Piss On ‘Em

Ok, so this story seems to have been the big buzz on CNN for much of the day today, although I'm not exactly sure why. But since the topic centers on an incident in the conflict in Afghanistan, obviously I'm going to share an opinion on the matter as I often do.

Sometime in 2011, a Marine sniper unit deployed to Helmand province in Afghanistan encountered Taliban combatants, engaged them, and killed them. In a moment of celebration and very bad judgment, at least four Marines were captured on video urinating on the deceased Taliban corpses, and were heard making jokes while doing so.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/12/us/video-marines-urinating/index.html?hpt=hp_t3#

I will be the first to agree that what these Marines did was uncouth and unbecoming of a U.S. Marine. No doubt about it. But what I suggest to all the bleeding heart crybabies that find this single act so incredibly atrocious, and who will undoubtedly use it to belittle or denigrate everything about our efforts there, is to please put it in perspective for just a minute.

First of all, unless you’ve been there, with bullets whizzing past your head on a daily basis, and unless you’ve lost friends or squad members to IEDs or other horrific fates, you really have little room to judge what these Marines face daily and how it might affect their mindsets. They are put into the worst of hostile environments, on your behalf and mine, to face danger head-on and eliminate it wherever they can. They are many thousands of miles away from home, away from family and loved ones, away from the safety and security that we enjoy here in our backyards. They do their jobs willingly and of their own volition. There is no draft at present. These Marines signed up for this duty, and have offered to serve their country. Afghanistan is a horrific place by all accounts I’ve read, where every person our troops face could be a friend or foe – there’s no way of knowing who to trust. Everyone is a potential enemy. The Afghan family whose children smile and play with American forces on patrol one day may be reporting troop movements to their Taliban brothers half an hour later. In other words, there are no friendlies. Imagine trying to carry yourself humanely in a desolate place where every indigenous person must be respected as a friend (according to rules of engagement) but must regarded as an enemy (according to common sense). You think that’s simple? I sure don’t.

Second of all, everyone decrying this ugly act needs to step back and take a closer look at the Taliban and their typical modus operandi for a comparison and frame of reference on the matter. While a Taliban spokesman proceeded to text (yes, I said text) his horror and dismay at this incident, he conveniently omits the thousands of far more despicable atrocities that he and his own ilk commit every day, and that they’ve been committing for several decades now. You think the desecration of a few Taliban corpses is a travesty? If so, then you clearly have no frame of reference for the far lower level of baseness to which the Taliban will stoop without even giving it a second thought. Yes, the thoughtlessness of these American Marines has now added fuel to the Taliban propaganda machine. This is true. This is something we didn’t need at this time or at any other time. But having said that, it must be taken into consideration that the Taliban propaganda machine is always in full force at all times, whether they’ve got an incriminating video on Americans or not. They’ve hated us for decades because they’ve been brainwashed to do so, and will continue to hate us whether we’re treating their corpses with the utmost respect or whether we’re pissing on them. In the grand scheme of things, this singular incident has little bearing on the Taliban, their intentions, or even on the average Afghan citizen in general. The truly laughable part about the Taliban’s reaction to this incident (if you dare call it laughable) is that the text-message-sending spokesman called this incident “…barbaric. And no religion that follows a holy text would accept such conduct. This inhuman act reveals their real face to the world.” Really, is that so? And what “real face” does the Taliban reveal to the world? Is that the real face where you oppress and threaten everyone who doesn’t conform to your inhuman absolutism and backwards belief system? Is that the face where you’d nonchalantly harbor and support a terrorist organization that would ultimately kill nearly 3000 innocent people thousands of miles away who’ve never wronged you in the least little bit, and do so without batting an eyelash? Yeah, that pious conduct must apparently be typical in your holy Islamic text. And people wonder why I “unfairly” despise Islam so much.

Thirdly, the Marines responsible for this incident clearly made a mistake and will undoubtedly face disciplinary action once they’re all identified. This is inevitable. However, it troubles me to hear human rights groups clamoring that the Geneva Conventions have been violated by these Marines and that they should be charged with war crimes. Okay, admittedly, I’ve only browsed over some of the official doctrines established by the Geneva Conventions regarding treatment of the dead, so I can’t pretend to know all the rules (or subsequent penalties for violations thereof), but I certainly hope that if the disciplinary action against these Marines sadly escalates into charges of international war crimes, I’d better not hear that the punishment is so severe as to include the death penalty or life sentences. I would remind the reader that the Taliban is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, and they’ve certainly demonstrated that fact many times over with their own brand of barbarism for the living and the dead. No matter how you choose to disparage these four Marines for relieving themselves upon the dead Taliban, had the tables been turned and the Marines ended up dead on the ground before a group of four Taliban fighters, it’s not a far stretch to imagine how horrifically those four Marines’ bodies would have been desecrated by the Taliban. I’d hesitate to go so far as to say that such desecration would be guaranteed, but I’m confident it would be far more likely than unlikely. This notion doesn’t justify, warrant, or excuse the actions of the Marines, but as war crimes go, this whole affair strikes me as far less important than what some people are making it seem. There are far more horrific things to fathom in wartime than this incident.

The key is to keep this matter in perspective, in light of the larger picture. The media seems to be in something of a frenzy over this video clip, and the more they play it up the more it pisses me off. Where are all the media clips depicting the atrocities committed by the Taliban? Why is the American media so quick to point out the occasional faults of a few American troops, but so hesitant to graphically point out the countless egregious murders committed by the Taliban? The senseless slaughter of innocents at the hands of the Taliban may get mentioned here or there, but there is never the kind of sensational frenzy seen as when four Marines exercised bad judgment for disrespecting a slain enemy that would have just as soon sawed the heads of their foes off with a dull rusty bayonet for the glory of Allah, and then played soccer with the severed heads. Yes, we’re supposed to be better than the enemy, so as not to become them. I get it. But proponents of that lofty statement illustrate a clear misunderstanding and disregard for just how horrible things can become on a wartime battlefield. Unless you’re there getting shot at, shut the fuck up and let the combatants do what they do. War will seldom be a refereed football game. When the smoke clears, it’s all about who’s alive and who isn’t. If the Taliban make up the bulk of the dead, then so be it. They chose their fate. If they had instead chosen a peaceful way of life to begin with, they’d have never been pissed on in death. From that perspective, I say piss on ‘em.

