A quick note on terrorism, and other concerns:
A great deal of you posting on this site concerning the death or capture of Osama Bin Laden make it sound as if this event would herald victory in the war on terrorism. This is incorrect, and misrepresentative of the conflict we are now engaged in throughout the world. Al Qaeda means “the base” in Arabic, and this name is revealing; Al Qaeda is a massive network of like-minded individuals with no definite system of authority and no clear hierarchy. That’s what I mean when I call Al Qaeda a network. For this reason killing Osama doesn’t mean victory unless it’s an ephemeral, feel-good ideological victory. Osama is, at this point, a symbol. He probably has very little strategic or tactical guidance in ongoing operations against Western (i.e. European and US targets) targets. His role today is mostly inspirational.
Killing him won’t mean victory. In fact, our generals have said there isn’t likely to be victory as you sheep still seem to conceptualize it, with flag-waving parades and big, gaudy MISSION ACCOMPLISHED signs. Victory probably will mean a delicate peace. Violent global Islam doesn’t need one leader. Its leader is a set of shared goals and ideals, not any one man. And this may come as a shock to you, but terrorism existed long before 9/11 in differing forms. We’re not the first to face it; we won’t be the last to face it.
What about Iraq?
McCain talks about Obama wanting to ‘abandon’ Iraq. Consider this:
Right now Iraqis are considering rejecting a plan to let US stay in Iraq past 2009. Do you uneducated right-wing know-nothings understand what this means?
If our presence is rejected by the Iraqis themselves, based on the system of governance we helped them to create, then we have to honor their decision and leave the country we helped them build. Otherwise, we haven’t helped them build anything but a giant American base in the Godforsaken, sand-blasted desert. And isn’t that exactly what we’ve been telling the whole world we aren’t doing? So what does it matter how committed we are to staying if the Iraqis ask us to leave?
The sooner we get out the sooner we can intensify our efforts in Afghanistan and seek a mediated peace there, too. Do you know this war has been going on longer than World War II?
You’re worried that Obama didn’t serve in the military?
Please explain how this can concern you when, in 2004, you elected a man who was saved from having to go to Vietnam by joining a posh flying unit that never deployed in favor of a man that had actually been sent there. I challenge ANY of you clowns to explain this contradiction.
History books will write that George W Bush lit a match that sparked the fuel of a global fire. Had there been no 9/11 he would just have been a steward president, a quaint anachronism to another time in a different, more peaceful, time-for-baseball America.
But we all know 9/11 did happen. And that was only the start of our trouble.
McCain should have been the president in 2000. That was his time. Now, like it or not, the country will swing left again. In the future it will swing back to the right, like it always has. National political leanings are a great see-saw. Which is one of the reasons our founding fathers argued against faction (i.e., party politics)… but that’s another story.
It is also FANTASTICLY ironic that a right-winger would quote George Orwell. He would have appreciated the irony in that, I think. I suspect the poster of that comment has never read 1984, or much else for that matter. But, I suspect that not many of you have.
Yeesh, now I’m all worked up. I wash my hands of this circus forum of God-squad hate preachers, quasi-fascist American patriots, disgruntled Vietnam vets that still can’t accept (understandably) the way their country abandoned them and their war and think it’s happening again (it’s not), and wanna-be authorities on Marxism.
One last note, on Karl Marx
I guarantee that 99% of you that are worried about Obama being a Marxist can’t explain the central tenets of Marxism. This is evident by the fact that you confuse it, in your ignorance, with socialism. SPOILER ALERT: It’s got more to it than some nebulous concept of “redistribution of wealth.” And since many of you louts are probably in the lower-middle class and below anyway, you could probably stand to have a little redistribution, eh?
Before you fly off the hinge, ask yourself if you can explain either Marxism or Socialism, or (laugh) give a comparative analysis of the two. Can you? Can you really? And if the answer is yes, congratulations, you are perhaps not a sheep. I give you too little credit. If the answer is no, which I suspect it will be, then realize that in railing against Obama for being something you don’t understand but just have a vague understanding of as ‘bad’, you are a victim of political conditioning, and this pseudo-reasoning makes you feel the anger your puppet masters want you to feel. This, for example, is when you should be quoting Orwell, maybe something along the lines of “Ignorance is Strength!”
By the way, to all MY RATIONAL RIGHT, LEFT, AND INDEPENDENT BROTHERS AND SISTERS, expect some blockhead to post the differences between Marxism and Socialism on this site that is pulled straight off of Wikipedia in the near future- it’ll happen! Watch out!
People were so angry when Obama said that you unfortunate denizens of the fly-over states ‘cling to guns and religion’ because you know, in your hearts that he was right. It’s all you’ve got, though I admit it is rather powerful. It elected Bush (twice!), but then it’s always nice to think someone cares about you and your quaint way of life.
Before I sign off, I’ve got another little quote for you, though I’m SURE no right-winger would ever dare use this one:
The times, they are a-changing.
