Left Wing Bumper Stickers continued...
Last time I got off on a rant over one stupid bumper sticker. I am going to do the same again. There are plenty of bone headed, misinformed, no-room-for-context, and just plain dumb bumper stickers out there. I would be wasting my time and anyone who happens to read this if I wanted to tackle even a fraction of them. So I will cut to the chase and attack the one bumper sticker that has drawn my ire more than any other. The last one I discussed was the "stupidest", well this one is the most offensive to me.
This is one version of the bumper sticker which adorned the back bumper of many Subaru Outbacks across our land, prominently displayed by some of the most ignorant anti-war lefties in history.
First let me say I am all for free speech. You don't agree with the war in Iraq and you think Bush was a moron, fine. That's your right. You also have the right to put moronic sound bites on your motor vehicle. But maybe someone needs to give you a clue about what exactly you are inferring with that little rectangle of blind arrogance. Oooh, oooh, Mr. Carter, Mr. Carter! Me, pick me, I'll tell 'em!!
This statement, of course, refers to President Bush's gaffe when he landed on an aircraft carrier after the successful invasion of Iraq and declared, "Mission accomplished!" probably to the consternation of many in the military who knew the operation had only just begun. By the way, General Tommy Franks admitted later that the pep talk from the President had been his idea because he wanted the troops to hear something positive which they obviously wouldn't find anywhere in the mainstream media.
But none of that has anything to do with how horrible the message of the bumper sticker is. You don't agree with the war, you don't believe the mission was actually accomplished at that point, you don't agree with the mission anyway, well OK. But "NOTHING"? Nothing accomplished? Think about that for a second. Think about what you are implying. Think about men and women serving, dying, DEAD! And you have the audacity to declare "Nothing" was accomplished?
When you say that nothing was accomplished you are implying:
- women should continue being the victims of "rape rooms".
- 5 year-old children should remain imprisoned.
- businessmen should have their hands chopped off.
- Olympic athletes should be executed for failing to win a medal.
- construction workers who couldn't accomplish Saddam's grand visions fast enough should have been lined up beside a swimming pool and executed.
- Saddam's gassing of the Kurds and filling mass graves with men, women, and children was just fine.
- Uday and Qusay would have been fair-handed and level-headed successors to their father's kingdom.
- the servicemen beheaded in Fallujah paid the ultimate price for "nothing". AND journalists like Daniel Pearl.
And you are implying that the people of Iraq have no right to vote for themselves, to choose to live the way they want without a money-grubbing dictator stealing their water, using their resources for his own gain and murdering them at will.
If you think the war was ill-advised and we never should have invaded, that's just fine with me. But don't EVER say, "nothing accomplished". That is like spitting in the face of those who died serving their country, serving YOU, whether you believe it or not!
9 comments:
Hello! Blame this on Travis - I am an old friend of his.
Let's see - 8 yrs on - power is usually on less than 4 hrs a day. Garbage and sewage collect in the streets. Jobs are still very hard to come by. Elections are still marred by bombings, intimidation, and sectarianism. If our only mission was to capture and kill Hussein, then yes the mission was accomplished. If it was to free the Iraqis from his dictatorship, yes the mission was accomplished. But you don't walk in and destroy a country and then walk out leaving it to struggle and sink - unless you want to sow some hatred and bitterness for the future reaping.
No-one wants to think that their beloved died for nothing. No one wants to come to that conclusion. I suppose it's asking too much of our leaders to be far-sighted and not prop up dictators simply because it serves some purpose at the time. Always seems to come back and bite us in the butt. And then people have to die for it. I think that many people use the offending sticker to protest that.
And we were promised so many things that didn't come to pass when we started that war. I can't see that we have the right to go around the world and depose every dictator there - which is what we were told we were going to do. Hopefully that was just rhetoric. Or attack any country that has militants within it's borders - another tall order. Also can't see the idea of attacking another country just because we THINK they MIGHT have nukes and not be a member of 'the club'. Rather self-righteous of us, isn't it? To say one can have it and one can't. If Israel can have them, why not the Arabs? One thing history should have taught us is that alliances are temporary.
By the way, I love GMH's poetry!
Well, that was much longer than a blurb on piece of plastic wasn't it? That piece of plastic has context or exposition. That's why I hate it and most other bumper stickers. Having a rational debate over why and how and what the invasion of Iraq was really about is just fine with me. But don't tell me "nothing" was accomplished and then drive away without any explanation. That is small minded. That is cowardice.
I have to disagree with one of the premises of your argument. That we just attack and depose any dictator who offends us or 'might have' nukes. First of all we had a ceasefire treaty with Saddam specifically, not just any old bad guy. He never complied. He fired on our planes repeatedly between the two wars. He gassed thousands of civilians also in the iterim. Whether you agree with our response to these and other areas of non-compliance our actions were based on actual evidence and actual consequences for thumbing the nose at the treaty and over a dozen U.N. sanctions. Also, when did we 'walk out'. What's all the complaining I've been hearing all through the last election that we need to send the troops home. Aren't we still there?
Also it is interesting that we never hear anything about Iraq on the news anymore. Afghanistan is 'marred by bombings' from what I keep hearing. And I hear a very different story about Iraq from military personnel than what you describe.
Anyway, thanks for being among the 12 or so people who actually read this blog!
That piece of plastic has NO context.......that's what it should have said, sorry.
Also, if you want we to be honest with you I could care less about trash on the street and lights being on half the time if the alternative was to leave 5 to 12 year old kids in prison! That's what my post was really about. That's part of what WAS accomplished.