Ten Years After, I Remember

After ten years' time, I still remember the colors vividly: the amazing blue sky, the brilliant yellow sunshine, the verdant greens of the summer foliage soon to turn to autumn tones. I remember the indigo blue of the new car I'd purchased and drove home only the night before. I remember the color of the pavement upon which I happily drove the new car to work that gorgeous morning. I remember the matte black of the car's stereo volume knob as I turned on the radio to listen to my regular morning talk show. I remember feeling so joyous that I'd reached a point in my life where I could finally afford something like a new car. I remember hearing the morning talk show hosts make mention of a news report of an airplane crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers. Early reports were sketchy, so my first assumption was that some errant Cessna with an amateur pilot at the stick must have made a really outrageous error in piloting. I proceeded to roll into work to start my day and show off the new wheels to my co-workers.

Upon arrival, one co-worker listening to a radio at his desk immediately asked if I'd heard about the airplane that had crashed into the tower in New York. I responded with my amateur pilot theory, and he indicated that the reports were beginning to come in that it was a passenger jet. Then it began to sink in. Passenger jet pilots are among the best and most professional out there. They don't generally make errors like accidentally flying directly into skyscrapers. I became unsettled at the thought of an airplane full of people instantly colliding with a busy office building. The death tolls, if these reports were correct, were going to be catastrophic -- possibly in the hundreds. Little did anyone know just how catastrophic things were going to become.

We had access in my office to a television, so we went over to it and turned on the news. I remember the distant camera shot of the towers, with one of them billowing black smoke. We attentively huddled around the TV, listening to the news reporters try to make sense of the scene. After a while, a low-flying passenger jet came into view, and flew directly into the other tower. We were all agasp at what we had just witnessed. Then we knew. Everyone knew. This was wrong. This was evil. This was horror.

Ten years after, but I can still remember it so vividly: the orange of the flaming fireball, the sparkles of silvery white as shards of glass flew everywhere. I remember the white flutters of papers dancing downward and outward in the wind. I remember the rush of red fire trucks being shown racing toward the scene. I remember white police cars doing the same. I remember gray smoke and haze. I remember the navy blue of police uniforms, as the officers wearing them were trying to corral panicked New Yorkers away from the smoldering towers. I remember firefighters in black and yellow scrambling to save lives at the crash site of the Pentagon in Washington D.C. I remember the grey and white dust cloud as the first of the towers fell. I remember the same of the second tower. I remember the ashen gray dust covering those who were caught too close to the falling towers. I remember that ashen gray dust mixed with dark crimson blood on some who were far closer to the falling towers than they would have liked. All of these colors stay with me.

I can't believe something that occurred ten years ago stays with me so vividly even today. I'm writing this during the time window where ten years ago we would have seen two smoldering towers that would later fall. It is unfathomable that this nation had to endure something so horrifically unfathomable. But we have.

There is a strange contradiction in bowing one's head in deference to those lost on 9/11/01 while at the same time trying to keep one's chin up because the United States of America is continuing to emerge victorious over the enemies that brought this pain upon us ten years ago. For me, the defeat of our enemies brings peace to my soul. With each report of another al Qaeda operative or figurehead having been removed from this earth, I get closer to a place where I can look at life the same way I did on September 10th, 2001. True, there will always be those that seek to destroy us, and with each enemy removed another soon takes his/her place. But that reality does not exempt us from remaining vigilant, or from continuing to fight those enemies. It may be an easy thing for some to dismiss all of the tragedy and consider it a past from which we must move on. But that past is prologue to where we are going. We wouldn't have the comparably comfortable present without having dealt with that past. We have faced significantly fewer attacks and threats here at home since 9/11/01 because some have chosen to make it their lives' missions to do what is necessary to protect us. For this, I am eternally grateful. I feel a great deal better knowing those individuals are out there doing what is necessary.

On the ten year anniversary of September 11th, 2001, I find myself reflecting on how much the world has changed since that fateful day. The casualty count from that horrific day has been revised many times over since then, but a quick Internet check puts the figure at 2977 victims (American and foreign), excluding the 19 al Qaeda attackers, who I do not feel are worthy of inclusion in the total. Frankly, it pains me to have had to mention them at all.

This year, Osama Bin Laden was found and promptly killed, a momentous day for the nation, and a testament to our resolve to pursue justice for the victims of 9/11. I, like many Americans, was beginning to feel like that day may never come. I can’t tell you how satisfied I am that we finally found and killed that bastard. I’m especially grateful that we didn’t take him alive and put him through our criminal justice system. While I believe in the system, I do not feel that Bin Laden was worthy of being given American civil rights, since he stood for everything that America is not. He would have made a mockery of the whole thing every step of the way, with countless opportunities to spew propaganda and hate. I don’t think this nation would have been able to stomach seeing his smug face in court on TV every day for years. His quick demise was the right ending for him, although I personally would have loved to see him suffer some excruciating pain for awhile first. That’s my sick sense of revenge talking, but I don’t apologize for my visceral responses towards him and his ilk. He had it coming, plain and simple.

Looking at the world stage since 9/11, Afghanistan is not much closer to stabilizing, Pakistan is an ever-worsening black hole of anti-American hatred, and Iraq, for all the controversy surrounding it, may be actually be progressing the best of those three nations. Iraq is still an internal mess, and there’s plenty of horror taking place there on a regular basis, but it almost seems as if there might be light at the end of that tunnel. Only time will tell.

Elsewhere since 9/11, we’ve seen significant change beginning to take hold in the Middle East. The jury is still out on whether the Arab Spring will turn out to be a positive or negative thing in the end (if there ever IS an end to it), but things needed to change there regardless. The status quo was certainly a mess. But major change is underway in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, and a host of other nations in the Middle East. It’s crazy to grasp that the whole thing sparked off from one man lighting himself on fire in protest of police brutality and corruption in Tunisia. It’s been fascinating to watch the ripple effect of one man’s self-immolation. Entire governments have fallen. I guess if you think one person can’t change the world, this man certainly disproves that theory. I suppose the same could be said of Bin Laden. He succeeded in changing our world too, in more ways than I care to think about.

Many aspects of our daily life have changed as a direct result of 9/11. Air travel was forever altered in the wake of the attacks, one of the first and most visible changes that occurred. Soon, many other facets of life followed suit. The government and the private sector had to rethink security from every angle. Emergency response systems were overhauled. Threat considerations of every kind had to be factored into daily life. Economics have been forever impacted, which sadly was one of Bin Laden’s primary goals – to cause the United States to spend itself out of existence. The good news is that we’re still here, and he is not.

