"Do not rejoice when your enemies fall,
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble."
Proverbs 24:17
By Juan Montoya
The news that a Seals team had found and taken out Osama bin Laden has traveled throughout the world and has caused spontaneous celebrations here and abroad.
There were other casualties, of course. His son, two women. But, we have now grown to accept that there is always some collateral damage.
But then again, bin Laden's suicide bombers took out more than 3,000 innocent men women and children at the Twin Towers and at the Pentagon.
So we're back for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
I remember 9-11 as if it were yesterday. I was dressing for work in a newspaper in Minnesota when CNN carried the footage of the burning tower. Then, a few minutes later, another plane hit the other one. Right then, even the befuddled George W knew a new world had been ushered in. At the time I was knotting my tie I turned to my Significant Other and said; "Either we reassess and seriously consider changing some aspects of our policy in the Middle East, or we're in for a long war."
Well, things go on pretty much the same and The Longest War is in its 10th year.
We forget that we recruited and trained Osama to fight the infidel Russians who had invaded Afghanistan. We cheered them on and praised movies like Charlie Wilson's War where a Texas redneck congressman fought to arm them with shoulder-fired missles to knock down Russkie helicopters and kill their soldiers.
Then, after the mujahideen drove out the Red Army, we settled in to occupy and control Afghanistan. The thing is, these people actually believed that the United States wanted to help Muslim countries run their own lives.
Osama and other Middle East mujaheddin fighters looked around and decided that the United States was just as bad as Russia. They propped up corrupt monarchies that kept their people subjected to their whims and their royal blood lines. They argued that this country – as long as it is assured access to the region's oil – will turn a blind eye to the abuses of the regimes with which it dealt with in the area.
They saw the U.S. invade Iraq on the shaky pretext of Weapons of Mass Destruction and then could not produce any as proof. Then they saw this country go into Afghanistan and occupy that country on the pretext that it was seeking to destroy the haven that it gave the Taliban who in turn were said to have given Osama a free hand from where to train terrorists.
But guess where we finally found Osama? Right next door living like a sheik (which, formally, he is) in Pakistan.
Osama is dead. Will we now remove the thousands of U.S. troops we have in the region and end these wars?
It is highly doubtful. We have grown so used to being in a constant state of war that our leaders no longer have to pay a political price for launching military adventures on a whim.
The same economic and geopolitical conditions that spawned bin laden and the suicide bombers of 9-11 continue. How long can it be before another bin laden arises out of that vindictive soil and turnd his vengeful eye westward toward our shores?
Dr. David P. Gushee, Professor of Christian Ethics, put it best in HuffPost-Religion:
"A second opportunity is for the United States to reconsider the questionable moves we have made in the name of the war on terror. From our perspective, this includes the indefinite detentions of scores of men at Guantanamo Bay, the failure to undertake an official investigation of detainee interrogation practices, the increase in Predator attacks in Pakistan, and the expansion rather than ending of the ten-year-old war in Afghanistan.
We also now have the opportunity for national reflection on how our broader military and foreign policies – including the placement of our troops throughout the largely Muslim Arab world, our posture on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and our regular military interventions around the world, create a steady supply of new enemies.
There can never be any moral justification for terrorist attacks on innocent people, such as the terrible deeds of 9/11. But we must recognize that to the extent that our nation's policies routinely create enemies, we can kill a Bin Laden on May 1 and face ten more like him on May 2. Might it now be possible for us to have an honest national conversation about these issues?"
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble."
Proverbs 24:17
By Juan Montoya
The news that a Seals team had found and taken out Osama bin Laden has traveled throughout the world and has caused spontaneous celebrations here and abroad.
There were other casualties, of course. His son, two women. But, we have now grown to accept that there is always some collateral damage.
But then again, bin Laden's suicide bombers took out more than 3,000 innocent men women and children at the Twin Towers and at the Pentagon.
So we're back for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
I remember 9-11 as if it were yesterday. I was dressing for work in a newspaper in Minnesota when CNN carried the footage of the burning tower. Then, a few minutes later, another plane hit the other one. Right then, even the befuddled George W knew a new world had been ushered in. At the time I was knotting my tie I turned to my Significant Other and said; "Either we reassess and seriously consider changing some aspects of our policy in the Middle East, or we're in for a long war."
Well, things go on pretty much the same and The Longest War is in its 10th year.
We forget that we recruited and trained Osama to fight the infidel Russians who had invaded Afghanistan. We cheered them on and praised movies like Charlie Wilson's War where a Texas redneck congressman fought to arm them with shoulder-fired missles to knock down Russkie helicopters and kill their soldiers.
Then, after the mujahideen drove out the Red Army, we settled in to occupy and control Afghanistan. The thing is, these people actually believed that the United States wanted to help Muslim countries run their own lives.
