Disconnected

Guest Blogger: JD from LV:

I read James Lileks column today on his weblog.

I realized he probable represents a majority of Middle American’s view on the war on terror and the coming election. He closed his column with "your either with us or with the terrorist. Imagine a bomb just went off in your local mall, now make a choice."

With that he reduces a complex international problem to a first grade playground issue. He totally ignores the complexity of the issue and makes it seem as if any action we take is justified and the war we are fighting in Iraq today will insure our safety today and tomorrow.

I just don't see it happening. Call me a liberal, call me misguided, and call me wrong if you must but answer a few questions for me first.

If the terrorist were Saudi Arabian and they were, and if their funding came from Saudi Arabia and it did, then why are we so close with the Saudi regime?

If Osama Bin Laden is a member of the Saudi extended royal family and he used his personal fortune to fund years of terror against the United States why haven't we put more pressure on the Saudi regime to deal with this matter?

Osama Bin Laden stated his profound dislike and desire to see Saddam Hussein removed from power, have we helped him achieve one of his aims?

There is no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist despite repeated and extensive efforts to prove one. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today, there were none yesterday and none 2 years ago. Where was the imminent threat to America?

We manufactured a war that alienated the world and are oldest and staunchest allies with only a few exceptions. We negated the effectiveness of the UN and international coalitions are not likely with us as a partner anytime soon. How did this make America securer?

We have given al-Quida a great recruiting event with our war, how did that make us safer?

We have followed the Russian model in Afghanistan and now have our troops and puppet government in control (mostly) of the capital but the warlords grow stronger daily in the rest of the country and the Taliban and al Quida grow stronger with each passing day. How did this becoming a victory for our side?

Pakistan is harboring a nuclear physicist who is teaching rogue states the art of nuclear bomb making yet we support this regime that is as vile and deadly as Saddam's regime ever was, how is this insuring our safety?

We were working on a terrorist task force at the end of the last administration that exclusively focused on Osama Bin Laden but this was dismantled as soon as Bush took office. This followed with the worst terrorist attack in American history but our current president is running on a record of "making America safer"?

We had with our UN allies successfully dismantled Saddam's weapons program and dismantled most of his military. We had reduced his ability to wage war in the region to almost nothing yet some still saw this country as an imminent threat. We threw all that we had built with our allies away - for what? Was it so Halliburton could get a multimillion-dollar contract and make the taxpayers of this country pay through the nose for something that has made us less safe than we were on 9/12?

Our shining democratic regime in the desert has thousands of its citizens in prison, its infrastructure is destroyed and being rebuilt with our tax dollars.

An American soldier a day or more is dying - let alone the wounded and maimed.

Our government contractors are raping our pocketbooks, our former allies and the people of the world don't trust us, and the real enemy runs free in a country we support.

Al Quida recruitment is up and all the good will the world had for us on 9/12 has been pissed away so that we could empire build in the Middle East.

Are you safer today than you were in 2000? How’s the job market? Think your IRA will do well this year? Is your company CEO flying to India a lot, or Mexico, or China? How is your company’s headquarters doing in the Bahamas? Sure hope your HMO will support that expensive treatment you need. Is this the America you want to live in?

I'm against the terrorist but I'm sure as hell not supporting the "solutions" we are using to eliminate the problem. I guess I just see the world and the problems in it as more complex than that other guy from Texas. I guess I want a community of nations to deal with the problems of the world. Sure it’s messy and slow and doesn't always work perfectly but it’s better than Bush’s “us against the world” because if the bet is on us against the world, the world outnumbers us 20 - 1 and has a hell of a lot better odds.

el - I will get JD and AMY a password and set up soon, about the time that new template gets up.