I’ve made mention many times in the past that I never want to forget 9/11 or its impact. I make a point every year to reflect on that day when September rolls around. One of the things that really strikes me as difficult is to consider the viewpoint of those who were mere children in 2001 that are coming into adulthood now, and their relative sense of removal from 9/11. I vividly remember so many feelings and emotions regarding the events of 9/11, but I wonder if today’s young adults really have any grasp of what transpired in 2001 when they were kids. Now that the 9/11 Memorial is unveiled and young adults stroll across that hallowed ground, will they ever fully understand what it all means? Or will it just be a pretty park to them? When I paid my first visit to Ground Zero in 2009, there was really very little to see except fencing and construction equipment. Nevertheless, just being there moved me more than words can describe. But to someone else who may only have fleeting memories of buildings falling down on TV because they were young kids back then, I suspect that the full impact of 9/11 is lost on them. Perhaps some would argue that ignorance is bliss, and that future generations should never have to know the pain and suffering of 9/11 the way we experienced it. I would disagree. But even so, I’m not sure of the best way to convey the importance of acknowledging and respecting that day to youngsters going forward. Having them watch the documentary entitled “102 Minutes That Changed The World” would be a good start. (Which reminds me that I need to track down a copy of that on disc…)

A week or so ago, I had spent hours watching a mini-series on Discovery entitled, “Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero”. I was very moved and impressed with what I saw. The amount of consideration and planning that have gone into what is being constructed at Ground Zero is mind boggling. I have the utmost respect for what is being built there, and for those who are building it. I have tentative plans in mind to visit the site for the second time in 2013. That is the year that the One WTC (formerly known as the “Freedom Tower”) is supposed to be completed, although from what I saw in the mini-series, it appears that in order to see everything else completed at the site I will likely need to plan yet another visit there in or beyond 2015. One way or another, I want to go there when everything is completed and spend some time there. It is truly amazing what they are creating, and even more amazing how many aspects of the design pay tribute to the victims and the events of 9/11. I look forward to seeing the site when it’s fully complete.

Today, the nation is remembering and honoring those lost on 9/11. I remember. I remember the victims, I remember (and still feel) the sorrow, I remember the pain, and I remember all of those brave souls lost in the subsequent wars that followed 9/11. I also remember the colors. Today, the colors I want to remember are red, white, and blue. They represent everything we’re about, and everything we’ve endured. On this day, I look upon our flag’s colors with pride for how far we’ve come. But as my flag somberly waves in the bright yellow sun today, I remember September 11th, 2001. I remember.

Can vs. Should

I’d like to begin this post with two definitions borrowed from Dictionary.com:

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can

–auxiliary verb

1. to be able to; have the ability, power, or skill to: She can solve the problem easily, I'm sure.

2. to know how to: He can play chess, although he's not particularly good at it.

3. to have the power or means to: A dictator can impose his will on the people.

4. to have the right or qualifications to: He can change whatever he wishes in the script.

5. may; have permission to: Can I speak to you for a moment?

6. to have the possibility: A coin can land on either side.

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should

–auxiliary verb

1. pt. of shall.

2. (used to express condition): Were he to arrive, I should be pleased.

3. must; ought (used to indicate duty, propriety, or expediency): You should not do that.

4. would (used to make a statement less direct or blunt): I should think you would apologize.

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While many English words have multiple definitions, you’ll notice that the ones most relevant to the following text I have highlighted in red above. (For those not reading this on my actual blog page, I’m referring to definitions #4 under “can” and #3 under “should”) Keep these words and their respective highlighted definitions in mind as you read on. The reason will become clear.

So a lot of fuss is being made about the intention of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to establish the Cordoba House (now called Park51), the proposed Islamic cultural center that will include a mosque inside, within several blocks of Ground Zero in New York City. I will be the first to admit that I am one of the dissenting voices that opposes this idea, which should come as no surprise to those who know me well. My general disdain and mistrust of Islam clearly guides my opinions in such matters, and this situation is no exception. The notion of an Islamic facility so close to Ground Zero is something that riles me up and brings about some pretty powerful feelings of disgust.

There are those on the other side of the argument who insist that Islam itself did not bring down the towers and slay over 2900 people, so why should all of Islam and its followers be held accountable for the actions of a few fanatics? They would argue that those fanatics were not true Muslims, and that they did not follow the teachings nor the tenets of true Islam. They would argue that those terrorists merely hijacked Islam in order to justify their actions and further their political goals, not to further any religious ones.

To those people who love to apologize for our enemies' actions, I would point out that in the minds of the terrorists themselves, they were very much doing their deeds in the name of Islam. Deep down in their black hearts, they truly believed their actions to be sanctified and justified in the eyes of Allah and Mohammed the Prophet. We can argue all day about whether these individuals represent true Muslims, but what really matters is that what the terrorists did, they did because of their wholehearted belief that it was all for the glory of Allah. I find it interesting that this little tidbit is so readily dismissed by apologists in any kind of discussion on the matter.

I keep reading and hearing that it makes no sense to admonish a world full of around 1.57 billion mostly peace-loving moderate Muslims just because 19 extremists perpetrated 9/11. The statistical game starts to get played next, and then we are told that of all the Muslims in the world, something less than 1% of them are supposedly radicalized extremists. Well, as we all know, statistics can be obtained (or conjured up) from anywhere to support any side of any argument, so I tend to take all statistical "evidence" with a grain of salt in disputes such as this one. One of my favorite political quips that I stole from somewhere unknown is: "Did you know that 90% of all statistics are made up on the spot?" That about sums up my faith in statistical evidence. You never know how much it's been tweaked, fudged, or adjusted to suit a given argument. Even catering to the apologists and playing their statistical game, 1% of 1.57 billion Muslims amounts to around 15.7 million radical extremists, if I’ve moved my decimal point correctly. Let's be generous and say only 5 percent of those radicalized elements are likely to engage in violent acts. Well, you still end up with around 785,000 potential terrorists out there. I would be willing to bet that the number of potential radicals that would readily engage in violent jihad is probably much higher than that, but I'm shooting from the hip on that and don't have any legitimate (or bogus) statistical evidence to back that up.

