Posted by wmdavis on 03/28/09

I supported the War in Iraq in the beginning. Then, I went through a phase of "I don't know, I don't care, let's not talk about it". Yet, today I have proclaimed myself to be anti-Iraq War. To many of my friends, this is shocking. But it got to a point where struggling to support the war with just reasons became too hard to even continue. Then, I was introduced to the genius of Ron Paul in his book The Revolution and the world made sense again.

The main reason I continued to support the War in Iraq was because of the troops. I love men in uniform (all my friends know that) and I support the women, too. I didn't believe that the "liberals" truly supported the troops because they were putting down the troops' "cause". I didn't want to be against the War in Iraq because I didn't want to be grouped with Hollywood and the anti-war fanatics. But let me put it this way, the troops are not in charge of the war, our government is. They can sign up and fight for this "cause". But ultimately, it is all the government's idea. So it is still possible to be anti-war and support the troops.

First, I must say that one of the biggest misconceptions of the war is that the Republicans support it and the Democrats don't. Ultimately, it all comes down to the individual, but you will see that both parties are a lot alike. For example, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry voted for the Iraq war. The Democrat Congress, who gained the majority in 2006, continued to fund the war. Nothing had changed from the Republican reign.

Secondly, I'd like to note that the idea of the "ousting of Saddam" originated in the 90's, before 9/11. The Republican Congress proposed the Iraq Liberation Act , in which we self-proclaimed our right to oust Saddam. This was signed into law by President Clinton.

As you can see, the pattern with this interventionalist foreign policy shows that party lines do not determine the foreign policy (Democrat President & Republican Congress - Republican President & Democrat Congress). We have continually intervened in other countries' affairs (Democrat or Republican) for the past century and we are just now seeing the repercussions.

Why did we invade Iraq?

The typical answer would be: It was a preemptive attack, under the allegations that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to our national security and was in possession of WMDs, which violated UN sanctions.

We have not found WMDs or even the reasons why Saddam was a "threat" to us initially. A "preemptive attack" is not a just reason for initiating war. We had not been attacked on our soil by Saddam's troops and there have not been any known connections between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. In fact, during the Persian Gulf War, Osama bin Laden had offered to lead an army to defend Saudi Arabia against Saddam if necessary. This claim that the ousting of Saddam was a "preemptive attack" was just an excuse to invade Iraq.

I do not know the real reasons behind the invasion (money, oil, power?) but justifying flat-out intervention is besides the point. I understand that Saddam was a cruel ruler who used biological warfare on his own people, while his sons experimented with different torture techniques. I could stretch as far as justifying the intervention to save the people from such atrocities. Yet, considering we have continually turned our heads away from several cases of genocide and far worse dictators than Saddam, I know with much certainty our intervention in Iraq was not for justice but for some other driving force (oil? who knows?).

Why are we still in Iraq?

Honestly, I don't know for sure. This is all government run. Maybe it's a form of imperialism. Maybe it's for oil or money. Maybe we're just never going to leave (like the other 130 countries in which we still have troops stationed). But what I do know is that maybe we are there to re-build Iraq and implement a democracy, to "finish our mission", but that is not the main reason. During a debate with Vice President Al Gore, President Bush said:

"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be'. ... I think one way for us to end up being viewed as 'the ugly American' is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way; so should you.' ... Somalia started off as a humanitarian mission and changed into a nation-building mission. And that's where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation building'. I think what we need to do is to convince the people who live in the lands [themselves] to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here - we're going to have kind of a 'nation-building corps' from America?"

Not only did President Bush go back on his previous words, but this tactic seems eerily similar to Obama's: smear the previous administration's actions to get into office. Honestly, I don't feel that Obama is any different.

Why were we attacked on 9/11?

The common answer, and biggest misconception, is that the Middle Eastern countries are "jealous of our freedom" and that they are insane, incomprehensible people who voluntarily blow themselves up in the hopes of living amongst 70 virgins in the afterlife and so they do not possess any justifiable reason for killing 3000 Americans.

This is not the reason at all. The media has distorted our perception of the Middle East to where many of us are baffled by their "extreme ways" and have verbally claimed to wish a giant earthquake upon them that would suck up the entire Middle East and solve all our problems.

Yet, we can solve our own problems ourselves since we have created them.

For every negative action we have imposed on another country for our own benefit, we have seen its repercussion. Our foreign policy of this decade has just been a continuation of the foreign policy of the 20th Century: unjust interventions. In 1953, the US and the British overthrew Iran's Prime Minister Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah. Years later after the Shah was overthrown, Iran took American citizens hostage for 444 days. We intervened and we paid for it.

Our intervention policy continued throughout the 90s and we became apathetic towards the people of the MidEast, believing that we were the "just" ones. Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, said on 60 Minutes that half a million dead Iraqi children as a result of the sanctions on that country during the 1990s were "worth it". In defense of the Middle Easterns, I would also be enraged at this statement and mindset. This mindset is what led to terrorist attacks on our own soil.

