Hey grasscity! I hung out with a girl tonight who's boyfriend is heading to Afghanistan in a month. She explained to me that he infintry and it is his job to operate the machine gun. She asked me if I would be scared if that was my man going to fight in a war. I thought for a second.. and asked her.. what exactly are they doing with machine guns down there? Who are they shooting? I stopped paying attention when Osama's name suddenly turned to Husseins without any explanation. she replied, "They are going in to kill the Taliban! They are taking out the terrorists. Those people are bad and they are expanding. It needs to be done. There are so many countries down there fighting to take down the Taliban terrorists!" I kept my mouth shut.. I didn't want to insult her or what her boyfriend is doing. It's all a little too "when Oceania makes peace with Eurasia and declares war on Eastasia .. All the while, the speakers blare, "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia." for me to believe we have purpose over there. What do you guys think? What are we doing there? Taking over their oil? Instilling fear and a sense of patriotism to keep control? Or are we down there for the greater good? ... all apologies if this is in the wrong section.
Some great thoughts you got there... or at least ones that agree with my opinions. In my opinion we are in the middle east for the same reason we enter any other wars: 1) as an excuse for draconian legislation (think Patriot Act) 2) as a big fire in which to throw productivity in order to maintain class divisions 3) money maker 4) to establish permanent military bases in the middle east (we did this with Iraq).
I have no fucking idea. We killed Saddam Hussein, we still haven't taken down Al Queada (wrong spelling I'm sure), and we took the Taliban out of power in 2001 and they came back in 2004 and started killing more people. So now I think we've just been hanging around fighting terrorists there. But are we helping or are we hurting? Is winning even a possible? I don't know. I haven't actually been over there, so it's not my place to say. The thing I wonder is: Why do we care? I don't think it's any of our business. There's lots of war and poverty and terrorism in the world, but for some reason we are still fighting in a couple countries in the middle east.
3) money maker 4) to establish permanent military bases in the middle east's That sounds like a valid reason to be down there. I mean, there has to be something in it for us. There's lots of war and poverty and terrorism in the world, but for some reason we are still fighting in a couple countries in the middle east. Exactly, it's out of character for us to be risking the lives of our troops as well as putting ourselves into debt because we want to help. There is more to this than meets the eye. Well, my boyfriend came home last night.. and I explained to him what my friend had said. The thing is, I live in Canada. My boyfriend has family in the military, but I had sidestepped talking about it because he is VERY opinionated. He was very insulted that I would think that our government was down there without purpose. OUR government is down there working with the Afghani government against the Taliban. Our government is fighting a war for peace. Our military is killing people in the name of Peace. I tried to argue with him, but he did justify it properly. It made sense, but yet, all that I could think was.. did he just tell me that WAR IS PEACE? I can't decide if reading the book nineteen eighty four enlightened me, or if it made me crazy.
Why? Al Qaeda/the Taliban has shown itself to be ideologically opposed to the United States on all kinds of levels, violently so. Their presence anywhere is a threat to the U.S. which increases as they gain power. It's not hard to imagine that as they seize power in foreign countries and start to assume government level control (as they already were doing in Peshawar) and using national level resources to attack. The bolded part of your quote is true enough, but the reason that the fighting is taking place in the middle east is the decidedly anti-United States tone of many terrorist groups there. Note that I'm not saying that this is the only reason that the U.S. military is there, or even the primary one. Just that there is nothing fundamentally odd about military action in Afghanistan or Pakistan, due to these reasons. Iraq was certainly not covered b this analysis. Why not both? 1984 enlightens people to see some very ugly truths about the world, government, and power, and the truth of it is enough to make anyone crazy.