I guess when it comes to my opposition to the Cordoba House/Park51 project, I suppose it may be so strong because it's hard to know whether the inhabitants or visitors to the place may or may not be among those possible 785,000+ bad guys. And I've argued for years that just because a given Muslim doesn't engage in violent jihad, doesn't mean he/she doesn't sympathize with the cause and support such endeavors in other ways. The Islamic practice of zagat (charitable donations for the "poor" in Islamic nations) provides all kinds of funding for violent acts on the part of terrorist organizations. This has been discovered time and time again whenever our intelligence agencies follow the money trail of terrorist organizations. Much of that money is often obtained through zagat. Hamas and Hezbollah themselves have for years been working to win over the hearts and minds of their own enslaved societies by providing for their basic humanitarian needs wherever possible in the occupied territories, Lebanon, etc. It's a strategy that has worked well for them and their twisted goals, and "pious" Muslims the world over fork over zagat under the pretense that it is going to help the poor and needy, when in fact much of that money ends up funding the purchase of weapons and ammunition to perpetuate violent jihad.

I personally have a hard time believing that Cordoba House/Park51 will truly be the wonderful "beacon of cultural understanding and healing" that it purports it will be. My expectation is that there will be a great deal of anti-Western and/or anti-American propaganda taking place within its walls. I can hear the cries of the wise-ass left jumping in already: "Would you expect any less from the Muslim population after so much hatred and racism has been directed towards them over this mosque?" Well, let it be known that this anti-western sentiment has been around a lot longer than this mosque controversy. I believe that Islam at its purest is fundamentally incompatible with our western ideals. This is why I don't see the point in establishing yet another beach-head for our enemies to springboard a whole new wave of Islamist propaganda. And in the eyes of the radical extremists in the Islamic world, the establishment of this Islamic center at this location will be viewed as a secondary victory after 9/11. Let the crescent flag fly high! They may as well have just planted their flag atop the debris pile of the World Trade Center towers on 9/12/01 with the full blessing of the liberal left, all in the name of freedom of religion. I mean, after all it IS Islam's right to slaughter thousands of innocent infidels (and a number of their fellow Muslims) for the sake of their religion, right? We certainly can't dictate to Muslims how to prosecute their faith or their beliefs because that would clearly interfere with the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. We are apparently obligated to let any religion do whatever it wants (without restraint) because the Constitution apparently says so. I suppose this means that satanic cults that would sacrifice human babies as a matter of procedure must be protected to the bitter end as well. We can't have the law telling the Satan worshippers to stop slaughtering innocent babies, because that would interfere with the Satan worshippers' ability to practice their freedom of religion.

This constant misapplication of the Constitution's content to sickly justify, or apologize for, radical Islam is becoming more systematic all the time. Radical Muslims know full well that they can exploit our own Constitution and our belief system against us, and they're doing so at every turn. And we're letting it happen! The problem is that in the interest of political correctness, more and more Americans are simply choosing to be politically correct rather than falling back on their own common sense. How closely are you going to cling to your ideals to make your point? Are your ideals so important that you're willing to allow an Islamic center to impose itself on Ground Zero, which will without question become a springboard for more rhetoric and violence against innocent people? When the first terror cell is born from Cordoba House/Park51 that successfully kills one person, two persons, or a dozen persons in the name of Islam, are you lefty liberals going to be perfectly okay with that because you stuck to your guns and "defended one of your most precious ideals of freedom of religion"? This is the point in the argument where the lefties chime in and ever-so-poignantly point out that, "the moment we compromise our most precious principles and ideals is the moment that we let the terrorists win". What a PATHETIC way to justify their own complete lack of common sense and their utter disregard of the obvious. That precious phrase of theirs sounds so noble on the surface, but when you peel it back it's essentially just handing over complacency to our most vicious enemies on a silver platter. Then after some terrorist catastrophe happens that can be directly attributed to their weak political correctness and their tenacious hold on their noble ideals, they'll be the first to find fault in someone else instead of looking in the mirror.

Freedom of religion is a dodgy topic, and it's sometimes a thin line between what is or is not a religion. And lately, more often than not, I see the liberal left abhorring any religion of any kind. This is surprising in light of the fact that they're so adamantly defending freedom of religion and waving it as their Constitutional banner in the Cordoba House/Park51 controversy, when freedom of religion and/or the Constitutionality of the debate is not even the real point of contention. I'm not sure why the left is so intent on defending religions in one breath while so readily denouncing them all in the next, but this is the way of things. I've read the anti-religion rhetoric online countless times where the left is concerned.

One of the biggest proponents of the Cordoba House/Park51 of late has been none other than New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He went so far as to say, "...there is nowhere in the five boroughs that is off limits to any religion." Well BRAVO, Mr. Bloomberg. What a lovely thing to say, and what a wonderfully pluralistic notion. Let's just build that Islamic terror cell right next to Ground Zero -- I'm glad you’re so confident there will not be any anti-Western propaganda preached from the imam's pulpit in this center of cultural understanding.

Heck, by Mr. Bloomberg's logic, we should build a Pastafarian church on the other side of the wall from the Kaaba shrine in Mecca. It's only fair. That way, Pastafarians can worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster freely and openly in the lovely, tolerant Saudi Arabian culture and sing kum-bay-yah with all of those tolerant, peaceful Muslims next door. The Islamic world is such a lovely place, isn't it?

As soon as Bloomberg and his supporters come back down from la-la land, let me know. I cannot wait for the reality to set in for them regarding what this "cultural center" is going to promote from within its walls. It won't be a message of peace and understanding, I am confident of that.

And for the record, for all of you apologist lefties that keep calling my side of the debate "fear mongering", please be advised that I don't fear Islam. I simply loathe it and refuse to capitulate to its demands like you cowards do. There's a big difference.

Everyone, the crux of the matter is simply this. The question is not whether they CAN build the mosque at this location. Nobody is really arguing the Constitutionality of this matter. The law says the mosque CAN be built. The question is whether or not they SHOULD. The liberal left keeps waving the Constitution in everyone's faces and equating the opposition's arguments with arguments against the Constitution. This is not the case. If Muslims are so peace-loving and tolerant, then perhaps they should show a little bit of this supposed tolerance and understanding and choose a less sensitive location elsewhere to construct their mosque. Clearly, they have no interest in doing so. Once again, it's Islam's way or the highway. “Back down, lowly infidel: your law says I can build it wherever I see fit.” I'm sick of this nation catering to every whim of Islam. You should be too. The establishment of the Cordoba House/Park51 facility in such close proximity to Ground Zero flies in the face of freedom of religion because Islam itself does not ALLOW freedom of religion. In their minds, it is THE religion and can accept no other.

From that perspective, opposing this particularly inappropriate mosque can be seen as protecting the freedom of all other religions, because Islam certainly does not seem to embrace any such religious freedom, unless of course you're referring to Islam itself. In Islam, one is free to openly practice one religion: Islam. It is THE only religion -- just ask any devout Muslim, you silly doomed infidels. Dhimmitude awaits you all, with big, sharp, pointy teeth. Got jizya?

