Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/1/1 attacks. I joined millions of Americans and probably thousands or millions of people across the globe Sunday in remembering the attacks and the lives lost, both Americans and visitors to this nation. Fifteen years ago, but like yesterday in my mind.
Unfortunately fifteen years later we are STILL fighting in Iraq, still sending death raining from the skies down on unsuspecting people, many of whom are innocent bystanders, often in nations that are not our enemy. We are still watching our soldiers die in Afghanistan, and in a word, we are STILL AT WAR.
I would like to say here that I support our troops, and I pray for their safety. A soldier's obligation is to follow his or her orders, to carryout missions as assigned, without question. I honor the troops who do so. What I do not support is our government sending our people to fight and die in those places in which our forces completed the stated objectives, but then some new "threat" arises, and more American lives are lost, as well as many thousands of citizens of those nations.
I do not support our leaders (and the corporate heads pulling their strings) when those leaders arm an irregular force in one nation, while fighting and bombing members of the SAME organization in the bordering nation. Sounds absurd? Well this is exactly what is happening in Syria and Iraq. Our government is supplying arms to ISIS in Syria, while waging war against Isis in Iraq. Guess where ISIS in Iraq gets it weapons? Yes, from the ISIS "brothers" in Syria. To you and me this concept is stupidity. To our leaders, this is "foreign policy."Please do not believe me on this - do the research for yourself. It is easy to confirm my statement.
I do not support our leaders who give us a new " bogey man" as soon as we gain control, at least temporarily, of the first one, al la Orwell's "1984." We (our leaders) got rid of Saddam Hussein, then Muammar Gaddafi, several guys in the Baltic, and finally Osama Son of Laden. I remember over a decade ago how we were told that the War On Terror (WOT) would be completed once the seventeenth son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was put to rest. Only ten years after Osama was placed on the FBI's most wanted list, he was supposedly killed in 2011 (although a funeral was held for bin Laden in 2001) in a raid carried out by US Navy Seal operatives.
I do not support our leaders in their decision that the people of America can only be safe if the police state envisioned by Orwell is brought to fruition before our very eyes, never mind the Constitution. It would appear that our government fears its own citizens more than it fears a few thousand "terrorists" across the globe. I do not support the idea that it is just fine to circumvent the Constitution through laws and executive orders that are clearly in absolute opposition to our rights as Americans and as people in general. Think USA PATRIOT and the flagrant spying by the NSA.
In the fifteen years that have passed since that terrible day in 2001, we have lost much of our freedom, or face that potential loss with a stroke of the President's pen. We have lost thousands of soldiers in foreign lands, not because they were not good soldiers, but because of our own incompetent government and its conflicting, irrational, and illegal foreign policy. We have lost millions of good citizens of other lands during the last fifteen years, victims of that irrational and illegal foreign policy. The only thing we have not lost is a permanent state of war.
Barack Obama promised to end these wars, and like many of his other promises, he did not carry through with the "Hope and Change" he crowed about all through 2008 and again in 2012. It would appear now, in 2016, that no matter which of the two candidates should win the upcoming election, that things will proceed pretty much as normal into 2017 and beyond. How can I say this? Simply because President Bush II and Barack Obama were supposedly totally opposite in their beliefs and philosophies. Obama crucified Bush for signing USA PATRIOT into law and for starting and continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet Obama followed and expanded Bush's policies as Obama's administration drug on.
Fifteen years and two days after the terrible attacks of 2001, we do not seem to be any closer to the end of the WOT. Not only that, it appears that our leaders have accepted, and now are trying to get the American people to accept, the idea that we must be permanently at war with someone or some entity "to keep America safe." They have tried and are still trying to convince us that here at home, our only safety lies in the continuing evolution we are in now from a democratic republic to a police state. Hope and change? My hope is that the American people will unite and change the attitude of our leaders by making it clear that we do not accept the premise that we must be at war PERMANENTLY, and that we do not accept the need for a continually expanding police state at home so that the government can "protect us."
As we remember those who lost their lives on 9/01/01 I also hope we remember that freedom is not free, and that thousands of soldiers have died over the years to keep this nation free. But I hope we also remember that "freedom" and "safety" are not synonymous. In fact, freedom cannot exist in the same setting as total safety. The more our government tries to protect us by continuing the (by definition endless) WOT, and by establishing a stronger and stronger police state at home, the more inevitable it is that we will cease to be free. And if we cease to be free, in the name of safety, we will have rendered vain the sacrifices made by all those who lost their lives on that awful day, fifteen years ago.
