Iraq's Bridges Burning Down

Americans have become detached from the realities of war. Instead of listening to the news or reading the paper, many people have given in to listening to our politicians give their opinions on how the war is going. John McCain has said that there are streets in Baghdad that are safe to walk on. Meanwhile, the citizens of Baghdad have been begging him to tell them where this safe street is because no one seems to be living on it. Our politicians have their own agendas and make the war to be something that it is not. It is a smoke and mirrors trick in a whole show of illusions to influence voters that this party or that has the right stuff to become our next White House administration. The republicans want to convince people that they are succeeding and that Iraq is becoming freer, safer and an all around better place to be since the fall of Saddam. The democrats are making this out to be the war that puts them into the White House. But no one is actually considering that this is a civil war in which people are dying each day because we continue to bicker here in America all the while neglecting those affected most by this war: the Iraqis. This war has shifted its concern from them and onto the soldiers fighting it in an increasing effort to show which American political party cares most about our troops. The prize for the winner--a comfortable seat in the White House.

But we still can't get a bill passed into law. The president has continued to flank himself with family members of war veterans as his new sheep's clothing and has made repeated statements that he wishes to discuss the differences between republicans and democrats but at the same time is unflinchingly stubborn in his stance on the bill. And the democrats continue to stand their ground, barely, demanding that the troops come home. The only difference between these two stubbornly defiant stances is that Congress is representing the majority of Americans (democracy) while the president is representing his own image invested heavily in this war (tyranny). But if diplomacy can't even work here in America how the hell is it going to work in Iraq which has come to depend on us for its very survival?

And as this stalemate rages on in Washington, vice president and part-time grim reaper Dick Cheney said in a recent interview about the democrats, "They will not leave the troops in the field without the resources they need." He said this after making a prediction that soon the democrats in Congress will give in and accept the president's terms. Bull S*&t! This is more word spinning on the vice president's part. By cutting off the funding for the war, the troops will not be left in Iraq with stones and sticks to defend themselves. If the funding is stopped, then the war itself ends and the troops come back home. And if anyone should be blamed for this delay in funding it is President Bush for remaining stubborn on this issue and not even considering other options in his failed war.

It is not Congress's job to get involved in war but when the war is begun and fought with no exit strategy in sight, someone needs to pull our soldiers from the wreckage this war has become. And so far, the only people willing to put an end to this bloodshed are the democrats in Congress. Bush burned his bridges early in the war so that there was no turning back without victory. But now that the victory he imagined turns out to be exactly that--imagined--we need to start constructing a way out.

A Ranting In Response

Today's post is simply a let-out of some built up pressure created when I read an editorial published in Monday's Florida Today titled, "Standing with Bush in funding battle". Our author makes the first point that the democrats' strategy in Congress is "gutless". He cites that they won't vote on a bill to cease funding of the war in Iraq but instead want to ride this out until the veto, leaving Bush to "hang in the wind". This is crap to begin with. This government is far too bureaucratic for two bills on the same issue to be floating around at the same time.
Also, our author makes the point that, "If he [Bush] uses money to fight the war that is not approved, they impeach him." As noble as this person is making Bush appear to be, I question where our president is going to cough up over $100 billion to fund this war. Face the facts, whether he likes it or not, our president needs Congress to fund the war.
Another point our budding White House aid came up with was that a time table for troop withdrawal is a war-tactic and because it is not within Congress's power to "fight a war" the Supreme Court would rule in the president's favor that such a bill is unconstitutional. A time table is not a war tactic! It is within Congress's power to decide how the government will spend its money and if they say they want to stop the funding at this point, then obviously the troops would need to come home. Leaving the funding of the war in the president's hands is like handing someone else's credit card to your spoiled teenage girl who wants to go on a shopping spree. After all, it is the money of the American people.
And the way our author summed up his editorial was, "The Democrats will not budge, and I hope Bush stands firm." Well, I hope this person is a big fan of making no progress then. Congress has repeatedly asked the president to negotiate with them on this bill (after all, they're not terrorists). Bush has stood firm this whole time and if you can't see that it has led to nothing, then you are blind. This president is stunned and left confused after seeing for the first time that in a democracy, facing overwhelming change with a totalitarian resolve is met with utter defiance. He can't rule America with an iron fist forever, thank God.
Within Iraq, we can see a perfect example of what happens when the leader of a government acts out of sync with the pulse of the rest of the country. Six members of Iraq's Cabinet loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr will give in their resignations later today in response to the Prime Minister's lack of care toward the Iraqi people. They feel that because the majority of Iraqis wish to see U.S. troops leave their country and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports the motion of keeping the troops in Iraq, the only thing left to do is step away from such a government. It is a shame that power-related loyalties are coming between diplomacy but that is the reality of what is happening in Iraq now. The people are ignored and left to be blown up in the markets of Baghdad while those made powerful by the U.S. occupation neglect diplomacy.
For our budding writer to the Florida Today: when you go back to the fuhrer bunker, say hello to Ann Coulter for me.

