Friday, May 07, 2004

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Anais Nin

War was never meant to be fun or pretty. War is bloody and as close to hell on earth as we'll ever see. In this day of technology and immediate results all the images of war our in our face literally minutes after its happened leading us to critic and analyze the events from our own perspective. The atrocities performed by our soldiers towards the Iraqi detainees is appalling and embarrassing. I first saw the pictures on the Yahoo wire a few days ago and I was shocked and pissed and I said nothing. I said nothing when Iraqi insurgents mutilated the four independent American contractors although I was sickened by the act. I was for the ousting Saddam so that the Iraqi people could finally be free of a tyrant, that mission is accomplished but in attempting to bring democracy to the religious ilk of the Middle East we falter, our troops over extended and tired. The attempts to stabilize the manic insurgents some days seem futile. The soldiers that acted like pompous asswipes at the prison will indeed be disciplined, conduct unbecoming is never a good thing to be tagged with and they will live with their shame for the rest of their lives. I'm sure they thought they were justified in their actions, but they are representing the United States of America and all they succeeded in doing is representing the depraved fuckwits in our country. American fuckwits that starve their own children, beat their own children, kill their wives, kill their coworkers, in this country we don't tolerate that behavior towards any living thing..That is why this whole scenario has shocked our country.

I speak now because I'm appalled at the current situation, but, I can guarantee you that more heinous acts have been done in this war, acts of which we will never see or know about. Yes we are outraged, yes the Middle East (pardon my massive generalization) hates us even more now although they of course are guilty of the same crimes, but as Americans we are rightly held to a higher standard. There are rarely any winners in war, the body counts alone tell us that, but War is not a civil chess game, it is more likened to the Wizard Chess of the Harry Potter books (yeah, that should make the literary snobs hork a nag...Hew), in Wizard Chess there is a take no prisoners attitude and civility is no where to be found in the quest for the 'Win'. As long as humanity exists there will always be war, history shows us that, it would be super fucking duper if that wasn't true but it is true to man's nature. Bush bitchslapped Rumsfield and corrective actions towards the offending soldiers are being taken. We need to get back on course immediately, take the effective and humane measures to pass the democratic torch to the Iraqi's in hopes it will make the world a stronger and better place.
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
-Bertrand Russell