no different than we have had in the past. I have come to realize that in order to change the way our government is run, we need to completely change the people who are running it. Barack Obama was a fresh face with little experience, which gave me hope. But, he continues to rely on voices of the past: Clinton, Gates, Geithner, Bernanke, etc The head and words of the body may sound good, but the body is still the same ugly mess that got us here. Due to this, despite the fact that I have considered myself an independent, I can no longer consider myself aligned with the Democratic Party, the party I have voted with the last three Presidential elections. I shudder to think what our nation will be if the GOP gets elected because I do consider the Democrats to be better. But, both of these parties have continued to raise our deficit, continue to destroy the US Constitution & what it means, ignoring war crimes or allowing them to happen across the world. Our leaders are more worried about getting re-elected than actually doing anything to fix our problems or not allowing problems to happen in the first place.
Finally, let’s get to my response to the President’s speech regarding Afghanistan. First, I’d like to discuss the House and Senate Resolutions that President Obama mentioned at the beginning of his speech which authorized the use of force against Al Qaeda.
Joint Resolution (HR #64; SR #23), Signed into law by President Bush, September 18th, 2001:
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.(source)
There is a clause that refers back to the War Powers Resolution passed in 1973 which gives congress some power to cut off funding to the war.
The problem with this resolution is how open and broad it is and was used on numerous occasions as justification for the war in Iraq. President Obama is using this as his justification for continuing our offensive in Afghanistan. He spent a number of times during his speech also praising Iraq’s success, which I thought was an odd thing for him to do.
A question arose in my mind when he discussed how Al Qaeda and the Taliban had gone into Pakistan, which is run by a corrupt government much like Afghanistan. Yet, we do not invade, conquer and occupy this country.
I also thought it was interesting that he is justifying the current additional 30,000 troops by comparing the troop levels of Iraq and the fact that there were only 32,000 in Afghanistan when he took office. A recent CBS chart indicates that as of November, there are 68,000 troops in Afghanistan and we are adding another 30,000 bringing us more than three times the number we had at the beginning of the year. Yet, October & November were the most violent since the initial offensive.
So, the question becomes, will increasing the troop level “win” this war? And what is “winning”? This is where I feel President Obama has lost his way. Whether or not the increase in troops is successful or not, he is missing the point in why people are against it.
Our initial military offensive in Afghanistan was a reaction to September 11th. We knew at the time that Al Qaeda claimed responsibility and they were operating within Afghanistan which was being controlled by the Taliban. While I am not completely opposed to this initial offensive, I do believe we rushed into this conflict without proper thought. One week after the event, we were already giving the President authorization to use military force against anyone “HE” believes is responsible for this attack. Did we give diplomacy with the rulers of Afghanistan a chance to succeed? No. Instead, we flexed our big muscle and invaded the country, overthrowing the government, violently kicking out the rulers of the land, yet we were met with resistance & that resistance grows every day we are on their land.
President Obama spoke into the camera to the Afghan people telling them we did not want to occupy their land, flat out claiming we were not occupiers. We are better than the Soviets, we do not want to oppress your women like the Taliban. We will completely ignore all of our past. Do we not have a prison with indefinite detention there? Did we not have soldiers raping women there? Did we not have a group of Christian Crusaders trying to spread the word of Christ there? Do we not have contractors who murder innocent people and it is not a crime for these civilians to do so? Do we not support & prop up a corrupt government re-elected under a fraud election? And, yet, we are not occupiers? I do not know who he was talking to, but to the resistance fighters who are killing US soldiers, we ARE occupying their land. During his speech he invoked the fact that our nation was founded on freedom fighters resisting the occupation – yet, this is not what is happening with Afghanistan?
In terms of Pakistan – this just shows how flawed our foreign policy is. We are so fearful of nuclear weapons that we will fight “terrorists” we seek to get them, we will deny Iran their legal right to nuclear energy. We have a President who wants to rid the world of nuclear arms – but we continue to support & prop up Pakistan, Israel and India as three nations who have not signed the NPT and have nuclear weapons. This speaks of hypocrisy.