Masonry Of The Mind

From Hadrian’s Wall in England to the Great Wall of China, human beings have had a history of building walls. But what is it about a wall that is so comforting to the human psyche that people around the world obsessed over them. In some cases it was to separate civilizations from nature or civilizations from other civilizations. But walls are more than just a tangible form of separation; they are the embodiment of a subconscious concept that has thrust mankind from the pits of primordial ooze to the present.
Within our very own minds we build and bear the weight of walls every single day. One of the most “monu-mental” walls built by the subconscious is that of faith. The experiences that we encounter from early childhood to now dictate the path we all follow in terms of faith. And walls are constructed to keep one’s beliefs in and others’ beliefs out. For some, these walls have many gaps or doors built within them. These doors represent a person’s ability to be open-minded about something. Then you have those who have no doors—only brick and mortar built higher and thicker. These people you hear about in the news after they’ve blown themselves up on a crowded bus in Iraq. For these people, faith is an unflinching principle in their lives that is to be taken to the grave. There is no room for interpretation and no welcome guests allowed in who wish to change these strict beliefs. And when someone has built a wall of this nature without doors something unique happens: the wall encloses the rest of the mind, coming full circle, and in essence traps that person within their own inability to escape. This is why suicide bombers resort to killing themselves and others. This is why people flagellate themselves in the streets. This is what drives crusades, jihads and witch hunts.
When it comes to a person’s faith, by very definition of the word regarding a lack of evidence, doors should be constructed if for no other reason than to act as an air hole in a coal mine. Without some form of a release for the free exchange of ideas which is healthy for the mind, the pressure of one’s own incapacity to understand something as vague, personal and unknown as faith and yet totally commit to something so intangible, a collapse of the mind is the only certainty.
Another wall that the mind constructs is one of racial separation. One of the issues in Iraq can be connected to the majority of Iraqis and the Kurdish population to the north. Even the Iranians who consider themselves Persian have a racial agenda in the Middle East in conflict with Arabs. And yet, only .01% of the genetic code represents salient traits. Race itself is a wall constructed to unite a certain group of people with similar physical features and exclude all others who do not match. These walls, too, have serious consequences much like that of religion. If the wall one builds becomes too massive then race will be the only thing that person sees and will consume their thoughts.
This unhealthy obsession with racial differences has led to ethnic cleansing and genocide on astounding levels from the Holocaust to the Sudan. Most people have doors within these walls that allow them to see other human beings as more than just a color or physical trait. But there are many who still believe that those differences mean something more than an evolutionary history of that person’s geographic origins. It is when their actions become violent in the form of hate crimes that their walls have enclosed upon itself leaving nowhere for the emotional pressure within to vent. This lack of ideas being exchanged between what the person believes and what others believe is what makes that person incapable of living in an ethnically diverse society.
There are many walls we build. They are prejudices that are inescapable because all around us we encounter experiences that change our ways of thinking on a daily basis. It is how we survive in that we are able to mentally adapt to new situations. And so these walls do have a constructive purpose. But it is when these prejudices are built brick by brick to the point where they are no longer able to adapt that the wall becomes fixed and will only devour itself in the end. There is no way to fully deconstruct a wall; it will always remain within the subconscious to serve as a helpful variable in the decision-making processes of our lives. But we can always build more doors.

What Comes Of War

www.villainouscompany.com/.../2005/05/index.html

Fighting The War On War

So far today, four bombs were detonated in Baghdad amidst what many White House republicans would call a successful security crackdown. The number of dead is now at 37 and the injuries including severe burns are much higher. Many women and children are suspected to be victims in these attacks while further violence in Iraq targets their own people in this bloody civil war. Meanwhile, diplomacy towards peace goes mostly ignored.