Hello amigo. I enjoyed the stlye of your artical, and there is much I agree with. But I do feel you are missing the fundemental 'facts' and evidence of the whole war.
Alot was accompished for the good of the iraq people. Saddam was a horrible dictator and a tyrant, he had to be delt with. But the only reason this was done is so the greed freaks of the bush regime could line their pockets with Iraq oil.
For the simple eveidence all you have to do is look at Colin Powells and Condelisa Rice's business intrests pre Iraq War and look how much they have profited post war.
Iraq had nothing to do with september the 11th. They were looking for an excuse to invade such an oil rich nation.
Unranium tipped bullets used by allied forces have caused the cancer rate to tripel in Iraq. Some parts of the land are poisioned for a long time. Land that was heathtly before the invasion.
Perhaps you don't care about the trash or the electricity but the Iraquis do! I agree that dictators like that need to go away - not my arguement at all - but don't forget that WE put him in power and kept him there, sold him weapons, and then when he turned on us we got all indignant and started yelling about what an evil man he was. Duh! He was, and we helped him be that. I guess I just object to the hypocrisy of it all. Better be upfront right now and admit that both my husband and I are vets and we both volunteered for the first Iraqi war, which was legal and legit. So you're getting the soldier's viewpoint. Or atleast ours. And no we aren't Dems. Yes, some of our people are still there - pulling back slowly because of the security issues. We don't really have much faith in their ability to keep security (we as in military) no matter what the politicans say. If we leave completely and things fall apart as we believe they will then we will have sacrificed our fellow soldiers for a temp improvement and that's hard for us to swallow. We dislike losing our own much worse than civilians do! But don't forget that soldiers are people first and we have as many different opinions on matters as civilians. Our outlook is different, of course. But we don't want to believe our buddies died for nothing either and we'll refuse to accept it as well. Whether true or not. Hussein wasn't a threat to the US when we took him out. He had no ties to Al Quyeda - rather the opposite. He had no nukes or WMD. He was a Bad Man and needed to go but if his own neighbors didn't do something about him we certainly had little business doing anything. It has caused us more grief than not. And it would be very hard to get this all on a bumper sticker!
Dude, ya lost me at "line their pockets with Iraq oil"....ridiculous. I guess Koffi Annan's son is on your list too right?
Mia, I appreciate your viewpoint and I thank you whole heartedly for your service (and your husband) But, you have bought some propaganda "hook, line and sinker". No nukes or WMDs? Absolutely false. Whether Saddam had WMD was never really in question. He was supposed to give up what he had or SHOW DOCUMENTATION of where he destroyed it. He did neither. Every reliable intel from the U.S. to Britain, to Egypt said he had them. Clinton, Gore, Allbright, all said he had them repeatedly for years. Defected Iraqi officials who WORKED on them said he had them.
Bush's admin. went to the U.N. 3 times (unlike Kennedy pre Cuba, or Clinton pre Kosovo, or bombing Iraq) AND got the approval of both houses of congress so there was nothing illegal about the war! Since Saddam never complied with the ceasefire it wasn't even "pre-emptive"! Saddam had 15 months in which to comply before we invaded after 9-11. That's plenty of time to get his stuff out of the country which some top Iraqi officials said he did. During a "humanitarian" relief effort to neihboring terrorist state Syria WMD and possibly nukes were hidden there. Either way, WMD was only one of seven reasons named in the war resolution for the invasion.
And numerous canisters of poisonous gas were also found in Iraq. Our guys found all kinds of things from ammunition, to piles of cash, to fighter jets buried in the sand but hardly any of it got covered by the media. I met a marine who was home on leave and one of the first things he said was "Don't believe what you see on TV"
Every time I discuss the war with those who opposed it from the beginning I hear about how we destroyed stuff in their museum, and put underwear on some guys heads at Abu Graib or how much we destroyed the infrastructure......or the lights and trash as you pointed out. I suppose that's all correct. We would have been better to leave everything be....kids in prison, women in rape rooms, etc. I mean WE put the guy in so who cares if he shoots at our planes, invades neighboring countries, gasses throngs of civilians, threatens to assasinate our president and gets in bed with the world leaders in the biggest money scam in history, the "Oil for food program". He lined his own pockets with oil money while babies starved to death. That's not hyperbole. Part of the money was supposed to go toward's baby food.
Oh, and btw, the mastermind of the 93 WTC bombing lived in Baghdad. Also Germany had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. We should have left Hitler alone. Know the difference between Hitler and Saddam? Hitler came to power in 1933 and was dead in 1945, 12 years. Saddam was already a menace to the world for two decades before we invaded in 2003.
Got anything else? I'm just getting warmed up.
BTW, WE put Obama in. I think that was a mistake too. Hopefully WE can rectify that mistake. And I suppose you felt that way when Bush was president. Isn't that what life is about anyway, fixing somebody else's mistakes?
I think we can agree on one thing - and I don't know how they've managed to do it - but Congress is the real problem. The President - no matter who he/she is - is only one person. Congress writes the laws, Congress declares war (or not), and everyone for some odd reason blames the guy in the WH. What a slick trick! Okay, there are times when it's warranted - like when Pres. Bush rammed thru the bailouts over everyone's objections. But for the most part, it's Congress that makes the deals, delivers the pork, and acts like spoilt children who can't play well together. I am soooo sick of their partisan shit! I am soooo sick of this two party system when they're really the same (meet the new boss - same as the old boss), so tired of their hypocracy! I would love to see all the incumbents voted out but I suppose that's too much to hope.
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