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By Mark D, September 3, 2011 3:42 pm

The Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 is coming up soon, and before everyone gets sick of hearing about it I thought I’d throw in my two cents. While 3,000 people died due to the attacks, we can look back with a different vision and see the true horrors of what happened. In the end, we might be just as bad as the terrorists who attacked the United States that day. Yes, 3,000 lives were lost that day, but not due to anything more then luck. Meanwhile the most expensive military in the world has been paying it back to countries that could never defend themselves.

The civilian body count in Iraq is anywhere from 200K to nearly a million. Is that a fair retaliation for the deaths of 3,000 people? Not at all. Don’t forget that Bush lied to us to get us to go to War with Iraq. He used all the power he could to influence people to lie for him. Now Bush gets to sit back at his crawford ranch he loves so much, sipping iced tea and relaxing. It should be noted that another 4,000 US soldiers have died in Iraq, while 30K have been injured. There should be thousands of people ready to storm the Crawford Ranch and string up Bush for what he did.

We had a chance too, to stop the Iraq War. One of the largest protests of all time took place before it. But a large amount of people couldn’t think independently of the non-stop patriotism being thrown at them from the TV and Newspapers.

Where were you? Did you not find it suspicious when Haliburton got the no bid contract to rebuild Iraq? Dick Cheney was formerly on their board and got a nice golden parachute when he left to become VP. The whole war was one of the hugest failures in American history. Sure there’s no more Saddam, but the US economy was ruined, we probably created a new generation of Terrorists and it made us no safer then we already were. Saddam didn’t want to attack the United States, and had no ties with Osama Bin Laden. Saddam just wanted to live in luxury and keep control over Iraq, attacking the US wouldn’t help that.

The war in Afghanistan was no better. The country is nearly identical to what it’s been for the last 20 years, except the UN controls the capital city of Kabul with Karzai running a government whose control barely extends beyond the city limits. You see, there’s been a lot of conflicts over the last 20 years in Afghanistan. These are warlords who have survived every conflict because they simply switch sides when things turn against them. One of the strongest warlords in Afghanistan is infamous for this and has switched sides during EVERY conflict.

For all the lipservice to women’s rights, sure women now can leave their houses and speak in public. But what isn’t mentioned is that most areas under control of Warlords are prety much lawless. Sure you can leave your house, but don’t cross the wrong warlord’s men or you’ll end up being raped. And of course since those men are the security forces, good luck getting any justice. But hey, in Kabul there’s some women on the council, so that makes everything better.

In the end how did we find Bin Laden? By illegally entering our “ally” in the war on terror Pakistan territory and finding his compound. So in reality there was never any reason to have a long drawn out war in Afghanistan, as Bin Laden obviously would have went running for the border as soon as the US got close. Which is exactly what ended up happening. So while we were running around in Aghanistan and Iraq largely did nothing, a quick precision strike in Pakistan killed the man who planned 9/11. Shocking.

It should be noted that the recent surge of Democratic revolutions in the Middle East have very little to do with “Spreading Democracy” in the Middle East. It was actually the release of the Wikileaks cables which showed to these people how their corrupt governments were taking advantage of them. Of course I could see why the US government would be working so hard to shut down Wikileaks, only they should be able to cause the fall of governments.

In the end, yes, remember those 3,000 who died. But take the time to reflect on the nearly million lives that have been lost since then in search of justice. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

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By Mark D, May 2, 2011 10:59 am

As I was flipping through the channels tonight while half out of it, I saw Fox News running a big banner that Osama was dead. Not believing it because it was Fox, I switched to MSNBC to see the same headline. I dragged my roomie out of bed so we could watch the President’s speech. This is actually the first time I have caught a President’s speech live since Bush gave Saddam 2 days to get out of Iraq. It’s some of the best news I have heard in a while.

First and foremost, I’m a New Yorker. It’s something that growing up in NY will always leave behind. I was actually a kid home sick when the first attack on the WTC took place in 93. While I was at work on 9/11, I can not explain to you the terror in my mind as news reports came in over the radio. Or the horror of watching what had happened when I got home (in Jersey at the time) was just without words. Although I haven’t been in touch with most of my friends from Staten Island, it slowly but surely came back to me who I knew had died.

The closest person I knew actually lived two houses away from me. They eventually named the block I lived on after him. He was one of the absolute nicest people in the world. He raised two really great kids too who were just as friendly as him. I actually had no idea he was still a fireman for that matter. He ended up charging into the first tower before it went down. I can’t think of any worse of an ending for someone who was an all around great guy and person.