A Visit To Ground Zero

In mid-October 2009, I had the good fortune of being able to return to New York City.  I had been there 2 years prior to attend a wedding over a weekend, and I was able to see some of the sights, but I regrettably was unable to pay my respects at Ground Zero as I had intended.  I vowed that someday I’d return to do just that.  In October 2009, I arrived.

For those who’ve followed my blogs, you know that the events of September 11th, 2001 were a monumental force in my life.  In the months (and even years) that followed, I found myself in a horribly depressing funk, and even though I was not personally impacted by the tragedy that was 9/11, it profoundly affected me nonetheless.  I’m certain I’m not alone – that day changed the world forever.  I’m just another citizen of planet Earth, one of many, who watched in horror as the events unfolded that fateful day.  Each September ever since, I take some time to intensely reflect upon 9/11.  I choose to re-live the pain by watching documentaries, wherever I can find them.  It may seem strange to some people that I would choose to go through that pain over and over again.  Many others have chosen to move on and put it behind them.  If that’s their mechanism for dealing with it, then so be it.  Maybe they’re stronger individuals for it.  Maybe it’s a way to repress the pain and not deal with it at all.  I choose to feel it, because I never want to find myself getting numb to it.  The day I look upon 9/11 and say nothing more than, “Yeah, that sucked,” is the day I really need to re-evaluate what I’ve become.

I’ve been wary of how I would feel setting foot on the site of one of this nation’s most horrific tragedies.  It’s one thing to have watched it on television as I did, from a “safe” distance.  That was difficult enough for me.  But to be there, in the presence of it, would certainly be different.  I wasn’t sure how, but I knew my feelings were going to be vastly more powerful.

My girlfriend and I stayed in a hotel in Jersey City, New Jersey for affordability reasons.  We chose a hotel near a railway transit system popularly known as “The Path” in the area.  The Path runs from New Jersey, under the Hudson via tunnel, and over to New York City.  The day we rode The Path from the Pavonia/Newport stop to the World Trade Center stop, I was obviously a little anxious.  I knew I was going to be in for an emotional day.  But I was also looking forward to coming to terms with the site that so profoundly affected my viewpoints on life since 9/11.  As the train approached the underground stop, I took a deep breath and tried to steel myself for what I would see.

My girlfriend’s cousin worked in the World Trade Center back when 9/11 occurred.  She was fortunate enough to escape, but her story always comes to mind when I reflect on that day.  She arrived via The Path to the WTC just after the first plane had struck that morning.  She made it to street level and got somewhat clear of the buildings before the second plane struck.  She lost a number of friends and co-workers on 9/11, and she attended their funerals for weeks afterward.  I cannot imagine what that must have been like.

As I prepared to exit the train and set foot on the platform, I thought of her, and I couldn’t help but put myself in her shoes that day.  Stepping into the station, there was a palpable sense of something that I cannot quite define with words.  But it was there.  It was a gloom, a sorrow, a creepy weight that was undeniable.  It seemed as if all the other passengers that exited alongside me felt the same way, as there was a lot less chatter and conversation taking place.  The underground station has a series of escalators to bring commuters to street level.  It was a long way up, or so it seemed.  You could see that many of the walls were temporary, with chain-link fencing cordoning off the construction site from the station in some places.  The fencing was covered with various sheets of plastic tarping, strategically placed to obstruct the view.  But you could see through it in a few places.  Someone stopped to take a picture through one of the gaps, and a Port Authority officer sternly rebuked the visitor and said, “No pictures, please.  Keep moving.”  Considering the magnitude of their losses on 9/11, I can understand why.  This place is sacred ground, and was to be treated as such.

As we topped the final escalator, we found ourselves at a convergence of several streets (Vesey and Broadway, from what I can tell by revisiting maps).  A look to my right revealed the fencing and the construction cranes.  I was here…Ground Zero.  I guess I wasn’t fully prepared for the immediacy of how close I’d be to it.  Undoubtedly, the very spot upon which I stood would have been covered in tons and tons of concrete dust, twisted steel, and smoldering debris on the day the attacks happened.  This day, the streets were spotless by comparison.  Street vendors were there, selling New York souvenirs, hot dogs, pretzels, and everything else that they hawk on the city streets.  We were starving upon arrival, so we each snatched up a quick hot dog to hold us over for awhile.  Admittedly, I found it difficult to swallow my food at just that moment.  Hunger allowed it to happen, but I certainly felt like I was out of place eating on such hallowed ground.

Here, again, all the fencing was covered with various tarps, banners, and ads, so you couldn’t see much through it.  But you could hear the activity behind it.  Every type of construction equipment could be heard beyond the fence.  There was a lot of activity taking place, despite the appearance of stillness.  We decided to walk a lap around the site, as we had heard there were observation walkways specifically for visitors such as ourselves.  Upon rounding the first corner onto Church Street, St. Paul Church came into view.  This is literally across the street from Ground Zero.  This church was a fascinating anomaly in the midst of the massive skyscrapers that encompass it.  It’s at once out of place, yet so perfectly placed, in the midst of its surroundings.  Despite the fact that its front lawn is a very old cemetery, the greenery and peacefulness of this church brought an uplifting sense of ease and peace to the scene for me.  The fact that this church sustained little damage in the collapse of the towers is made all that much more amazing when you see its proximity to the site.  It’s nothing short of a miracle that it withstood such a massive, catastrophic collapse just across the street.

I really wanted to take a moment to visit this legendary church, but the hordes of tourists and visitors at the front gate were a little much at the moment we were there – we could barely have gotten through the front gate.  We opted to continue our lap around Ground Zero and return to the church later if possible.

We continued south/southwest on Church Street, marveling at all of the activity around us.  We were amidst a mass of other visitors, all doing the same things that we were:  snapping photos, absorbing the scene, contemplating what this place must have looked like 8 years prior.  So much must have changed since then.  All the buildings that surrounded Ground Zero, most of which had to have sustained a great deal of collateral damage from the collapse of the towers, now looked pristine and flawless.  Putting aside the former towers themselves, it’s clear that a great deal of repair work had been done to all the surrounding structures.  Those projects alone had to have taken a lot of time, resources, and manpower.  I could not help but be impressed with how far they’ve come in the overall restoration process.

