Naive American General in Iraq

By daylightforum

Today General Ray Ordierno, Commanding General,United States Forces – Iraq, announced that our Army killed Al Qaeda’s #1 & #2 leader in Iraq. Big deal! 4 years ago, in my book titled, “ResoNation,” I offered the following perspective on killing “the bad guys” in the Mid-East. Referring to Osama bin Laden:

“Killing him and his followers will only cause them to be replaced. It would be like stomping out ants: as fast as you kill them a message gets back to the nest and they step up reproduction.” 

To use another analogy, the desert sands will fill their footprints before a new sun rises.

We need to stop spending a combined $16 Billion per MONTH (!) on fighting a no-win war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every day we remain over there is another “poke in the eye” of the Iraqi and Afghan people.

Middle Eastern culture is oriented toward theocracy, not democracy, toward tribal infighting and intra-religion sectarianism, not unity. It is simply a different social dynamic compared to what we know. Give them credit; they’ve done pretty well on their own for a few thousand years longer than our nation has existed. As asserted previously, most, if not all, of what we are doing in Iraq – all of the lives that have been lost or ruined – will be for naught within months of our departure.

Describing the new Iraqi Constitution, an excerpt from The Washington Post (“War Supporters Concerned That ‘Theocracy’ Will Be Final Word in Iraq Saga,” August 29, 2005) sums it up eloquently:

“Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation,’ the constitution reads, according to the Associated Press. ‘No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed principles of Islam.’ Even though the constitution also demands that ‘no law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy,’ some in the United States who have typically supported America’s foreign policies worried that the outcome could be yet another Middle Eastern, pseudo-democracy that tramples on the rights of women and religious minorities, including Christians and Jews.”