Osama and other Middle East mujaheddin fighters looked around and decided that the United States was just as bad as Russia. They propped up corrupt monarchies that kept their people subjected to their whims and their royal blood lines. They argued that this country – as long as it is assured access to the region's oil – will turn a blind eye to the abuses of the regimes with which it dealt with in the area.
They saw the U.S. invade Iraq on the shaky pretext of Weapons of Mass Destruction and then could not produce any as proof. Then they saw this country go into Afghanistan and occupy that country on the pretext that it was seeking to destroy the haven that it gave the Taliban who in turn were said to have given Osama a free hand from where to train terrorists.
But guess where we finally found Osama? Right next door living like a sheik (which, formally, he is) in Pakistan.
Osama is dead. Will we now remove the thousands of U.S. troops we have in the region and end these wars?
It is highly doubtful. We have grown so used to being in a constant state of war that our leaders no longer have to pay a political price for launching military adventures on a whim.
The same economic and geopolitical conditions that spawned bin laden and the suicide bombers of 9-11 continue. How long can it be before another bin laden arises out of that vindictive soil and turnd his vengeful eye westward toward our shores?
Dr. David P. Gushee, Professor of Christian Ethics, put it best in HuffPost-Religion:
"A second opportunity is for the United States to reconsider the questionable moves we have made in the name of the war on terror. From our perspective, this includes the indefinite detentions of scores of men at Guantanamo Bay, the failure to undertake an official investigation of detainee interrogation practices, the increase in Predator attacks in Pakistan, and the expansion rather than ending of the ten-year-old war in Afghanistan.
We also now have the opportunity for national reflection on how our broader military and foreign policies – including the placement of our troops throughout the largely Muslim Arab world, our posture on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and our regular military interventions around the world, create a steady supply of new enemies.
There can never be any moral justification for terrorist attacks on innocent people, such as the terrible deeds of 9/11. But we must recognize that to the extent that our nation's policies routinely create enemies, we can kill a Bin Laden on May 1 and face ten more like him on May 2. Might it now be possible for us to have an honest national conversation about these issues?"
3 comments:
...balanced, sensible article ...and time for a change;
...the US' ideals are among the BEST for all; time to live up them, and a halt to the wars would be a start ....
Juan,
As an obvious devotee’ of history, I thought you might like historical perspective on this situation.
During the Second Punic War, 200+ years before the birth of Christ, Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian military commander who accomplished what no other leader could; he won multiple victories against the mighty Roman armies, eventually occupying most of Italy for 15 years. In fact, Hannibal literally stood at the gates of Rome on the verge of taking the city and thus, literally changing the course of human history forever.
More impressive is the fact that man was in his early twenties commanding an army of nearly half the numbers of what was the world’s finest army. Speaking some 40 different languages, his army was mostly mercenaries with Libyan heavy infantry, Numidian spearmen, Balearic slingers, Numidian archers and javelinmen, Numidian light cavalry, Berber cavalry, , Celtiberian cavalry, and Libyan-Phoenician cavalrymen.
The Romans engaged in a battle of attrition, literally refusing to fight, but always guarding the gates. So what did ultimately defeat Hannibal? Lack of support from his home country.
Despite starting the war with the full backing of full backing of Carthaginian oligarchy, that support began to wane. Carthaginian politics consisted of wealthy families and small city based dynasties, as well as a board of judges. The main political factions were divided into two parts; those who supported the war and those who did not. The leader of those who did not support the war (at least when the riches being sent home began to dwindle), Hanno II the Great slowly strangled resources and public support, despite military victories heretofore unheard of such as the battle at Cannae.
In short, because of political hand wringing, back biting and back stabbing, Hannibal was never allowed to finish what he started. Some historians have made the same comparisons to the efforts of General Patton in Europe or even American efforts in Vietnam.
So today, we have a military commander who has just struck a tremendous strategic victory and within hours, the political hand wringing, back biting and back stabbing. Did you see the picture of President Obama in the Situation Room? If allowed, the man would have jumped through the screen and strangled Bin Laden himself.
Our enemies will remain our enemies whether we radically change our policies or not. Religion is being used to manipulate the people for a fight that is much more economically driven than anything else. Just like every other major conflicts in the history of mankind. The call to get out now only hands the sticks to the drumbeaters who wish to sound our eventual defeat.
This is not to say that dissent and disagreement is bad. But it is to say that to believe that the dissent and disagreement do not have negative consequences is either naive or blindly and willfully and irresponsible.
It was no Osama, the protegee of the Sultan of Arabia, it was someone else.
Obama just want us to believe that it was Bin Ladin to get campaign votes.
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