Finally, I want to close with the economic impact that this war is having on our nation. War kills nations. The United States is the only nation that has profited by wars and one of the main reason we have become the only superpower in the world is because we were the funding power for the rebuilding of most of the world following WWII. Since WWII, we have continued to allow the government to grow bigger, we continue to lower taxes and we continue to fight wars both on and off the budget. Most people agree that Iraq was a mistake, it cost us big in economic, in human life and in our relationship with the world. But, just because Iraq was a mistake it does not justify the reason we are still in Afghanistan.
We have a nation more endanger of collapse due to economic debt than we do from any terrorist. We have a weak & outdated electric grid. We are lagging behind in innovation, science & information technology. Our educational system has gone so far down that the cost of a University Education is going to be out of reach for most Americans if we don’t do something about it. Each year, the states cut more money from their education budgets. We say we leave no child left behind, but in reality we have caused the entire nation to fall behind. We have more money being spent on health care than we should & people are dying here because they can’t afford to be sick.
Yet, we can afford for our “national security” to send more troops to Afghanistan?
I think it’s time that our nation, our leaders & our President to wake up and realize – Afghanistan is not a war against terrorism, but a war against ourselves in how far we will go to bend the laws of our country, drive our nation into debt and lose the ability to function as credible peace keepers. I fear we have already done too much of all three that we have already failed.
My last comment is related to Islam:
This President continues to fail at addressing an underlying problem that is within this nation and our perception within the world. While he does say Islam is a great world religion and that Al Qaeda has distorted Islam. He continues to equate the “Muslim” world with a world filled with violence. He did not speak out about the fact that the Ft. Hood shooting is the work of one man and not of the religion of Islam. I feel, as a President that had people vote against him and still believe that he is really an Arab Muslim terrorist in disguise should stand up and instead of defending himself as being a Christian – actually defend Islam and Muslims both here in America and in the world as a religion filled with peace & loving people. It may be good for him politically to assert his Christian faith, but to stop there is to allow people to continue to support the notion that Muslim is equal to terrorist.
A Greek Orthodox priest was assulted in Tampa Bay, Florida yesterday when Marine reservist, Jasen D. Bruce, mistook him for an Arab “terrorist” even going as far as calling 911 to claim a terrorist had tried to rob him. I find it interesting that we do not hear about this all over the media and we wonder why there is a negative view upon Islam or Arabs. The media needs to be aware that how they report something can have negative consequences, people get hurt because you are unwilling to do proper research. Then, when crimes occur as a result of this misinformation, they fail to cover it.
Below is the story from the Tampa Bay Times:
A Marine reservist armed with a tire iron beat and chased a man he thought was an Arab terrorist and even called 911 to say he was detaining the man, police said.
But the man he assaulted was actually a Greek Orthodox priest visiting from overseas who spoke limited English, police said.
That’s why police arrested reservist Jasen D. Bruce on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Police said they’re also investigating whether Bruce, 28, committed a hate crime.
The incident took place around 6:35 p.m. Monday, police said. The priest, Alexios Marakis, 29, is from Crete, Greece. He is visiting St. Nicholas Greek Cathedral at 17 E Tarpon Ave. but police said he was in the Westshore area to bless another retired Greek priest.
But Marakis apparently got lost and exited northbound Interstate 275 into downtown Tampa, police said.
The priest followed several cars into the Seaport Channelside Apartments on Twiggs Street. He got out of his car and asked Bruce for help.
Instead of offering help, Bruce struck the priest on the head with a tire iron, police said.
He then chased the priest for three blocks to the Madison Avenue and Meridian Avenue, police said, and even called 911 to say that an Arabic man tried to rob him.
