I am going to go out and buy a bunch soon. I have a lot of poloaroid picture projects I haven’t been able to complete yet. I bet this would be a good money making scheme too. You could buy a whole bunch now, and double the selling price on e-bay when they are discontinued.
Many I have spoken with are having a hard time grasping exactly what it is we are doing ‘over there’. The mission has changed several times over the period of a few years from searching out and finding WMD and connecting the Iraqi gov’t with ties to terrorist organizations, to what is now trying to make peace in an out of control situation (with several other missions in between). Most soldiers will go and do what the gov’t tells them to do as they swore an oath to do so whether they agree to it or not. It’s a matter of principle.
I was also a part of an interesting discussion with a WWII vet at the Poulsbo VFW who did gov’t relations work in Afghanistan back in the 70’s. He admitted that the U.S. doesn’t really have a firm grasp of how things work culturally and religiously in the middle east, and how peace and a democratic gov’t in Iraq is going to come at a very high cost.
The polar opposite opinion of others is that the military pretty much needs to level Iraq and force the Iraqi people to all worship in single muslim mosques within their respective communities. If this ever did happen it would only fuel the insurgents rage, you can also assure yourself that the rest of the world wouldn’t stand for it…much less the U.S.
Condoleeza Rice was once quoted as saying that “We don’t need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten” which is exactly what the 82nd airborne pretty much ended up doing in Iraq. One other interesting thing I found out was that George Bush Sr. after Operation Desert Storm wrote an 800+ page manual on why we didn’t go into Baghdad in the first place, and why we shouldn’t afterwards. This 800+ page manual was classified information and not released for the public to see until maybe a little more than a year ago.
Anyways, to the point of the blog since all of the above is just a bunch of voiced opinions, I present a question. This war is very unpopular right now. It doesn’t seem to be moving to a conclusion with a good foundation (who are we waiting to surrender anyways?). If we really believe that we are bringing democracy to Iraq and now that there is a puppet government in place, why can’t we let the Iraqi people vote us out of the country? It’s what the world seems to want to see, and it’s what the majority of the U.S. wants. It’s also what we promised the Iraqi people in propoganda videos after their initial vote for gov’t.
If we were voted out by the people of Iraq, we could then have a more effective military presence in Afghanistan, fighting actual Al-Quaida operatives.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Say something…:D
