-Caveat Lector-
A few points regarding this hideously misguided letter from what is clearly a spectacularly uncritical thinker:
On Jul 16, 2004, at 6:04 AM, Ed Raymond wrote (quoting an anonymous letter):
Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.
Actually, the case can be made that there are *twin* threats far greater to America's existence: increasing environmental devastation (i.e., we're physically destroying our country) and increasing economic disparity (i.e., we're turning into a postmodern feudalist society).
First, let's examine a few basics:
1. When did the threat to us start? Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us: Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983; Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988; First New York World Trade Center attack 1993; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996; Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998; Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000; New York World Trade Center 2001; Pentagon 2001. (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide). [3]
America has waged wars of aggression and enacted aggressive, arrogant foreign policy throughout its history; the threat (or, rather, growing animosity toward America) started long before 1979.
2. Why were we attacked? Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2.
This is a dangerously simplistic explanation, and simply a parroting of the dumbed-down sound-bite version offered up by the neocon administration. We were attacked (have been attacked, and will continue to be attacked) because of a number of overdetermined reasons, among which are our imperialistic foreign policy, fealty to Israel's inhumane agenda, our militaristic occupation of much of the globe, and our lack of respect for other nations and ways of life.
We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.
We can very easily fault both parties, as America's foreign policy has for at least the past century been embodied by many of the points marked above, and no president has been beyond reproach.
4. 5. 6. 7. [snip]
Simplistic, but no major arguments here.
So with that background, now to the two major questions: 1. Can we lose this war?
What "war"? Iraq (which had nothing to do with terrorism)? Yes, we will "lose" that "war," just as we lost Viet Nam. The so-called "War on Terror"? Given the nature of the conflict, there is by definition no way to win.
2. What does losing really mean?
It means continuing with the Bush administration's policies, which took their blueprint from the positions of Project for the New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute.
[snip] What losing really means is:
We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase.
And everything this current administration does seems to be calculated to bring about that end.
Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years. The plan is clearly to terrorist attack us until we are neutered and submissive to them.
We will of course have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they will see we are impotent and cannot help them.
Other nations are unwilling to help us because our actions are morally reprehensible, *not* for fear of reprisals. It is unconscionable to attack an unarmed sovereign nation without provocation, depose its leader, occupy its people (then torture them), and loot its resources. We had the world with us after 9/11; after invading Iraq, they've all turned their backs.
They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do, will be done. Spain is finished.
Spain came to its senses, and withdrew its troops because 98% of its citizens were against Bush's war on Iraq to begin with. Rather than being finished, Spain is reborn.
The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast. See the attached article on the French condition by Tom Segel. [6]
The racist xenophobia contained in this paragraph isn't even worth addressing.
If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims.
They're already vanishing as we know them, thanks to the domestic policies of the Bush administration, which cares little for working people and far too much for its corporate benefactors. Giving these people four more years would virtually destroy the America that most of us have come to know and love.
If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost.
Is it not reasonable to assume that re-thinking our foreign policy to reflect even a modicum of respect for the rest of the world might rob the Islamists of many of their central goals? Positivity and good will begets the same; war begets war.
We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.
Clearly, you have no idea what "winning" means.
Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.
So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort.
If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win.
And the unelected current criminal "leadership" of America is certainly the most divisive our Nation's ever had to suffer through.
Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.
- President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war. For the duration we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently. And don't worry that it is a slippery slope.
We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.
This is absolutely outrageous. Under NO circumstances should Americans be asked to "give up their civil liberties," nor should they willingly submit to such tyranny. "Don't worry"? We've heard a lot of that over the past few years from this administration, and in every instance we should, in fact, have been and continue to be *very* worried. Further, you seem to be giving the okay for our administration to act in a dirty, criminal, and dishonorable way. Despite the fact that they've governed in this matter since the beginning of their installation, it is NOT okay. I'll remind you of the words spoken by the great American Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.
Again, you clearly have no idea what "winning" means.
- Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police.
I would recommend reading once in a while rather than simply absorbing whatever's fed to you on Fox News; by every major account, the torture of Iraqi prisoners is extensive and widespread, institutionally instigated (i.e., it's far more than a "small group"), and rubber-stamped all the way up the chain of command. Anyone who's bothered in the slightest to follow current events knows this is the case.
These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein.
In fact, the vast majority of these prisoners were admittedly incorrectly incarcerated, and include not just men but women and, yes, *children*, as Sy Hersh has revealed just this week (of July 11).
And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq. And still more recently the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of an American prisoner they held.
A. It's long been shown that it was *Iran* that gassed the Kurds, using chemicals that *we* had sold them. B. As numerous sources have shown, the video of the beheading of Nick Berg was almost certainly hoaxed.
Compare this with some of our press and politicians who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real?
I would certainly hope so, as the actions of our soldiers (and mercenaries) in this case constitute nothing less than war crimes. I, for one, am deeply ashamed that the name of my beloved country is associated with this type of behavior.
The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can.
Frankly, the whole bunch deserves to be impeached for their lies and deceptions, which are quite clearly a misuse of our nation's military -- an impeachable offense.
To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned - totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world. Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife.
Hopefully, the Bush cartel *won't* survive this internal strife. As of this writing, the American people are beginning to wake up to the criminal wrongdoings of this ridiculously dangerous administration. While Kerry is far from perfect, his election will at least stanch the massive bleeding we're currently suffering.
[snip] Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power. They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?
Odd, you seem to be perfectly describing the actions of the extremist Bush administration, which clearly shows nothing but contempt for democracy and freedom. In Bush's own words: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." (December 18, 2000)
I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I believe that after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking about. Do whatever you can to preserve it.
And the very first order of business is the removal of the cancer known as the Bush Presidency. But we can't relax; we must continue to press Kerry to enact sensible foreign policy and work to reverse the damage that Bush has done to our beloved America.
It IS the future we are talking about.
-eh
PS to Ed Raymond: If you can, please forward this response to the author of the original letter.
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