Your Attitude To the Military

Here is an email I received in response to one of my essays.

Your Attitude To the Military : J. Smith : smith4527@gmail.com : 2007-10-13

Of course. My Dad served in WWII (World War II). However, that was a completely different use of the military than the wars going on now. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not about defending Canada or the USA, but about stealing oil and resources from small countries. Canada and the USA are playing the Nazi aggressor rôle in these wars.

Further, in these current wars, torture, banned weapons and targeting primarily civilians are the norm. I don’t approve of some of the vindictive things our side did near the end of WWII to hurt primarily civilians, like the two atomic bombs. We had already won. That was just kicking a guy when he was down. Racism was extremely high at that point.

OK. I got you. But WWII and the Iraq war are two totally different wars. Obviously… but what I’m saying is that they are two totally different styles of war. WWII was nations fighting nations. Germany was wanting to prove itself as a world power, as well as Italy and Japan. They were trying to expand their nation. But the whole conflict/war in Iraq isn’t about America expanding. The war in Iraq was about removing Saddam from power and trying to help establish a government. And I know you’ll disagree with me on this point.

I burst out laughing reading that. The war had nothing at all to do with Saddam. Here are a few of the reasons why you know that to be true:

• Saddam was captured on 2003-12-13. The war did not pause for even a second. It could not have been primarily about Saddam.
• Many insiders have testified the war was planned long in advance. It was about oil. Iraq has the #2 reserves on the planet.
• As evil bastards go, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the military leaders in Sudan are thousands of times more wicked that Saddam. Does the USA have any interest in ousting them? None whatsoever. Why? They don’t have any oil.
• The WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) claims were all lies. There were no WMDs (Weapon of Mass Destructions). Bush and friends promised they had solid proof they existed and even knew where the WMDs were. Those had to be a lies since there were no WMDs. They could not possibly have had any such proof. Further, insiders have testified it was all BS.
• Saddam offered to surrender in the days prior to the war. Bush turned down the offer. He wanted a chance to do his Nazi-like Shock & Awe for the CNN (Cable News Network) cameras to prove the mindless cruelty of Americans to anyone anywhere who might consider resisting American will or greed. Getting rid of Saddam without occupying the country was not an option. Bush wanted the oil.
• I have written a long essay on the motives for the war with my evidence.
• I have written an essay on Bush’s lies he used to sell the Iraq war.
• The first thing the invading Americans did was protect the ministry of oil and the oil fields. That was their priority, not finding WMDs they knew perfectly where not there.
• Soldiers charged into Iraq boldly and fearlessly. In contrast they treat Iran and South Korea, nation they know are truly armed, with extreme gingerness. Sounds like the generals were not expecting any sort of WMD defence, doesn’t it?
• UN (United Nations) inspectors had been inspecting Iraq on a regular basis since the Gulf War. They said there were no WMDs.
• There is a puppet government in Iraq, not a democracy. The US vetted all the candidates.
• The only people who believe the war is not about oil live in the USA. Everyone in neutral countries finds the claim the war was about Saddam laughable.

• The connection is 100%. It is absolutely overwhelming.
  ~ Michael Meacher (1939-11-04 age:78), UK environment minister, 2005-05-20, when asked whether the war in Iraq was about oil.

• While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
  ~ PNAC (Project for the New American Century) (1997 age:20) PNAC the neocon website 2000-09, Rebuilding American Defenses

• The Iraq war is largely about oil.
  ~ Alan Greenspan (1926-03-06 age:92) former Reserve Board chairman, 2007-09-17

• If Iraq produced pickles and lettuce, do you think they would have been invaded? Of course not.
  ~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89) 1927-12-07— On the Iraq Election. Radio Netherlands. 2005-12-18 

• Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly? All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil.
  ~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95), 2003-91-30

• It’s widely accepted that we went to war for one reason and one reason only, and that was to disarm Iraq — a recalcitrant Saddam Hussein who was holding on to weapons of mass destruction that he might share with the forces of international terror. This was the stated reason for going to war by the President and his Administration. It’s spelled out in a letter from John Negroponte who at that time was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to the Security Council. It lists why we went to war. None of the new justifications were spelled out there. And we now know that the reason for going to war was a bald-faced lie — that it was a result of fixing intelligence around policy, as opposed to a policy derived from sound intelligence.
  ~ Scott Ritter (1961-07-15 age:56), lead U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq. 2005-11-15

• The only reason anyone has ever given me to believe Bush’s story is that he is the president of the USA and as such deserves trust. Given that he is a politician and I have yet to catch him telling the truth even once about anything of consequence, I find that trust hopelessly naïve. It is based on wishful thinking.

We originally went into to search for WMD. I won’t say thats why we went in and that can’t be argued.

Cough. I repeat, the only people who even consider that a remote possibility are American. The rest of the world finds that assertion laughable. I suggest you watch the Darkside Frontline documentary that interviews many insiders who the WMD story was all lies, or the Uncovered — The Whole Truth About the Iraq War documentary.

And I admit none were ever found. I will say that may have just been an excuse to invade Iraq. But the point is, we went into Iraq. I think all that should have been done is we should have gone into Iraq to take Saddam out of power. Nobody can argue that Saddam was a good thing for Iraq or the Iraqi people. Taking Saddam out of power was the best thing that ever happened to the Iraqi people. Yes, it may not have been good that they had no government or anything for them to fall back on afterwards.