As we approached the next corner of Ground Zero, we rounded the corner of Church Street and Liberty Street, and headed west/northwest.  Down the block, we came upon the Tribute WTC Visitor Center.  This little location is the place where I really had my heart ripped out of my chest.  It didn’t look like much from the outside, but we decided to pay the $10 fee and see what was inside.  Within its walls, a vast array of artifacts were on display that had been retrieved from the actual wreckage of 9/11.  Things such as mangled silverware, badges and patches from the uniforms of fallen firefighters and police, a firefighter’s overcoat and helmet, one of the metal basket stretchers used to retrieve the dead from the debris, a stuffed animal covered in concrete dust, a battered American flag, a ruptured SCBA air tank likely carried up the stairwells by an FDNY firefighter, a smashed police radio, a piece of metal column, etc.  An amazing little 2 inch by 2 inch piece of broken glass was on display – I was at first confused by its inclusion, until I read the text description next to it.  It read, “Glass fragment, one of the largest found”.   That one really hit me.  Out of all the tons of glass fragments that must have littered the debris field, one of the “largest” found was only 2 inches by 2 inches, and even it was badly fragmented within.  This gives you an idea of the incredibly destructive forces that must have been at work as the towers fell.  I cannot even begin to fathom destruction on that kind of scale.

We continued onward through the gallery.  Upon all of the walls and columns of the gallery were printed a large number of short quotes and anecdotal snippets from many people who were there the day the attacks occurred.  I’ve never seen such a powerful collection of short sentences.  Every one of them painted a different aspect of what people experienced.  The enormity of it all really began to sink in.  So many stories, so many people, and these were the ones who survived it.  There are another few thousand stories that we will never know.  We could only guess at them based on the pieces and fragments that remained.  Another display case housed a metal window frame from one of the airplanes that struck the towers.  I tried to imagine seeing what the terrified passenger must have been seeing through that window in the moments before his/her life was suddenly and violently snuffed out.  I had to stop myself, because that was too much for me to contemplate.  Sheer terror and horror swept over me, and I’m sure I must have visibly shuddered.  This reaction became more and more common the further into the gallery we went.

Moving to another area of the gallery, we rounded a corner only to see a massive wall placard that listed, in alphabetical order, the names of every victim who perished on (or as a direct result of) 9/11.  It took up an entire section of wall, and you had to step up close to even be able to read them.  Opposite this display was a corner of two adjoining walls, with a montage of photos of all the victims.  This was massive, and really brought it home just how many people were lost that day.  Their faces were there, and it was heartbreaking to imagine that many families shattered in one day.  In another portion of this room was a video screen, continually scrolling the names of the victims one-by-one.  It was said that for a person to read off the names of every victim of 9/11 out loud, it would take in the neighborhood of about 4 hours to complete.

After soaking in all of this pain, the gallery’s tone began to turn to one of hope and promise.  The displays showed the incredible outpouring of support that was received in the days and weeks that followed.  Artwork from schoolchildren was on display.  Quilts that people had assembled from many contributors, from all walks of life, were on display.  Get well cards had been made by children for anyone that may have managed to survive.   Then the expressions of hope began to be shown not only from within the country, but from across the world, from many nations.  A particularly inspiring display was the one from Japan.  In Japan, an origami crane (bird) made from paper is considered to be a symbol of peace.  Adults and children from all over Japan made enormous amounts of origami paper cranes in every color, and assembled them into long paper chains full of beautiful colors.  These chains hung vertically en masse above a stairwell in the gallery, all of them perfect rainbows of color.  The incredible amount of them, and their incredible uniformity of size and shape, made this a very moving display.  The time and effort to assemble these had to have been immense.  That people from across the globe would send such a huge outpouring of support was powerful.  I fought back tears with every step through this gallery.

A quote from one elementary school student in Staten Island, NY was printed upon a particular wall placard.  It read, “What the terrorists wanted is for us to be scared, to go in our house and never come out.  But we didn’t do that…  We didn’t hide in the shadows.  We went in the sun.”  What an amazing thing for a child to say.  And what courage in the face of so much horror.  I immediately wished I could meet this kid and talk to him/her.  That glimmer of hope alone got me sobbing.  I photographed that quote so I would never forget it.

We completed the rest of the gallery tour, and stepped outside, a complete wreck from everything we had just seen.  We gathered ourselves up and continued around Ground Zero, a new sense of reverence following us down the street.  Just next door to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center was the FDNY Engine & Ladder Company No. 10.  Admittedly I do not know what kind of losses this company suffered on 9/11, but based on the fact that it’s literally across the street from Ground Zero, I think it’s safe to say that it was likely catastrophic.  This fire station is on the corner of Liberty and Greenwich streets.  As we looked around the corner on Greenwich, we saw an incredibly long wall mural made of what appeared to be bronze on the side of the firehouse.  It depicted a number of sculpted firefighters giving it their all during and after the 9/11 nightmare.  Beneath the bronze mural were engraved the names of all the firefighters that were lost that day.  The left-to-right length of this entire mural had to be over 40 feet long, maybe more.  Wreaths of flowers and other small remembrances are still being left there by visitors.

The next segment of our walk took us through some temporary construction walkways, which eventually led us into an indoor lobby within the One World Financial Center.  We exited this building to street level at Liberty Street, and proceeded around the corner northward up West Street.  From these last few vantage points, it was a little easier to see and photograph much of the Ground Zero site.  We stopped at Vesey Street, regained our bearings, and decided to walk back around the way we came.  We detoured and ventured around the financial district for awhile to see Wall Street and beyond.  As we came back up Church Street, we stopped again at the St. Paul church, this time walking through the cemetery out front.  The sun shone through the trees there, and cast a peaceful serenity to this place.  At least one of the headstones in the cemetery dated as far back as 1796.  We ventured into the church itself, which is now open to the public as something of a memorial to 9/11.  We made a walk around the inside of this amazing church, and I could not help but remember the news images I had seen in the days after 9/11 where exhausted firefighters took refuge here to get food and much-needed sleep.  Another massive display of the origami paper peace cranes from Japan was hanging within.

We left Ground Zero for the day, and I have to say that I am forever changed by what I experienced.

This change began on 9/11 itself, as I recall arriving at my office that morning only to learn from a co-worker that an airplane had just struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center.  By “airplane”, I had assumed he had meant a small private craft like a Cessna.  We have access to a TV in our building, and we turned it on to see what was happening.  We watched for awhile, and eventually learned that the plane had in fact been a passenger jet.  Moments later, the cameras showed the second impact, and we all stood there in disbelief at what we had just seen.  The unsettling sickness soon set in, and it became apparent that we were dealing with something much more than an accident.

