How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? (#5)
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 15 years ago, in 2009, on the World Wide Web.
Guided by these principles once more we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we’ll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.
We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken — you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
— President Barack Hussein Obama (29 January 2009): Inaugural Address
The problem with that is that every day that United States government soldiers spend on beginning
to leave, instead of actually leaving — every day that is spent on that responsibly
instead of that leaving
— every day that is spent in the forging
of peace in Afghanistan, rather than in the practicing of it, by withdrawing all United States government soldiers immediately and completely — is another day when Iraqis and Afghans and Pakistanis and Americans will all be killed by this Peace President’s war and his policies of gradualism. Another day when yet more people will be killed in the name of prolonging the final end of a Bush Administration war policy now universally acknowledged as a catastrophic failure and a stupid mistake.
On Friday, April 10, two months and 12 days after President Barack Obama promised American soldiers would begin to responsibly leave Iraq,
a suicide bomber drove a truck bomb into an Iraqi government police compound
in Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. Besides the bomber himself, the bombing also killed two Iraqi government police, one soldier in the Iraqi government’s army, and five soldiers in the United States government’s army. About 65 others — including dozens of civilians living in the nearby neighborhood — were wounded by flying shrapnel.
Every death and every wound is blood on Barack Obama’s hands. Every one of these people who were maimed or killed, were maimed or killed because of Barack Obama’s standing orders and for the sake of his war policy. Because Obama wants to wash his hands of the United States government’s war on Iraq, every day that he delays getting out, completely — delays getting out in the name of exit strategies
and central fronts
and responsibility
— which is to say, delays ending this war because he is still convinced that, with the right sort of gradualist policy, he can somehow try to win a war that should never have been fought — is another person who is maimed or killed so that Barack Obama, after being elected as a peace candidate, can adopt and prolong the colossal, catastrophic mistakes of a disastrous failure of a predecessor, so that he won’t come off as being soft on national defense.
Mr. Obama, how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Iraq?
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
See also:
- GT 2009-01-25: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
- Dulce et Decorum Est 2009-01-27: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? (#2)
- Dulce et Decorum Est 2009-01-29: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? (#3)
- Dulce et Decorum Est 2009-02-01: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? (#4)
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Holbrooke is reaching out to the one of the most VILE person in Afghani politics. He was the ISI’s-CIA’s man in the war against the Soviets.
“His followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him “scary,” “vicious,” “a fascist,” “definite dictatorship material”.{1}”
http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/afghan.htm
Read the news story about it here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KD10Ak04.html
RAWA will have harsh words for this: http://www.rawa.org/index.php
“The Afghan ambassador to the United States has told Al Jazeera that civilian casualties during US military operations are “a price that we have to pay” if the Taliban and al-Qaeda are to be defeated.”
The organic fuzzy “we”? Are Americans really paying the price here?
We’re buying security for our “little brown brothers” with civilian dead!
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009410225414127835.html
It reminds me of this quote:
“If anyone has seen pictures of Ramadi or Fallujah, they looked like Stalingrad. Not a single building standing. Streets filled with rubble. Cities absolutely crushed… The interesting thing is that when we were fighting those battles and doing that damage, on the whole the Iraqis were not bitching about collateral damage…
For good or ill, Iraqis expect to fight in their cities. That’s where the insurgents dug in, Saddam Hussein planned to dig in to the cities or lure us into an urban fight. It’s sort of understood that the battlefield is going to be there…the Iraqis don’t on the whole say “darn it, you shouldn’t have blown up all of our houses.” They sort of accept that.”
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002864.html
Islamist militants have forced the Pakistani government to grant them legalized control over parts of Pakistan.
“After the Pakistani National Assembly expressed its unanimous approval, President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law the Nizam-e Adl Regulation, which will place the Swat Valley and the entire Malakand district of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) under Islamic law. Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani says the entire nation stands behind the law.
The Tehreek Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi (TNSM) and the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), two of the key militant factions in the area lauded the move, which will leave a significant portion of the NWFP under a completely different standard of law than the rest of the nation.
The national imprimatur for the move was the only obstacle left after an agreement this weekend by the militant groups and the provincial government. The peace deal had been in jeopardy since early this month when a video was leaked showing members of one of the militant factions flogging a 17-year-old girl accused of adultery.
The video shocked the nation and created serious public opposition to a deal which was sign by many as greatly enhancing the power of such groups and legalizing such floggings. Yet ultimately the national government chose not to oppose the deal to end fighting in the Swat Valley, which they had been increasingly losing control over.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/04/13/pakistani-president-signs-swat-valley-islamic-law-resolution/
I don’t disagree with anything you have said Charles.
One nit pick:
“President Barack Hussein Obama “
Really? Come on, when you through the “Hussein” in there, you sound like a mouth-breathing conservative no mind. This the Gelnn BEck, Michelle Malkin the-president-is-a-secret-muslim shtick that Pam Geller pimps.
Stuff like that just takes away from the credibility. Unless you intend to refer to other presidents in a similar fashion, like George Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton or Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Just sayin’
Mike,
These things are a matter of context. If I’ve given you some reason to believe that I actually believe, contrary to evidence, that Barack Obama is a Muslim — or that I would give a damn even if he were a Muslim (really, who cares?) — then I apologize for that. I used the dude’s full name and his assumed title because I often do that with people in positions of power (from police officers up to princes and potentates and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt), with ironical intent. (Sometimes I go for middle initials rather than full middle names; sometimes not. But in Barack H. Obama’s case, there’s a problem of cadence, which doesn’t come up for, say, President George W. Bush. Same reason I’d write President William Jefferson Clinton and not President William J. Clinton, if times were other than what they are. It sounds ugly when read, which undermines the intent behind the word choice.)
For what it’s worth, my own view is that, in addressing a man as there is a real dig involved. But the dig is in the first word, not the third.
Hope this helps.
-C