bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2006-06-08 08:25 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2006-06-08 08:25 pm
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Musings on the latest news from Iraq
In case you didn't know, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the self-proclaimed head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is dead.
CNN did an interview with Michael Berg, whose son was beheaded, fairly certainly by al-Zarqawi, in an event captured on videotape and broadcast on the al-Jazeera television network. In the interview Mr. Berg focused on the futility of revenge and the evils of war as prosecuted by George II.
On the way home from work I was treated to an extended and highly informative little lecture from Randi Rhodes in which she presented evidence that the bogeyman that was al-Zarqawi was entirely a creation of the Bush administration, who kept him alive in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq since 2002 and used him as evidence that al-Qaeda was present in Iraq, as justification for the war he was intent on pursuing (possibly ever since the end of the 1991 Gulf War). In fact, he was giving al-Qaeda a bad name by beheading too many Muslims, and had been rebuked by the organization in stinging e-mail memos obtained by news outlets.
And yet the White House is downplaying the death of their self-created bogeyman, reminding everyone that we can't declare victory at this point and go home. Randi Rhodes seems to think it's because the current administration has no intention of ever leaving Iraq. I tend to agree.
On a side note, it occurred to me that al-Zarqawi is a perfect name for a cartoon character intended to inflict pain on people in general, whatever the political reason. Just imagine a comic strip in which one character is smiting another with a less-than-lethal bolt of lightning. What would the printed "sound effects" read? You guessed it:
The sound of the bolt itself = ZARK!
The reaction of the smitee = "Owie!"
OK, that's a bit of a stretch.
So I'm thinking that Vietnam was so roundly reviled by the people of the USA precisely because the people no longer believed that the cause for which we fought was worthwhile, nor that we would ever find a way out of the mess so long as one could not tell combatants from noncombatants. The same exact thing is happening in Iraq.
It seems our government and military have learned nothing about how you deal with such a situation without making some major and tragic mistakes. I suspect that is because it's not possible to do so. In that event, as was said by Joshua (the voice of WOPR) in WarGames, "The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
CNN did an interview with Michael Berg, whose son was beheaded, fairly certainly by al-Zarqawi, in an event captured on videotape and broadcast on the al-Jazeera television network. In the interview Mr. Berg focused on the futility of revenge and the evils of war as prosecuted by George II.
On the way home from work I was treated to an extended and highly informative little lecture from Randi Rhodes in which she presented evidence that the bogeyman that was al-Zarqawi was entirely a creation of the Bush administration, who kept him alive in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq since 2002 and used him as evidence that al-Qaeda was present in Iraq, as justification for the war he was intent on pursuing (possibly ever since the end of the 1991 Gulf War). In fact, he was giving al-Qaeda a bad name by beheading too many Muslims, and had been rebuked by the organization in stinging e-mail memos obtained by news outlets.
And yet the White House is downplaying the death of their self-created bogeyman, reminding everyone that we can't declare victory at this point and go home. Randi Rhodes seems to think it's because the current administration has no intention of ever leaving Iraq. I tend to agree.
On a side note, it occurred to me that al-Zarqawi is a perfect name for a cartoon character intended to inflict pain on people in general, whatever the political reason. Just imagine a comic strip in which one character is smiting another with a less-than-lethal bolt of lightning. What would the printed "sound effects" read? You guessed it:
The sound of the bolt itself = ZARK!
The reaction of the smitee = "Owie!"
OK, that's a bit of a stretch.
So I'm thinking that Vietnam was so roundly reviled by the people of the USA precisely because the people no longer believed that the cause for which we fought was worthwhile, nor that we would ever find a way out of the mess so long as one could not tell combatants from noncombatants. The same exact thing is happening in Iraq.
It seems our government and military have learned nothing about how you deal with such a situation without making some major and tragic mistakes. I suspect that is because it's not possible to do so. In that event, as was said by Joshua (the voice of WOPR) in WarGames, "The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"