Bruce said he was going to take the Arab into custody. When police arrived, Bruce told them the victim was a terrorist.
The priest was taken to Tampa General Hospital. There, a translator helped Marakis speak to police.
Then officers went to Bruce’s apartment to speak to the reservist again. But he already had an attorney with him and refused to speak, police said.
The priest was treated and released from the hospital.
Records show Bruce was released from the Hillsborough County jail at 8 a.m. Tuesday on $7,500 bond. His occupation is listed as sales manager of a Palm Harbor pharmacy.
Another installment of what has been going on recently outside of this blog. In my debate with the guy who seems to think all Muslims are terrorists, we successfully argued ourselves into circles. I will admit, he is a good debater and did cause me to stumble on some of the US Constitution questions and I will admit I do not know the document as well as I should. His logic related to why I was Anti-American because I dissent was not logical at all and all boiled down to the point where, I obviously have to be anti-American because I support the “enemy” which is Islam, yet as a dissident, I cannot challenge this assertion. This logic makes no sense because as a dissident, I can question everything, so to tell me that such and such is given does not prove I am such and such. I believe that as an American it is my duty to question my government’s actions, motives & definitions and to tell me I cannot is just stupid.
While I did not succeed at changing his mind about Islam, and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to, I decided to end with the following and I will not go back to respond. I’m sure I will be called more names, and I take pride in being called them. In fact, I posted some of them publicly for everyone to see. Names do not change the fact that I will never stop challenging my government & the people who are elected to be the government.
The first part of my response is in relation to Gaza, where he is a supporter of the actions of Israel, so I left him a little feed back regarding that. The last half is my final comment in which I leave him with some videos to watch. I do not expect him to watch them or even have them change his mind, but at least I can say I tried to show him that the “terrorists” are not who he says they are. Islam is a peaceful loving religion with some wonderful people within it. The media tends to focus on the extreme right wing of the faith – whom everyone I know either hates or even goes so far as to say they are not Muslim.
So, without further talking, here is what I left him with:
I’m going to respond with two final posts. As I’ve been working, I have come to the understanding that I will not succeed at my goal with you, which was only to open your eyes to the idea that your ideas of Islam are based on a false ideal that you have seen either in the media, on the web or even in the battle field. I will continue to attest to the loving & peacefulness that comes from those who practice what is truly Islam. The Islam you fear is not the Islam of the world, but a right wing fringe group of people who fail to realize what Islam really is.
There is one point I want to make regarding your final comments: Wikipedia is not a source you can trust. As an academic, I do not accept it as a primary source from my students – it is edited by users. While most of it can be used as a good source of information, there are flaws. One of them being that the Gaza ceasefire ended not on Dec. 18th, but on November 5th when Israeli tanks entered Gaza in a raid that killed 6 Hamas militants, injuring four Israeli soldiers.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians
In addition, if you are truly wanting to know your facts, I suggest you take a look at the most recent report of the events surrounding “Operation Cast Lead” known as the Goldstone Report, written by a Zionist Jew hired by the UN to investigate both Hamas and Israel for war crimes. Within it, it condemns both Hamas and Israel, though I will be honest with you, it is much more critical of Israel, which is why the US House has said President Obama should be in opposition to it. For more information, you can go here: http://www.goldstonereport.org/
Finally, I will leave you with two videos on youtube. The first is a CNN discussion on AC 360 featuring Glenn Beck, A Pew Research Poll & two Muslim authors. While I do not agree completely with Glenn Beck and I do find his show on TV to be more about theatrics than real substance, he would be considered a liberal compared to your stance on Muslims. The two Muslim authors provide you with a Muslim voice to it as well. Take from it what you will. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc9Ig5nqdxo
And finally, this is a video produced by MAS Media Foundation in which they asked 2,000 American Muslims what they wish to say to the rest of the world. These, you say, are terrorists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4ks_yRJsHE
I will continue to debate you on this website, I’m sure. And with that, I will take my “Anti-American, Terrorist Loving” Actor Duck butt to bigger and better things – waking up the world from their slumber as their government continues it’s wrong ways. Until we cross again, salam.