If WMD store were true, on discovering there were none back in the summer of 2003, Bush would have said Oops. I’m terribly sorry. Here’s ten billion to apologize. We are leaving immediately. It won’t happen again. If the Saddam story were true, Bush would have left in 2004-01. He didn’t. Therefore the war never was about WMDs or Saddam.

But then on the flip side… Iraq and the majority of the Middle East has been a cluster-fuck for hundreds of years and will be for hundreds of years to come. That can’t be disputed. When you have that many religious extremes in one area… there will always be arguments and fighting over religious beliefs. Such as who controls the land… who should have right to religious ground. The Crusades are a perfect example of that.

If the USA would stop doing so much to foment violence, the area might have a chance to chill out. The USA encouraged Israel to kill Palestinians to carve out land to form their nation in 1948 and later to take lands from her neighbours in incursion after incursion. The USA funds the oppression of the Israeli Palestinians, while they publicly pretend to decry it. The USA encouraged Israel to attack Lebanon. The USA spends the lion’s share of its foreign aid on Israel, a relatively prosperous country. Reagan sicked its pit bull, Saddam on Iran. Then Bush Sr. tricked Saddam with the Glaspie betrayal into invading Kuwait back in the Gulf war days. And, of course, the USA under George W. Bush has attacked both Afghanistan and Iraq unprovoked. The USA hired Shia death squads to kill Sunnis, successfully sparking a civil war in Iraq. The USA is sabre rattling at Iran.

Then on the opposite side… there’s the belief that the war in Iraq is for America to steal oil or make oil cheaper. But if thats the case and we’re stealing oil…why is it that gas prices haven’t changed but continue to stay at the same price or rise.

Oil production in Iraq is almost shut down. It takes only a $1 stick of dynamite to blow up a pipeline putting it out of commission for weeks. It cost millions to repair it. This is fine for Exxon, the main beneficiary of the war. It allows them to sell oil at much higher prices, while still having control of a massive reserve in future once Iraq is pacified.

Now onto torturing in wars, using banned weapons and targeting civilians. The style war being fought nowadays isn’t one where the opposing forces are on two definitive sides but everywhere. When you fight the urban style warfare nowadays… who is the enemy? Who isn’t the enemy? Think back to Viet Nam. The soldiers had no idea who was an enemy soldier because they had no uniform… they looked exactly like a civilian. That is the same case as Iraq right now. Troops are unable to distinguish enemy soldier from civilian.

The Iraq resistance to the occupying Americans is similar to the French resistance the occupying Nazis in WWII. There were Nazi collaborators just as there are American collaborators today, similarly motivated. The USA has bribed many Iraqi citizens to betray their country, but of course many betrayers then betray the USA same as the French resistance.

And as for Canada and the USA playing the Nazi aggressor… no… they aren’t.

The USA attacked first. That is called waging an aggressive war. That is an international war crime. All the Nazis hanged at Nuremberg were convicted of the same crime, namely waging an aggressive war. That is the essential crime of the Nazis. The Nazi motivation was racism and dreams of empire. The American motivation is greed and dreams of empire. What counts are your actions not which particular sin motivates your crimes.

Ignorant Americans all the time try to tell me that Iraq and Afghanistan attacked the USA first or plotted 2001-09-11. I am baffled. Surely everyone remembers watching the Shock & Awe bombing of the residential parts of Baghdad on 2003-03-20 live on CNN. Surely everyone knows bin Laden is a Saudi citizen and the alleged hijackers were Saudi. Some claim it doesn’t matter who did what, the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim — hardly a practical way to look at 1.6 billion people.

We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th attacks.
~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), 2003-09-17, audio.

We aren’t going after a race or belief. We aren’t exterminating someone based on their beliefs.

I suggest you read some of other feedback letters or posts in newsgroups such as alt.politics.bush. For the average American, a desire to kill Muslims is the #1 motive for the war. It is motivated by ancient Christian crusader religious intolerance. You will find many Americans asserting the need to kill all Muslim children. Read this typical email from a marine. Given that Bush has so many Saudi friends, I doubt that is one of his prime motives.

Yes we may be aggressive in our actions… but they aren’t even comparable to the Nazi aggression.

You are right, but not in the way you imagine. The Nazis did not routinely torture POWS. They did not use poison gas (the main banned weapon of the day). They did not kill primarily civilians the way Americans do. The Americans are far worse. Recall that to the Germans, the Nazis were the good guys. For that exact same reason, Americans make excuses for the American military.

And the atomic bombs weren’t overkill and we hadn’t won the complete war yet. You can’t forget that WWII was fought on three fronts. The western front, the eastern front and the Pacific front. The largest part of the war was won on VE Day (Victory in Europe Day). Meaning that Germany and Italy had surrendered. But Japan had yet to surrender and made clear that they weren’t going to surrender yet. So the bombings were justified in a sense. You have to remember that Germany was constantly bombing London and other cities during the war and killing civilians as well. Not saying thats an excuse… but both sides targeted civilians. And by bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima… it forced Japan to surrender resulting in VJ Day (Victory in Japan Day). The US wasn’t kicking someone well they were down, they were being aggressive in forcing the surrender by any means possible. Which most likely resulted in fewer deaths in the long run.

I hope you can keep a clear mind through reading this. I am giving you that courtesy from reading your website. I hope you don’t ignore what I have to say. Thank you for your time again!!

You strike me as a well-meaning but naïve person who is totally unaware of all the evidence against what you espouse. You are just repeating the popular wisdom without investigating first to see if it is indeed true.

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