Sorry to have cut big chunks of this great article. The link at the bottom
will bring you to the source article.
"Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names" <PopUlist349@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:428f3d28-56be-45d7-8b6e-3ca9b840ef9e@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> American Grand Delusions
> Why the Testimony of General Petraeus Will Be Delusional
> By Tom Engelhardt
>
>
> As far as they are concerned, nowhere do their interests not come into
> play; nowhere, in fact, are they not paramount. As their President put
> it recently, "If [our] strategic interests are not in Iraq -- the
> convergence point for the twin threats of al Qaeda and Iran, the
> nation Osama bin Laden's deputy has called 'the place for the greatest
> battle,' the country at the heart of the most volatile region on Earth
> -- then where are they?" (And you could easily substitute the names of
> other countries for Iraq.)
>
>
> Others, who choose to fight them, automatically become aliens, intent
> as they are on destroying the stability of that planetary "home." So,
> for years, their military spokespeople referred to the Sunni
> insurgents they were battling in Iraq as "anti-Iraqi forces." It
> mattered little that almost all of them were, in fact, Iraqis; for the
> enemy is, by nature, so beyond the pale as to be a stranger to his or
> her own country or, just as likely, a cat's-paw of foreign forces and
> powers. Only when the very same "anti-Iraqi forces" suddenly decided
> to become allies were they suddenly granted the title, "concerned
> citizens," or even, more gloriously, "Sons of Iraq."
>
> When off duty, their luckier soldiers have the option of taking "rest
> and recreation" in "the homeland" at places like the Hale Koa ("House
> of the Warrior") Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii, or in the extended
> homeland at, say, the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in the Bavarian Alps
> or the Dragon Hill Lodge near thrilling downtown Seoul, South Korea --
> all part of their global system of Armed Forces Recreation Centers.
>
> This is their world -- and welcome to it.
>
> It's not exactly a mystery what country I'm talking about. You knew
> from the beginning. Since the Soviet Union vanished in 1991, only one
> nation has made itself at home everywhere on Earth; only one nation
> has felt that the planet's interests and its own interests were
> essentially one; only one nation's military garrisons and patrols our
> world from Greenland to the tropics, from the sea bed to the edge of
> space; only one nation's military talks about its vast array of bases
> as its "footprint" on the planet; only one nation judges its essential
> and exceptional goodness, in motivation if nothing else, as
> justification for any act it may take.
>
> Putting an Iraqi Face on Iraq
>
> Soon, U.S. surge commander General David Petraeus will return to
> Wa****ngton to re****t to Congress on our "progress" in Iraq -- and
> he'll do so with the worst crisis in that country in almost a year
> still unresolved. He'll do so, in fact, shrouded in yet another
> strategic disaster for the Bush administration. With that in mind,
> let's take a moment to look back at just how, militarily at least, the
> Bush administration first made itself at home in Iraq.
>
It is just crazy to have the military justify bad political decisions made
on lies which have led our troops into Iraq. The decision to invade and
to
loot Iraq was political, was bad, was criminal. There is no military
solution to it. If you let it up to professional military to decide we
will
ALWAYS find enemies in the world, we will always fight wars - otherwise
many
of those military jobs will be eliminated as unnecessary.
Not a single new drop of blood for this criminal invasion - be it American
or Iraqi blood.
Not a single new dollar to pay for continuation of our crimes in Iraq.
This
President has already diluted our currency enough by printing and throwing
into the world markets tons of less and less valuable US dollars daily to
pay for his little wars. This is the major reason for the current
financial
crisis - not the poor home owners unable to pay their mortgages! Enough
of
borrowing from the other nations in order to continue our crimes against
singled out ****tions of the world. The Republicans don't even want our
people to know that we still pay for their criminal wars even though the
government is not collecting enough taxes to pay for the wars. These wars
are being paid with hidden "delayed" taxes - that is what our worldwide
borrowing is. Our children's and great children's Administrations will
have
to put aside trillions of dollars to pay the interest and the principal on
the money the Bushes have been borrowing to wage their criminal wars.
Stop
this madness now - we cannot afford it anymore. The world cannot afford
it
anymore. Don't seek military opinion for the proof - just look at the
state
of the financial markets - that is the proof!
> Whatever General Petraeus says before Congress next week, however sane
> and pragmatic he sounds, however impressive looking his charts and
> graphs, it's worth keeping in mind that his testimony cannot help but
> be delusional, because it stems from delusional premises and it can
> lead only to further disaster for Americans and Iraqis.
>
> And yet, as long as we mistake ourselves for "the natives," as long as
> we are convinced that our interests are paramount everywhere, and feel
> that we must be part of the solution to every problem, our problems --
> and the world's -- will only multiply.
>
>
> http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174914/the_natives_of_planet_earth
>
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