The rest of that day, and in the days and weeks that followed, I was glued to the TV every moment I could get.  I was so deeply affected by what I’d seen and heard, that I could not pull myself away from it.  I cried countless times just contemplating all the families who were still holding out hope for word from missing loved ones – word that never came.  Mixed with the sorrow was a deep-seated anger, and that anger stewed and simmered, embittering me in ways I never could have fathomed.  Everything happening in my life seemed so trivial and pointless compared to what everyone else in New York was going through.  I got into a funk that I truly didn’t begin to climb back out of until sometime in the spring of 2003.

I have by no means recovered.  To this day, the way I see the world is forever tainted by the events of 9/11.  For those of you who have moved on and put that day behind you, I’m not sure I’ll ever reach that point.  It would be better for my well being if I could put it all behind me, but my conscience will never let that happen.  Now that I’ve been to Ground Zero, and have seen the place with my own eyes, I am again forever changed.  It was one thing to see 9/11 unfold on television, but quite another to pay a most reverent visit to the site of so much tragedy.

The above portion of this particular blog entry has been sitting in my “drafts” folder since my visit last year.  I have hesitated to post it because for one, it was a pretty personal experience for me, and second, I have been at a loss for words in terms of completing it.  Imagine that – me at a loss for words.  It has taken me until March 2010 to finally revisit this and try to glean some nugget of wisdom, truth, or insight from the experience.  I think my visceral reactions as described above should almost be sufficient to illustrate my experiences in New York City.  I still think about what I’ve seen, and it continues to hit home for me.  I suppose where I struggle the most is in the confusing mix of emotions that run through me, some of them conflicting and juxtaposed against each other.  Feelings of wanting to regain a sense of kind humanity versus feelings of wanting to kill every last one of the motherfuckers who brought this upon us.

Perhaps in this instance, it may serve me well to use someone else’s words instead of my own.  In the last few months, I have gone on a mission to do some additional reading/research on matters surrounding 9/11 and the war that followed.  The book I am currently reading is called “Class 11” by T.J. Waters.  The author of this book was one of a number of Americans so moved by the events of 9/11 that he was inspired to alter the course of his life by applying for a position with the CIA.  It seems a large influx of Americans submitted applications to the CIA after 9/11, every one of them undoubtedly moved and feeling the desire to never let this country fall into a state where such attacks could ever occur here again.

As he described the difficulties in adjusting to the training regimen within the CIA and its effects on his personal life as related to his newlywed wife Cathy, the author explains that he and his wife apparently had gotten into a verbal argument over the phone about what his new career was going to mean in terms of putting him in harm’s way someday.  She had just read a news article discussing Mike Spann, the first CIA casualty in Afghanistan who died on the Thanksgiving weekend after 9/11.  She was surprised to learn from the article that the CIA has its own army, navy, and air force for certain types of operations.  She asked her husband if he was thinking about working for those forces someday, implying that she did not approve of it if he was.  He and she went back and forth about the issue for the better part of half an hour.  The conversation ended badly for both.

The author stewed about the situation for a period of time (presumably days), knowing full well that she was as pissed at him as he was at her.  But he also wanted to find a way to explain to her the importance of the work he would someday be doing for the country.  He wanted to illustrate why he would consider such a dangerous profession.  Then one day he stumbled upon a news article himself that illustrated it very clearly.  This would be the perfect way to show her what motivated him.

The following excerpt from T.J. Waters’ book, “Class 11”, also sums up my feelings and motivations about why I have so strongly supported our country’s military actions in Afghanistan and beyond after all that I have seen with my own eyes, both in the media and on the ground while I visited Ground Zero in New York:

“A tribal court in Pakistan recently ordered the gang rape of an eighteen-year-old girl because her eleven-year-old brother had been seen walking around the village with a girl from another tribe who was of higher class than he. Four men carried out this “punishment to her family” on June 22 in the southern Punjab village of Meerwala while hundreds of tribesmen stood outside laughing and cheering. Where to even begin with such a story?

Rape used as a punishment is despicable on its own. That a tribal court ordered it is unthinkable, especially since another person committed the offending “crime.” The story sparks outrage around the world. In the United States there is much hand wringing about how our Pakistani allies are not as advanced as we want to believe. Perhaps they are no better than the cruel, inhuman Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.

I instantly know this is the means I will use to make up with Cathy. The argument was stupid and unnecessary. It was also mainly my fault, not hers. I should have realized how upset she’d be about long-term absences as a rule rather than the exception. Our prolonged separation simply aggravated a contentious issue. I e-mail her the story along with the following note: 

Years from now, when we are old and gray, someone will ask you how I ever talked you into moving out of Florida and relocating to the cold and crowded area around Washington DC. Please keep this news clipping to show them. These, our partners in the war on terrorism, have gang raped a girl simply because she had the misfortune of being someone’s sister. Their righteous indignation over an errant US bomb injuring civilians rings a bit hollow when they are raping their own children in the name of Islam. It’s no wonder they are so easily manipulated into becoming suicide bombers. If your own children mean nothing to you, someone else’s children mean even less. It is my hope, my goal, to make sure men like this never reach our shores.”

Amen.

Disappointment With America

You know, for all the American flag-waving and the gung-ho patriotism I often display in these blogs, sometimes I can’t help but be disappointed by many of the people who live here in my beloved U.S. of A.  I’m sure that could be said of any nation around the world.  Every place has its share of jerks and morons.  Some have more than others.  I often used to ponder the population of the United States of America and take comfort in the notion that this nation had the least number of jerks and morons “per capita”, particularly when compared to most other places around the globe.  Let’s face it:  this is one of the greatest places on earth to live.

The more I read the news and see our citizens’ responses to the headlines each day, the more I realize that I am not in fact surrounded only by the wonderful flag-waving Americans that I thought I was, but rather I am equally surrounded by a lot of jerks and morons.  I suppose this is to be expected, as we are the world’s melting pot.  We have all kinds here, and that’s generally a good thing.  But such openness also leaves opportunities for the shallow end of the gene pool to thrive and multiply as well.  I guess we have to take the good with the bad.

As I think of themes to write about in this blog, I try to keep a cohesive theme for each one so as not to ramble on in too scatterbrained a fashion.  I know I’m not the world’s greatest writer – this stuff is new to me.  But when I peruse the news each day while eating my lunch, I’m beginning to find that it’s becoming more and more difficult to settle on just one theme.  They way I write, I could probably spew out gobs and gobs of stuff on each news story that piques my interest.  I simply don’t have the time to do all that writing, so I try to be selective where I can.