For many of us, our perception of terrorist attacks are that they are sporadic (suicide bombings), unprovoked, and driven by religious beliefs. However, suicide terrorist attacks have shown to have a correlation with the presence of foreign troops on a country's soil. Just some random facts from the book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert Pape:

* The world's leaders in suicide terrorism are actually the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist secular group

* The largest Islamic fundamentalist countries have not been responsible for any suicide terrorist attacks; not one has come from Iran or the Sudan

* The motivation for the suicide attacks is the desire to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland

* Between 1995 and 2004, two-thirds of all attacks came from countries where the United States had troops stationed

* While Al Qaeda terrorists are twice as likely to hail from a country with a strong Wahhabist (radical Islamic) presence, they are ten times as likely to come from a country in which US troops are stationed

* Until the US invasion in 2003, Iraq had never had a suicide terrorist attack in its entire history

* Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Once the US, France, and Israel withdrew their forces from Lebanon, there were no more attacks

We are seeing the consequences of our actions. Instead of solving our problems by fixing the source (US interventions), we are doing exactly what has caused the problems in the first place. More force will not keep us safe. We were not attacked because Islamic fundamentalists were jealous of our democracy. We had provoked those attacks and by staying in Iraq, we are provoking even more. This is not about being a "pansy liberal" or a "hardass conservative". This is not about backing down from our mission. This is about US safety. The more we intervene, the more threatened we will be.

All facts come from The Revolution by Ron Paul

Posted 03/28/09 Caleb Kinley Hot Springs, AR

Very nice article. Great job! Most people don't know that Saddam offered six unconditional Peace terms prior to our Shock and Awe campaign and was rejected. This rejection through the CIA channel prompted Syrian officials to look to other avenues to approach directly U.S. policymakers who apparently were not receiving information on such overtures. By then, the CIA-Syrian intelligence channel was broken. Iraq had offered six unconditional terms which were channeled through to Defense Department policymakers. The terms were: * Full support of America’s Arab-Israeli peace process. * Support for U.S. strategic interests in the region. * Priority to the United States for Iraqi oil. * Elections within two years under U.N. auspices. * Disarmament – direct U.S. involvement in disarming Iraq. * Full cooperation in the war on terror -- hand over Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was involved in the 1993 bombing of New York City’s World Trade Center. To this day, he still is at-large. The Iraqis also offered to allow the U.S. to bring some 5,000 troops into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction which some in the policy chain had determined were no longer in Iraq. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91349

Posted by wmdavis on 01/11/09

*Strictly my personal opinion*

The New World Order comparison with 1984 is interesting. I always have thought that the US having bases and influence in other countries was a good thing. The more power, the less threatened. But if we focus on foreign policy, we lose sight of domestic issues. We shouldnt worry about the world status of the nation but of the status of the people within the nation.

I have also loved the military (and still do) but have come to the realization that they too are apart of the government (my friends, my loved ones). By joining up, they have given up their freedom and rights to the government. It actually saddens me when i daydream of my revolution ( ^_^ ). Other protesters, activists, and I are rallying (*Brad crowd surfing*) and then there could be Austin (or Josh or Jeremy or Jorden or Michael or Chris or Bill ) spraying tear gas on me. They couldnt join in my fight but rather suppress it; destroy it; obliterate my voice and the voice of others.

The "illusion of war" HAS truly existed since after WWII. There has not been an officially declared war by Congress since WWII. Since then, we have been against Communism and Terrorism; two ultimately unbeatable opponents [ "Eurasia and Eastasia"] bcz of the mere fact that they are ideas [ in our heads - perception is reality ]. Ideas cannot be destroyed but they can be eventually ignored ["curing the insane"], only if fighting them no longer benefits us. Like with the changing of roles of Eastasia and Eurasia, the US has changed allies and enemies and many people have accepted it without questioning ["doublethink"]. Of course, we changed to fit our purpose. The Red Scare kept us patriotic or at least cautious of our actions [ "ThoughtPolice and Telescreens"]. Yet this illusion of war today has failed in accomplishing "doublethink" because the people still have freedom or at least some rights that give them the perception that they are free. In fact, we've been gaining more and more freedom as "war" has become more of an illusion than a solid declaration. During WWI and WWII, you could have been arrested for criticism of the war, the government, the Constitution, or the US flag. Now you have freedom of protest, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression. But all these can easily be changed. It's freedom of action that we are slowly losing. National IDs (to track us ["Telescreens"] ), wiretapping, gun control, etc.

To help this corruption come into play, there are more and more people ignorant of the issues because they don't care and so they will believe whatever sounds good ["proles"]. Or there are people who just criticize the current party in power. But we all are too blind to see that party affiliation does not matter. The government IS the "Party". They all want the same thing: power. It's hard to fathom that one wants power simply to have it. Yet it may be because they have moved up so far and have had a small taste of power, going back to being ruled over by ANYONE seems preposterous. (Being told what to do after having the power to tell others). That's how this nation even became the US. Salutary Neglect failed for the British because self-governed colonists did not like the stricter rules. The less you care, the less power you have.

If the government helps you, they have power over you. No matter what the government does, they will always have power over you. So being a politician may begin as something that was for the people, but it will turn corrupt because of power and influence.

If you want to change the nation, don't become a politician, especially a Congressmen. You would be one of many and a small voice. Then you would turn corrupt. (*Congressmen should have limited terms to avoid corruption*). In order to help the nation, you must stay out of the government. To keep a government from becoming too powerful, there must be critics of it. Becoming apart of it will not change it. While the government will never cease to exist (because there is no real Utopia), the masses must support their government but only with knowledge. They shouldnt blindly accept everything. Just because you support a candidate or a party, doesnt mean that you cannot criticize them if you disagree. Intelligent criticism (opposition of the government) is what gives the people their freedom. If the masses were to all "criticize" the government, it defeats the purpose. Then the intelligent ones of the masses will rule over the ignorant. There must be those who agree and those who oppose. Criticism derived from the individual mind will keep freedom alive.