Well, the current justification actually would fit with how we got into Afghanistan in the first place- to take out the Taliban. Only, we only got as far as swapping governments and we never spent the effort to actually eradicate the Taliban. Of course, nobody in power actually wanted to take the time and effort to properly put the country back together, because what they were really after was Iraq. Now, what's the real reason we're over there? Who knows? The biggest oil player in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia, who we have been very careful not to implicate in any of this, even though we've been only too happy to beat the crap out of Afghanistan, turn our attentions to Iraq for a while, and then make threatening gestures at Iran. I don't think if it were about oil we would be focusing on Iraq. Perhaps contractors? The Bush Administration was chock-full of people from government contractors like Halliburton. They probably know pretty well how fat a good government contract could be, and what better make-work is there than war? Maybe it's neo-imperialism. Think about it. Back in the olden days of outright imperialism, a favorite tactic of the invading Europeans would be the strategy of divide-and-conquer. Set all the local groups against one another and you can play them to your own advantage. All we've really done over there is give out a lot of money to contractors and tear the countries we've been in apart into tons of little warring factions. I don't know how much playing we've done with those factions but I imagine you could look at it as a long-term thing. Tear those countries into smaller groups with less individual power to leverage against the United States. First you need to do the tearing-apart. I remember reading somewhere that if Iran and Iraq had been left alone to forge stronger diplomatic ties their combined oil reserves would have given them way more leverage over the US than I think we like people to have. What better way to prevent that than turn one of them into a warzone? Or shit, maybe those neoconservatives really are crazy and they decided it would be like a revenge/divine conquest thing. The Modern Crusade, as it were... I think it was probably a mixture of both of those. Business interests and imperialists and fundies saw common ground to be had in encouraging fighting in the Middle East and collaborated to make it happen.
you keep saying "our" government. let me tell you, this isn't MY government. i don't consider myself to have any affiliation with this fraud called government. "we" are not over there killing people, the government is. your boyfriend shouldn't be insulted that you are attacking the actions of a group of thugs who happen to called themselves government because they steal money from you and use it to build bombs. it is very sad, but there is no reason to be over there. all that the government is doing is kicking a beehive. the only reason people all over the world hate us is because our government likes to drop bombs on them and their family members. being a former neocon, it took me awhile to accept this fact....but it's true.
It's a figure of speech more than anything to say "our" government. Even you did it, as pointed out above. And you have plenty of affiliation with the government. I'm sure that you enjoy the safety that comes from police officers and firemen, sometimes drive on roads and highways, possibly use public transportation. And you certainly live in a society which has benefited enormously from the innovations of individuals who owe their education to Uncle Sam. You can't withdraw from government while still living in the country and enjoying its civic services just by saying so. I think that it would be better to use your role as a citizen to try and instigate changes, rather than insist that you're not a citizen at all. As a matter of curiosity, would you be willing to tell me what prompted your change from neocon to your current political views? I don't see changes in political ideology too often, and I'm always interested to hear what prompted people to do so.
everything you mentioned could be done better by a private, free market, even the roads. i have no need for the government.
Man, the middle east hates our guts. IF we stop fighting them, they will take the first opportunity to come at us. Getting back at us for already being there. Where is Osama Bin Laden? I Dont Know? With Who? I Dont Know? Ponder.
Whether or not private entities and the free market could have done those things (which is certainly debatable), my point is that it's the government that did them. Not the free market. That means that you're using things that the government gave. And also, I'm shocked at your faith in private firms right now of all times. Private firms, with their greed and short-sightedness, were major architects of the massive global recession taking place right now. Not the only ones responsible, of course, but major players just the same.
Its not that complicated its just tribes taking revenge on other tribes. Americans got attacked by Muslims so Americans attacked Muslims. America is trying to prove that it is not worth it to mess with American citizens. Simple revenge, thats all it is. Oil from Iraq? Give me a break, as if the US and Britain dont already control that oil from before the war. These wars in the middle east are nothing more than tit for tat revenge.
The War on Terror is a whole lot of things, but one thing it is not is some noble fight put on by the military industrial complex to make the world a safer place for everybody. Rather, it is an attempt by neo-conservatives to expand their American empire to secure support via puppet states and oil, which our economy is extermely dependent on.