You Knocked Some Sense Into Me

Here is an email I received in response to one of my essays.

You Knocked Some Sense Into Me : Tom McCune: email withheld : 2010-01-06

I’m a 28 year old, white male American. I’m one of those bright Americans that are against the wars and there seemed to be alot of dumbasses out there. I work in retail and you should see how mad people get just for waiting for ten minutes. I love my country, but sometimes it is embarrassing on how other countries view us. Actually, it is very sad and pathetic. It scares me when someone like yourself and others compare us to Nazi Germany. There’s another website that compares Hitler to President Obama.

Obama has been a disappointment. He campaigned as a peace candidate, but escalated the Afghan war and protracted the Iraq war. He pretended to be for the little guy, but force fed wealthy bankers with a trillion bucks in taxpayer money. He has brought people from the worst American corporations, even Monsanto, into this administration. However, he did not start those two wars, so I think it unfair to compare him with Hitler. The Tea Party people who hate Obama are just addled. They are upset a black man became president and are looking for some excuse to condemn him. The business about health care is a plot to kill people is just nuts. Not having health care is what kills people.

September 11th was a horrible event. However, I think that is was Bill Mahar that said we had it coming… I unfortunately would have to agree with him. Have we ever figured out why we were attacked? Is it really about our nonstop support for Israel? Or is it the fact that the Muslim people have had with the Western world?

Since 2001-09-11 we in the west have given the Muslim world many new reasons to hate us. Just a sampling:

• We invaded and occupied two Muslim countries unprovoked, a hanging war crime.
• We sold off all of Iraq’s oil fields to American and Eurpoean oil companies.
• We targeted civilians and killed over a million of them.
• We used torture routinely on all detainees.
• We used banned weapons such as napalm, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, land mines…
• We violated the Geneva conventions, declaring them quaint.
• We gave Monsanto the patent right on all the seed developed in Iraq over the last 5000 years. Iraqis are no longer permitted to use their own seeds. They must buy them with terminator genes from Monsanto.
• We installed Hamid Karzai, an ex-Unocal employee, as dictator, of Afghanistan. He and his brother are the biggest drug dealers in the world pumping over a trillion dollars of heroin onto the planet each year. His administration of drug and war lords is one of the most corrupt on earth. Prior to the invasion, the Taliban religious fundamentalists had all but stomped out the opium/heroin trade.
• We have bombed the schools, hospitals and mosques and desecrated their mosques with graffiti.

In order to stop terrorism, we have to find out the reason why. Have we done something to piss them off?

It is baffling. What Americans have done in Iraq and Afghanistan is no secret, but Americans somehow see nothing wrong with it. They see Muslims as vermin or terrorists and hence every atrocity against them is justified.

It is human nature to hate those whom you have injured.
~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

I have been curious about various religions all my life. I studied the Muslims in the mid 1990s. I went to several mosques schools. I had debates with the Imam. I hung out with Muslims after mosque and discussed all manner of topics. I read the Qur’an cover to cover. I think I understand them far better than most North Americans do. They are odd, but not scary. Racists and religious bigots love to repeat silly stories about them or suggest they are all wigged out terrorists. These stories are believed because nobody knows any better. They are no more scary than JWs (Jehovah’s Witnesses).

I would say probably. Terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on the point of view, believe in something and they are willing to die for it.

If somebody kills your kid, or your entire family, or your lover, it is no mystery that you would want to annihilate the people responsible, including ones quite indirectly responsible, like the ones who funded the attacks with their taxes. The hawks somehow imagine more of this butchery will motivate the Muslim world to love America. It is madness. It is the same insanity that fuels the revenge spirals in Israel. Americans are so traumatised by 2001-09-11 (which I argue had to have inside collusion), no amount of revenge is sufficient. Even though those responsible allegedly died in the attack, Americans want to kill and kill and kill some more — even children who had absolutely no connection with the attack. Even though Americans have killed millions in mindless revenge, they feel unavenged.

Iraq and Afghanistan were the biggest mistakes ever. The whole reason we went into Iraq was to find WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) s, where are they again?

That was the excuse. Bush knew full well there were no WMDs (Weapon of Mass Destructions). Joe Wilson told him. The UN (United Nations) inspectors told him. The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) told him. The Italians told him his Nigerian evidence was an unbelievably crude forgery. Consider how cavalierly he invaded. He would never dream of invading North Korea that way — because he kwew that North Korea really had WMDs.

BTW, who are we to say who has nuclear weapons or any WMD and who doesn’t. Between the US and Russia alone, there’s enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet hundreds of times over.

The only a way country has of protecting itself from the US and Russia is with nukes. They would be nuts to give them up. Consider that Bush announced it his 2002-01-19 SOTU (State Of The Union) that he was going to invade the axis of evil (Iraq, North Korea and Iran). Iraq got invaded. It had no WMDs. Iran and North Korea did not. They had WMDs. It is an unpleasant reality, but countries acquire WMDs because they work to deter the USA. A nuclear-free world means everyone giving them up.

I thought the reason we went into Afghanistan was to get rid of the Taliban and yet we haven’t.

The Taliban is not our cup of tea, but it is what the majority of Afghans want. They are fundamentalist Muslims and the Taliban offer a theocracy. It is not really our business to thwart that democratic will. Without majority support for the Taliban, the Afghan war would have been over in weeks. What do we offer them? Karzai, perhaps the most corrupt puppet dictator on earth. Why would anyone want a crook like Karzai unless they were part of this corrupt regime? Even top generals now admit they can’t win the war in Afghanistan because Karzai is such a dud. They openly admit they backed the wrong man.

Saddam Hussein may have been a bad guy, but at least he was keeping Iraq together… thanks to us, it is a big mess.

Saddam was ruthless to his own people, but he was no threat to the USA. If we are going to oust bastards, how about getting rid of Robert Mugabe? He makes Saddam look like a pussycat. All U.N. members, including the USA, signed a treaty agreeing not to go invading other countries for regime change. Must as regime change seems like a good idea in some particular case, it is illegal. The problem is, once you start, there is no logical end point. Altruistic regime change is just an excuse for any preemptive war. It is always an excuse. The actual motive for any aggressive war is always self-serving.

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