Edit//
Here is his response:
“And there you have it folks, a stereo typical jew-hating muslim. Exit, stage WAY left. What you have here is proof positive of the evils of Islam and its followers. You also have proof positive that we badly need reform and most importantly, BALANCE, in the halls of academe. This idiot is typical of the people who are poisoning the minds of young adults at once-great colleges and universities across the nation.
Stick your salam where the sun doesn’t shine, terrorist.”
So, not only am I a Jew hater, I’m a Muslim, I am showing exactly the evils of Islam & why we need to reform the schools. Oh yeah, I’m a terrorist as well. The sad thing is I feel sorry for this guy, a little bit, because despite everything he still has not changed any of his opinions. He can watch the videos I sent (though I doubt he watched them) and still type these words. This is why I am not responding to him anymore and I’m sure he will get pissed off because of it, but when you seriously hate something that much – you need some help and I cannot offer it to him since I am the “enemy”.
The events of Fort Hood and the sudden rise to the surface Islamophobics has brought me to the surface as well. The past few days I did not blog because I was spending some of my blogging time on a local newspaper website shutting down people who want to believe Islam is the root of evil and therefore terrorism. Some of them wanted to debate the Qur’an with me, selecting individual passages out that “prove” Islam is a violent religion. All of their sources and quotes come straight from a selection of Anti-Islam websites that I have already seen before. It was not worth my time to explain to them why they were incorrect so I ignored the passage quoting despite their repeated insistence. After running them into circles where the only argument they seemed to be able to have is those passages and the idea that Muslims are killing all over the world, despite the fact that they do not acknowledge their own flaws within the argument, so it started to become a pointless debate.
So, of course, me being a troublemaker (I really should stop doing this.. but it’s so much fun..lol ) I took some of my old posts, edited them slightly and posted them on the site. One of the ones I wrote back on September 11th of this year and that just pissed him off and he became Rep. Joe Wilson typing “YOU LIE!” so I can tell I got under his sleeve a little. It really pissed him off that I didn’t allow free posting on my blog and so he proceeded to call me a coward and then took his comments and posted his own blog with the following introduction:
ThespianDuckie, a new anti-American screen name here on these pages has posted his vile treasonous venom here: http://link to where my blog was…
I strongly suspect this guy is a muslim terrorist, or at the very least, a muslim who sympathizes with the terrorists. His arguments, like we are to blame for 9/11, are utterly ridiculous and come straight from the AQ playbook.
Like a typical gutless anti-American coward, he has turned screening on for his blog. What follows is my response to his treason — because I doubt very seriously that he will allow it to be posted.
I ended up taking his posting and breaking it apart piece by piece. This guy thinks the Patriot Act is a good thing & it is “better them than us” in reference to killing Taliban/Afghani people.
He ended his rant responding to my statement: “Do not place a higher value on one US Citizen compared to an Iraqi or Afghanistan citizen.” With the following:
What kind of anti-American piece of crap are you? YOU D@MN WELL BETTER BELIEVE AN AMERICAN LIFE IS WORTH MORE THAN ANY CITIZEN OF ANY OTHER COUNTRY. YOU be a citizen of the world, traitor, *I* am an AMERICAN.
This is a typical “I’m an American, I’m better than everyone” mentality and it needs to end. I’m glad we have success, I’m glad we have freedom and I’m glad we want to share it with the world, but to say the American life is worth more than any other person on this world is the whole reason we are in this mess. A long time ago, the United States was the leader in freedom & innovative thought. Now, we are the leader in corruption of wealth, breaking of treaties and violations of laws. Since 9/11, we have broken numerous international laws, blocked Israel from facing war crimes, invaded sovereign nations and are threatening another. We sit and complain about our health care being too expensive and then watch as half of our tax dollars go to fund wars that are only increasing the chance of terrorism not stopping them.
