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This makes a VERY sobering read (Michael Moore letter)
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| _Ocean_Drive_ |
Whilst I don't agree with him all the time, I found this rather disturbing. Please take the time to read before dis/agreeing with it.
Makes for disturbing reading.
| quote: | Tuesday, November 28th, 2006
Cut and Run, the Only Brave Thing to Do ...a letter from Michael Moore
Friends,
Yesterday marked the day that we had been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II.
That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.
And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet.
Is this utter failure the fault of our troops? Hardly. That's because no amount of troops or choppers or democracy shot out of the barrel of a gun is ever going to "win" the war in Iraq. It is a lost war, lost because it never had a right to be won, lost because it was started by men who have never been to war, men who hide behind others sent to fight and die.
Let's listen to what the Iraqi people are saying, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Maryland:
** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.
** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.
Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi citizens believe that our soldiers should be killed and maimed! So what the hell are we still doing there? Talk about not getting the hint.
There are many ways to liberate a country. Usually the residents of that country rise up and liberate themselves. That's how we did it. You can also do it through nonviolent, mass civil disobedience. That's how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime until they are so ostracized they capitulate. That's how South Africa did it. Or you can just wait them out and, sooner or later, the king's legions simply leave (sometimes just because they're too cold). That's how Canada did it.
The one way that DOESN'T work is to invade a country and tell the people, "We are here to liberate you!" -- when they have done NOTHING to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam's convoy passed them by? I guess ol' Saddam was a cruel despot -- but not cruel enough for thousands to risk their necks. "Oh no, Mike, they couldn't do that! Saddam would have had them killed!" Really? You don't think King George had any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don't think Patrick Henry or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn't stop them. When tens of thousands aren't willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that should be the first clue that they aren't going to be willing participants when you decide you're going to do the liberating for them.
A country can HELP another people overthrow a tyrant (that's what the French did for us in our revolution), but after you help them, you leave. Immediately. The French didn't stay and tell us how to set up our government. They didn't say, "we're not leaving because we want your natural resources." They left us to our own devices and it took us six years before we had an election. And then we had a bloody civil war. That's what happens, and history is full of these examples. The French didn't say, "Oh, we better stay in America, otherwise they're going to kill each other over that slavery issue!"
The only way a war of liberation has a chance of succeeding is if the oppressed people being liberated have their own citizens behind them -- and a group of Washingtons, Jeffersons, Franklins, Gandhis and Mandellas leading them. Where are these beacons of liberty in Iraq? This is a joke and it's been a joke since the beginning. Yes, the joke's been on us, but with 655,000 Iraqis now dead as a result of our invasion (source: Johns Hopkins University), I guess the cruel joke is on them. At least they've been liberated, permanently.
So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of there as fast as we can. As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat, there is nothing we can do to undo the damage we have done. What's happened has happened. If you were to drive drunk down the road and you killed a child, there would be nothing you could do to bring that child back to life. If you invade and destroy a country, plunging it into a civil war, there isn’t much you can do ‘til the smoke settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.
The Soviet Union got out of Afghanistan in 36 weeks. They did so and suffered hardly any losses as they left. They realized the mistake they had made and removed their troops. A civil war ensued. The bad guys won. Later, we overthrew the bad guys and everybody lived happily ever after. See! It all works out in the end!
The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats. Congress controls the purse strings and the Constitution says only Congress can declare war. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath of the voters. We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans. The opening page of my website has a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, each made up by a collage of photos of the American soldiers who have died in Bush's War. But it is now about to become the Bush/Democratic Party War unless swift action is taken.
This is what we demand:
1. Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.
2. Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security. We must commit to taking care of them so that they suffer as little as possible. The mentally and physically maimed must get the best care and significant financial compensation. The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
3. We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground. Now many more will die. Their blood is on our hands, regardless for whom we voted. If you pay taxes, you have contributed to the three billion dollars a week now being spent to drive Iraq into the hellhole it's become. When the civil war is over, we will have to help rebuild Iraq. We can receive no redemption until we have atoned.
In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better than what has been done in our name. A majority of us were upset and angry after 9/11 and we lost our minds. We didn't think straight and we never looked at a map. Because we are kept stupid through our pathetic education system and our lazy media, we knew nothing of history. We didn't know that WE were the ones funding and arming Saddam for many years, including those when he massacred the Kurds. He was our guy. We didn't know what a Sunni or a Shiite was, never even heard the words. Eighty percent of our young adults (according to National Geographic) were not able to find Iraq on the map. Our leaders played off our stupidity, manipulated us with lies, and scared us to death.
But at our core we are a good people. We may be slow learners, but that "Mission Accomplished" banner struck us as odd, and soon we began to ask some questions. Then we began to get smart. By this past November 7th, we got mad and tried to right our wrongs. The majority now know the truth. The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again.
Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness.
We demand the Democrats listen to us and get out of Iraq now.
Yours,
Michael Moore |
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| metalgearsolid |
| Wow, so beautiful, that I can almost hurl. |
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| pmoisse |
Wow.
Thank you for posting that.
I always take Michael Moore with a grain of salt, though in general I love his work. This required no salt at all.
He's right.
(in my opinion anyway)
Paul |
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| Krypton |
| I disagree with michael moore about 99.9% of the time. This is the .01% that I completely agree with. |
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| King Ecnal |
He's always right, when has he been wrong?
Get out NOW... I wish... Democrats will probably wait till 2008 to start the exit strategy... political move... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by King Ecnal
He's always right, when has he been wrong?
Get out NOW... I wish... Democrats will probably wait till 2008 to start the exit strategy... political move... |
Democrats do not have the ultimate say in the matter, so they can yell all they want but unfortunately will get no where unless the neocon Administration decides enough is enough.
That or the people of Iraq try to take on more matters into their own hands, but admittedly that may not even be possible at this point.
True definition of cluster. |
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| Audigy7 |
| quote: | President Bush on Tuesday called the latest violence in Iraq "part of a pattern" of attacks by al Qaeda in Iraq to divide Shiites and Sunnis and vowed again he won't support the removal of U.S. troops "before the mission is complete."
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Later in Riga, Latvia, Bush dismissed calls to withdraw from Iraq before the nation becomes stabilized.
"We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren," he said.
Source = http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast...main/index.html |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| id like to know how or why people think US forces are increasing the likelihood of attacks against iraqi civilians, or that leaving would lower such risks. |
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| Marc Summers |
| quote: | Originally posted by King Ecnal
He's always right, when has he been wrong?
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:stongue: |
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| Lilith |
| quote: | | Originally posted by MisterOpus1 That or the people of Iraq try to take on more matters into their own hands, but admittedly that may not even be possible at this point. |
The fundamental flaw to the war was simply the case of not being there for all the right reasons and instead being there for a couple of big wrong ones like securing oil supplies, hunting the mythical WMD beast and get rid of Saddam who was going too end up buggering around the general stability of the region.
Liberating Iraq into a democracy seemed to be more of an "oh yeah, we'll do that too while we're there" thing.
As a result the Iraqi people have no sense of ownership of anything there and that includes the national identity and pride of having managed too drag something out of life for a better future. So they'll waste it on doing something stupid too each other for awhile until they either run out of ammo or targets. Moving foreign forces from the soil just means theres a few thousand less targets on a daily basis, but theres still plenty to go around in their own backyard.
Why I dislike Mike Moore
Unlike most of you who openly dislike MM, its usually for simple reasons like his opinions, or the way he looks or for the way he's made a lot of people think about themselves and sometimes they dont like thinking about themselves.
Some just dont like thinking or thinkers.
I don't like him because he makes me think ugly things that are usually best unsaid but I'll say them anyway and to hell with civility. But he's a frighteningly well lettered intellectual and personally, theres only room for one of them in my life and thats me because I'm a selfish bitch and I really dislike being manipulated on any level of my life.
It's not so much his opinions that bother me, usually they're only partly things I agree with and he doesnt even need a great deal of substantiation to those opinions, because the silver tongued bastard can make it sound so damn appealing... :mad:
He offends me on an intellectual level.
I really hate that. :haha: ...ah crap. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lilith
Why I dislike Mike Moore
Unlike most of you who openly dislike MM, its usually for simple reasons like his opinions, or the way he looks or for the way he's made a lot of people think about themselves and sometimes they dont like thinking about themselves.
Some just dont like thinking or thinkers.
I don't like him because he makes me think ugly things that are usually best unsaid but I'll say them anyway and to hell with civility. But he's a frighteningly well lettered intellectual and personally, theres only room for one of them in my life and thats me because I'm a selfish bitch and I really dislike being manipulated on any level of my life.
It's not so much his opinions that bother me, usually they're only partly things I agree with and he doesnt even need a great deal of substantiation to those opinions, because the silver tongued bastard can make it sound so damn appealing... :mad:
He offends me on an intellectual level.
I really hate that. :haha: ...ah crap. |
I too am not a big fan of that fat slob either.
His whole 9/11 movie had more holes than swiss cheese and had been debumked a million times over; yet people still listen to his bellowing like a love struck liberal moose call... |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
I too am not a big fan of that fat slob either.
His whole 9/11 movie had more holes than swiss cheese and had been debumked a million times over; yet people still listen to his bellowing like a love struck liberal moose call... |
:rolleyes:
so tell us about those so called holes and the lies,since you seem to know the truth all the time. |
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