Unfortunately fifteen years later we are STILL fighting in Iraq, still sending death raining from the skies down on unsuspecting people, many of whom are innocent bystanders, often in nations that are not our enemy. We are still watching our soldiers die in Afghanistan, and in a word, we are STILL AT WAR.
I would like to say here that I support our troops, and I pray for their safety. A soldier's obligation is to follow his or her orders, to carryout missions as assigned, without question. I honor the troops who do so. What I do not support is our government sending our people to fight and die in those places in which our forces completed the stated objectives, but then some new "threat" arises, and more American lives are lost, as well as many thousands of citizens of those nations.
I do not support our leaders (and the corporate heads pulling their strings) when those leaders arm an irregular force in one nation, while fighting and bombing members of the SAME organization in the bordering nation. Sounds absurd? Well this is exactly what is happening in Syria and Iraq. Our government is supplying arms to ISIS in Syria, while waging war against Isis in Iraq. Guess where ISIS in Iraq gets it weapons? Yes, from the ISIS "brothers" in Syria. To you and me this concept is stupidity. To our leaders, this is "foreign policy."Please do not believe me on this - do the research for yourself. It is easy to confirm my statement.
I do not support our leaders who give us a new " bogey man" as soon as we gain control, at least temporarily, of the first one, al la Orwell's "1984." We (our leaders) got rid of Saddam Hussein, then Muammar Gaddafi, several guys in the Baltic, and finally Osama Son of Laden. I remember over a decade ago how we were told that the War On Terror (WOT) would be completed once the seventeenth son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was put to rest. Only ten years after Osama was placed on the FBI's most wanted list, he was supposedly killed in 2011 (although a funeral was held for bin Laden in 2001) in a raid carried out by US Navy Seal operatives.
I do not support our leaders in their decision that the people of America can only be safe if the police state envisioned by Orwell is brought to fruition before our very eyes, never mind the Constitution. It would appear that our government fears its own citizens more than it fears a few thousand "terrorists" across the globe. I do not support the idea that it is just fine to circumvent the Constitution through laws and executive orders that are clearly in absolute opposition to our rights as Americans and as people in general. Think USA PATRIOT and the flagrant spying by the NSA.
In the fifteen years that have passed since that terrible day in 2001, we have lost much of our freedom, or face that potential loss with a stroke of the President's pen. We have lost thousands of soldiers in foreign lands, not because they were not good soldiers, but because of our own incompetent government and its conflicting, irrational, and illegal foreign policy. We have lost millions of good citizens of other lands during the last fifteen years, victims of that irrational and illegal foreign policy. The only thing we have not lost is a permanent state of war.
Barack Obama promised to end these wars, and like many of his other promises, he did not carry through with the "Hope and Change" he crowed about all through 2008 and again in 2012. It would appear now, in 2016, that no matter which of the two candidates should win the upcoming election, that things will proceed pretty much as normal into 2017 and beyond. How can I say this? Simply because President Bush II and Barack Obama were supposedly totally opposite in their beliefs and philosophies. Obama crucified Bush for signing USA PATRIOT into law and for starting and continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet Obama followed and expanded Bush's policies as Obama's administration drug on.
Fifteen years and two days after the terrible attacks of 2001, we do not seem to be any closer to the end of the WOT. Not only that, it appears that our leaders have accepted, and now are trying to get the American people to accept, the idea that we must be permanently at war with someone or some entity "to keep America safe." They have tried and are still trying to convince us that here at home, our only safety lies in the continuing evolution we are in now from a democratic republic to a police state. Hope and change? My hope is that the American people will unite and change the attitude of our leaders by making it clear that we do not accept the premise that we must be at war PERMANENTLY, and that we do not accept the need for a continually expanding police state at home so that the government can "protect us."
As we remember those who lost their lives on 9/01/01 I also hope we remember that freedom is not free, and that thousands of soldiers have died over the years to keep this nation free. But I hope we also remember that "freedom" and "safety" are not synonymous. In fact, freedom cannot exist in the same setting as total safety. The more our government tries to protect us by continuing the (by definition endless) WOT, and by establishing a stronger and stronger police state at home, the more inevitable it is that we will cease to be free. And if we cease to be free, in the name of safety, we will have rendered vain the sacrifices made by all those who lost their lives on that awful day, fifteen years ago.
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