I left him a comment on his blog post after all of that stating that I did post his comments, including a response that said the reason I do not let them post automatically is because I do not trust a radical like him to post something without it causing harm to people I support. If it was not a statement like that, it would be posted with a response from me.
I also said the following:
I am an American who questions the government – a dissident. If this makes me worthy of the names you call, so be it. I still love my country, whether you agree with me or not. In addition, my faith has nothing to do with my stance. I have not indicated whether I am Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Atheist. You can put me into any group you wish, it doesn’t change the fact that as an American Citizen, it is my duty to question everything my government does in my name.
If this makes me hated, so be it. But at least I know I have done something to end the illegal occupation of nations in my name, the murder of innocent women, men and children. At least I have spoken up to end the suffering of people.
I do not support the wars, the people who are fighting in them and the people who are hired to protect them. I do not wish harm on our soldiers and demand that we bring them home.
I would like to ask a simple question – why are we fighting a war in Afghanistan?
It has been 8 years since we went to “get the terrorists” in our revenge for the events that happened on September 11th, 2001. We have now lost more people fighting wars against terrorism than we have lost to terrorism. We have spent billions of dollars, we have two countries (Iraq & Afghanistan) without credible governments. And we have murdered millions of faceless people as we fight against who we claim are the “bad guys”.
In the images below, you will find a few of the “bad guys” who have been affected by our actions within Afghanistan. Ask yourself, are the lives of 3000 people who died in NYC on 9/11 worth it? Over 4000 troops dead. Millions of people dead or injured for life, as we enact revenge for those who terrorized us. Yet, we are the ones who have tortured people.
In Helmand Province. These two children now living in a refugee camp in Kabul lost their arms during a U.S. attack upon their village in Helmand. Guljuma, 10, sits insiide a mud hut; Farzana, 8 mos old, is held by her grandmother in the crowded refugee camp. The following two photos taken February 10, 2009 by Getty Images show the two children:
A kuchi child, a member of the nomads of Afghanistan. He was brought by his older sister. She doesn’t have the words to tell his names and their age. She doesn’t even have the words to scream her anger against the lot, the destiny, God and maybe against all the metal monsters which wing above Afghanistan and let falling their devices to spy the houses, the settlements and the people lives, in the name of holy war against terrorism; the same war George W. Bush tells he continues on behalf of God.
The children don’t moan when the tweezers remove the burnt skin from their bodies. Even not a wail. Only their eyes follow the faces of nurses and doctors around them and they are looked after with real care.
If you were ask a military officer or a politician, they will claim they are “collateral damage” in a fight against the “bad guy.” But, I ask you this – if these were your children, would you consider them to be “collateral damage”? What would you do if you were their mother or father? Would you seek peace with the ones who did this to them? Or are you more likely to seek your own revenge? When do we realize that killing people to enact revenge for tragic events is not going to solve the tragic event or bring peace to our hearts?
The following two videos are part of a documentary called “Rethink Afghanistan”. Within them you will hear an Afghan nomad discuss his desperation in feeding and clothing his children.
Again, I ask – are these people the terrorists?
I see no difference between the actions of those responsible for sending planes into buildings on 9/11 than sending planes with bombs into afghanistan. They are both aimed at causing mass causalities, mass hysteria and destruction. Just because we are the United States does not give us the right to terrorize another country, to occupy it. It does not give us the right to torture people to get information & it does not give us the right to continue supporting any of this.
End the War in Afghanistan.
End the War in Iraq.
They are illegal wars under the US Constitution.
There have been violations to International Law committed while enacting these wars.
We are no better than the terrorists we aim to get, except that we can spend more money to accomplish the task.
If you agree with my stance. Take action NOW. Do not wait for your leaders to decide when they can play the political games for votes.