So it’s incredible today that Osama Bin Laden is finally officially dead. It’s incredible to think that he managed to escape US forces for nearly a decade. For a while though Al-Qaeda had been relatively neutered. Their name was becoming more of a codeword for people fighting against US forces then any actual ties. Al-Qaeda in Iraq didn’t have much actual ties to Osama besides their leading announcing his loyalty to Osama. Amazingly something like this happened in Soviet Russia, people about to be shot by KGB death squads would announce their loyalty to Trotskydespite knowing almost nothing about him or what he stood for. It was just a last show of defiance.

The amazing thing in all this is hopefully we learned a lesson. We created Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda back in the early 80s. We decided that the Muhjardeen were the best fighters against the Soviets in the Afghan-Soviet War. Osama and his people were CIA trained and equipped. Following the victory over the Soviets we decided to just leave these war veterans to their own ends in Afghanistan and we paid for it.

The real victory though is that this cuts off a large amount of funds for whatever remains of Al-Qaeda. You also can’t underestimate the value a leader who had been through previous wars. Or that the riches of the Bin Laden family (the #2 richest family in Saudi Arabia) is going to extremely speed up the collapse of whatever remnants of Al-Qaeda still exist. The reality is that Al-Qaeda has mostly existed to help train Taliban fighters to continue fighting in the Afghan civil war which has limited their global reach recently. Don’t forget that the Al-Qaeda members who took part in 9/11 were largely from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

I have to give Obama credit. I thought he was wasting time taking troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan. I thought it was just sending American Troops somewhere else to die. Which once again makes you question how hard George W. Bush was trying to capture the great American Boogeyman?  Don’t forget that Bush’s 04 campaign was helped by a timely release of a Bin Laden tape right before the election. Up to that point Kerry had taken a lead and it was unheard of for a candidate to recover in such a short time. Let me leave you with this video and you can make your own decision about how hard Bush really wanted to bring in Bin Laden before he was able to start a pointless War in Iraq:

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By Mark D, January 31, 2011 11:27 pm

With all the news coming out of Egypt, one of the new ones is that the Islamic Brotherhood is behind the protests and will take over if Mubarak falls. People have to realize that this is a mass movement of the people, and that whenever you have such a movement there are going to be extremist sections of it. Not to sound like Bush, but if a liberal Democracy in Egypt can only be a good thing. Maybe we can also stop sending large amounts of money to Egypt to stabilize a conservative regime:

The US has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse since 1975.

That’s just a quote from a 2004 CSM article.

We have already seen this before, the US rallies against the extremist elements of a movement and it strengthens those elements. It might not make sense on the face of things, but it does in the end. Attacking mass movements because they tend to have elements the US disagrees with, only weakens those moderates looking to compromise. When the movement is broken by US intervention, the moderates lose face and the extremists put out that the US will never compromise and you are going to have to fight them.

This is pretty much what happened with the Islamic Court Unions in Somalia. The ICU actually cut down on the Somali pirates when they took over. They were the first centralized government in years to actually have support and to start getting things back together in a country that has been nothing but anarchy. The US, fearing that they were extremists, first sent a ton of money to the Warlords that had been defeated by the ICU. When that failed we sent Ethiopia support to invade Somali and break up the ICU. When the ICU was without any territory it broke up, it’s extremist section going on to fight a guerrilla war while the moderates joined the ineffectual transition government. In the end the moderates lost strength and the extremists proved their point.

There has always been an inability for America to learn from previous follies in foreign affairs. To prop up Mubarak anymore will only make matters worse and strengthen the worse parts of the movement. At this point strengthening him only assures a continuing polarization of society. It will only became a threat in the future. The current protests are the best thing the US could hope for, especially as the Police and Military are unwilling to take action. A peaceful conversion to a democratic government is the best way to insure the long term health of the government.

Just because these people are more liberal then Mubarak is, does not immediately make them a threat to the US. There comes a time when you should stop chasing the good money with the bad. We have paid into the Mubarak regime for long enough. Those billions might have been better spent elsewhere instead of keeping a corrupt dictator in power. For that matter, this whole superpower and supporting corrupt dictators is something that needs to be stopped. It shouldn’t be surprising that some of the worst regimes in the world are the first to complain about their “terrorists”. When the reality is that their “terrorists” are people fighting for a democratic government that doesn’t run roughshod over people’s rights.

It’s time to stop playing this game. No one else is playing “against US” and it’s a waste of money. Allow Mubarak to fall, allow all these corrupt governments to fall and the world would be a better place. Interfering in other nations is something that never ends up good. Don’t forget who gave money and weapons and training to Osama Bin Laden and his cronies to begin with. Our dealings in these nations have not only caused sadness for the US in the long run, but those nations have struggled too. Don’t forget our backing of Iraq and Saddam because we wanted them to fight and take down Iran. Another shortsighted move which came back to bite the US in the ass. Now is the time for the US to make the right move, convince Mubarak to step down or just stay out of it.