Last May, a “letter from dad” about the war started going around the internet. It was billed as “non political,” although in this particular case non political meant “only a loser wouldn’t vote for George Bush.” A regular correspondent of Sadly, No! and former blogger sent us his thoughts and we copy selected portions of the letter, and his comments, below. (Comments are in italics.)
THE WORLD SITUATION – A LETTER TO MY SONS
This was written by a retired attorney, to his sons, May 19, 2004.
Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted,
As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation. We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions. I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left to speak to. To be sure you understand that this is not politically flavored, I will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led us through pre and WWII (1933 – 1945) up to and including our present President, I have without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international conflict. […]
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. […]
. Yeah, it sure was fucked up that Iraq did all those things. Oh? wait?
. I don’t blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die?
Odd, considering that, at the end of this letter he suggests there are not “peaceful Muslims.”
The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them.
When did “terrorist attack” become a verb?
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.
Funny, but it seems to me that Spain was about to undergo a “regime change” due to Iraq well before the attack. Spaniards didn’t want their people in Iraq.
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.
Weird. We’ve gone from talking about Muslim terrorists to just saying that Muslims themselves are the problem.
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.
Put me on the side of Ben Franklin on this one, “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” In the grand scheme of history, the “War on Terror” is but a battle in the greater war for what is right. If America becomes a different place – a more martial, less free place – because of the terrorists, then what would we win by winning?
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. [Who would that be?] 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.
Nice. So I want the United States to lose a war because I opposed it, but it’s not because I’m disloyal, only stupid. It couldn’t possibly be because I didn’t want a bunch of Americans to die needlessly or to be seen as attacking a Muslim country which hadn’t attacked us, making us look even worse in the eyes of other Muslim countries.
We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police. 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.
This is bullshit. “Most of the prisoners, however-by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers-were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints.”
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.
Notice that the key here is his repeated use of the word “type.” It’s not those guys, but guys like them. Not so, says reality. Iraqi men women and children – civilians mostly – were responsible for dragging those corpses through the streets. The people who beheaded the American didn’t have anything to do with Saddam Hussein. They were most likely trained in the Kurdish controlled area of Iraq, not Saddam’s area.
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.
Right. Shocking them, letting dogs bite them, raping them and, you know, maybe killing a few now and then, but it’s worth it since we got rid of Saddam’s torture chambers, right? Now we have “freedom chambers.”
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.
Here’s why that’s bullshit.
Rumsfeld himself isn’t sure whether we’re creating more terrorists than we can kill and, by allowing the Abu Ghraib stuff to occur, we’ve given carte blanche to those who would want to torture others.
An example: “American military police yesterday raided a building belonging to the Iraqi ministry of the interior where prisoners were allegedly being physically abused by Iraqi interrogators.
The raid appeared to be a violation of the country’s new sovereignty, leading to angry scenes inside the ministry between Iraqi policemen and US soldiers? A bodyguard for the head of criminal intelligence, Hussein Kamal, admitted that the beatings had taken place.
Nashwan Ali – who said his nickname was Big Man – said: ‘A US MP asked me this morning what police division I was in. I said I was in criminal intelligence.
‘The American asked me why we had beaten the prisoners. I said we beat the prisoners because they are all bad people. But I told him we didn’t strip them naked, photograph them or fuck them like you did.'”
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.
OK, but it seems to me that when President Clinton attacked Iraq during Desert Fox, Republicans had no problem with the fact that the country was at a political standstill over impeachment. This is especially damning in light of David Kay’s feeling that “Iraq’s large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced – if not entirely destroyed – during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections.”
And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, equal rights for anyone – let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the World.
Nice point, although Egypt’s not as bad as most. And we welcome Indonesia to the free world, thanks to President Clinton. And when are we going to kick out Musharraf and give Pakistan back its elected government? Wait. We can’t do that. He’s willing. I can name a country which seems to be losing its freedom of speech. Here’s part of how President Bush celebrated freedom a couple of days ago: “Two Bush opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn’t be there because they were wearing shirts that said they opposed the president.” Friggin’ evildoers. How about freedom of the press? Equal rights for everyone?
If we don’t win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less.
So when are we going to invade France in order to kill off all their Muslims?
Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the “peaceful Muslims”?
Yeah, like that politically correct George W. Bush. Don’t you think that part of the reason that Muslim countries are more violent is because they’re so fucking poor? Rwanda, remember, is only about 5% Muslim and 92% Christian. When are we going to stop hearing about those “peaceful Christians”? And let’s not forget that Bosnia was only a third Muslim and that the Christians there were responsible for both starting the war and performing the most heinous acts. See again “A Simple Plan?”
[And we saved the best for last! –S,N!]
[2] As you know, I am a strong President Bush supporter and will vote for him.
No shit?