One of the witnesses of a car bombing, an owner of a glass shop, said that a man merely parked his minibus and walked away. It was nothing out of the ordinary until, "Five minutes later, the bus blew up — damaging the surrounded area and burning more than eight civilian cars that were passing by."

First of all, I am aware of the pure irony in a man owning a glass shop in Baghdad. Second of all, it seems as though the vast majority of these attacks are not targeted against U.S. troops but against the people in an effort to both terrorize Iraqis into believing that they cannot be protected by the U.S. and their own U.S.-installed government and also to push the American people into seeing that our military strategies are simply failing.

Is one tyranny worth trading for another? What the Iraqi people are faced with is a complete political and sociological reversal. It is: oppression by fear of one's government and inactivity of the people vs oppression by the fear of the people and inactivity of one's government.

The Motive V.S. The Crime

Today in Baghdad, 56 people were killed in a deadly suicide bombing at a busy bus stop. A 72-year-old woman ran through the hospital searching for her 6-year-old grandson and daughter. "They were near the bomb. They went to buy something for our lunch. What did they do to deserve this? To whom should I complain? There is no government to protect us," she said, sobbing.
Also happening in Iraq, mainly around Baghdad, was a car bomb that killed 10 people on the Jadriyah bridge. Gunmen attacked the home of Adnan al-Dulaimi who is the head of the largest Sunni bloc of parliament. In the attack five guards were injured and al-Dulaimi was not at home. Three bodyguards of Mohammed Abdul Jabar, the deputy minister of industry, were injured in a drive-by shooting. Three civilians and one policeman were killed in another drive-by shooting. Two policemen and one civilian were killed by a roadside bomb. Another roadside bomb killed one civilian. And a bomb missed by Iraqi security patrols injured three electricity workers.
This exhaustive list of atrocities finally poured over the edge with Iraqis and so a mob rioted around the Karbala governor's office demanding resignations for the poor security they have been offering their people. Police cars were burned and buildings were damaged by rocks being thrown at them.
The situation in Iraq has reached a dire point in need of serious help. This is the product of war. The only thing that comes from war is death and destruction by its own definition. Is this what the U.S. had in mind for a better Iraq? Is this what the terrorists and insurgents want for their own people? They have been killing more innocent Iraqis than the occupying troops have been killing insurgents. The future of Iraq is looking bleak and everyday people are suffering more than the last. As the grandmother in the above quote was saying; there is no government protecting the people. But it is more difficult than that because it is the people who are hurting each other. Only when these issues that are making people hurt each other are confronted diplomatically will the violence end.
For every bomb that goes off and every life that is lost, there is a voice crying for something they feel is worth killing for or even dying for. And it is far too easy to brush it off as pure evil as President Bush has done. The killing and violence is happening for a reason and until people start asking why and begin trying to solve these problems no end will be in sight for those endless droves of men, women and children searching for their families in crowded hospitals. No one should have to live with the sort of terror, anguish and sorrow that the Iraqi people have been living with since being "liberated".

The Sinking Ship Of Martyrs

In response to the suicide bombing that took place in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament building yesterday, many Iraqi lawmakers spoke out against the atrocities. Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said in a speech, "The more they act, the more solid we become. When they take from us one martyr, we offer more martyrs."
To further emphasize this sense of unity between all Iraqis, Iraqi parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said, "We feel today that we are stronger than yesterday. The parliament, government and the people are all the same--they are all in the same ship which, if it sinks, will make everyone sink."
This unity is something that every country needs before it can fully succeed and it is called nationalism. Only when people stop thinking of themselves as Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and begin thinking of themselves as Iraqis will that brotherhood seep into the patriotic psyche and band the nation together.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State issued on its website commonly used by insurgents, "A knight from the state of Islam...reached the heart of the Green Zone...the temporary headquarters of the mice of the infidel parliament and blew himself up among a gathering of the infidel masters."
If Iraq is a sinking ship and the Iraqi politicians are mice, then it would be wise for the Iraqi people to do what all maritime victims do when their ships are sinking: follow the mice to higher ground. The people of Iraq have two options. They can stay aboard the sinking ship and accept the chaos that has gripped their nation or they can follow diplomacy to the higher ground and avoid the violence and bloodshed. If the Iraqis wish to survive, it is better to follow the mice to peace than to sink with the martyrs of war.