The jerks and morons that I was referring to above seem to have a knack for intruding upon my daily news review.  As I see stories on CNN.com, and also commentaries by various CNN-affiliated scholars, columnists, and political pundits, I often see the “Sound Off” section that follows each article that I read.  This is the zone where readers can submit their off-the-cuff comments and from-the-hip criticisms of the preceding article.  These comment sections often degenerate into a tit-for-tat combat zone for people to engage in online flaming of each others’ posts.  I confess that I’ve now succumbed to the fracas and often stop eating my lunch for a bit to compose brilliant little gems of “shut the hell up” to those with whom I disagree.  What I’m finding, in retrospect, is that I seem to be alone in my principles out there in the online wilderness.  Once in awhile I see a kindred spirit who spouts off the same things that I was just thinking, but more often than not I’m seeing comments from people that really get under my skin and make me lose faith in this country’s citizenry.

In other words, I think the jerks and morons are outbreeding the rest of us.  This is not a good trend.

And I don’t just see it online, either.  I look out the back window of my house to a playground that is within reasonably close view, and I see jerks and morons “in the making” out there every day.  The future generations of jerks and morons are plentiful, and they’re in my backyard.  What makes them jerks and morons?  Well let me tell you about it…

The playground equipment out there is relatively new – only a few years old now.  Within the 2nd year, there was a group of young boys out there with bricks and boulders (left behind by the morons who built the playground), and these youngsters spent the better part of an afternoon trying to break and destroy the partially plastic playcenter with the huge rocks.  Thankfully, they really didn’t succeed in accomplishing much other than making a shitload of noise, and leaving some battle scars on the surfaces.  Eventually, I had enough and found a way to secretly and anonymously “dissuade” them from continuing.  They hopped on their bikes and scrambled for home.

Another summer, I woke up one morning to find spray-painted graffiti all over the plastic slides where children go daily to play.  The graffiti, much to my surprise, was in English (instead of illegible street-ganglish), but was full of obscenities.  Again, this is a place where parents bring their children to play.  By some miracle (presumably at the hands of the park department), the graffiti was gone within a few days.  Not sure what they used to remove it, but it was gone.  A few days later, there was fresh graffiti right back where it had been.  Some of it consisted of more English obscenities, the rest was illegible street-ganglish that no one can read or understand.  Again, the graffiti got removed after a period of time, and that issue has thankfully NOT resurfaced.

Recently, I’ve noticed a trend where the adolescents in the neighborhood are beginning to use the playground as a place to hide out from prying eyes or from their parents, and have been hiding out within (or underneath) the playcenter to smoke.  At first, they seemed to just be smoking cigarettes – okay, it’s not good, but it’s not the end of the world.  All of us probably knew a fellow 12-year old who smoked when we were that age.  But one morning I woke up to get ready for work, I looked out the window, and there were four young teens near the playcenter, sitting on a picnic table that they had conveniently “relocated” to put themselves more out of sight from the street.  I observed one of them pull out a joint and light up.  Mind you, these kids were YOUNG – ages 14-16.  I got extremely pissed that at 7:45am on a summer weekday, these punks had the audacity to bring drugs to a public playground in broad daylight and light up like they owned the place.  So what did I do?  I put on some clothes and sunglasses and took a walk around the long way to get to the park.  I succeeded in sneaking up on them from their blind side and surprised them.  Sadly, I didn’t catch ‘em in the act of smoking the joint – they must have finished it or tossed it before I rounded the corner.  Nevertheless, I proceeded to scream, cuss, and belittle them for a good 5 minutes straight.  They were young enough that I clearly instilled some fear in them, because every one of them had a look of shear terror on their faces, and they were addressing me with a polite “yes, sir” or “no, sir” to each rhetorical question I hurled at them.  If I hadn’t been so pissed off at them, I probably would have been laughing my ass off at how pathetically scared they all looked.  My parting phrase to all of them as I stormed off was, “You little fuckers make me fucking sick.”

That phrase pretty much sums up how I’m beginning to feel in general when I see the youth of America.  So many of them are gangster-punk wannabes, tattooed and pierced to the gills, pants down around their knees in honor of their prison-bound “homies”, and sporting ball caps turned around their empty skulls at such weird angles that it doesn’t seem humanly possible to keep the things on their heads without duct tape or glue.  And that’s just the teens I see around the neighborhood.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time in bars for some reason, presumably because I like being social and getting out of the house.  Or maybe I’m developing a latent drinking problem.  But now that I’m a bit older, I’m quickly realizing that I’m too old to fit in with the bar crowd, even in places where the crowd is a mix of ages.  The younger, just-turned-twenty-something crowd that I see more and more exhibits the same fashion sense (or lack of it) and the same general gangster-punk attitude as their younger counterparts around the ‘hood.  I realize that it’s unrealistic to expect to see civilized, intelligent people in bars on a regular basis.  If that’s what I want, I need to make more money and become a yuppie so I can hang out in yacht clubs or country clubs.  But I’ve always prided myself in being able to mingle and get along with just about anyone, especially if they’re willing to mingle and get along with me.  You know, the mutual respect thing.  I dig that.  But as I’ve observed the bar scene over the course of many years, I’ve watched a general decline in civility and camaraderie amongst bar patrons.

Once upon a time, a bar was a place where one could go to unwind, have some pleasant conversation, meet interesting people, nurse a cocktail or beer, and just be social.  Anymore, it seems like everyone goes to bars to get tanked, sit around and judge everyone else, and make snide comments under their breath to their “friends”.  Eventually, as the alcohol kicks in, someone somewhere loses control of their faculties and starts a shoving match with someone else.  The friends jump in to either encourage the fight, or perhaps to break it up, but it seldom ever ends well.  I’ve seen this scene repeated countless times, and I’m developing a knack for NOT being where the scuffle is.  I’ve learned how to dodge the fisticuffs.  And I can usually spot the asshole who’s going to start it as soon as I sit down on my barstool.  I can read a room like you wouldn’t believe.

Okay, so I’ve whined about the locals long enough.  I don’t live in a gated community with a country club, so I guess I shouldn’t expect a civilized crowd when I go to the local watering holes.  But what I do get to see is an overall cross-section of middle America going about their business.  If this is what makes up middle America, be worried.  Be VERY worried.  And I don’t even see the real low-income, poverty-stricken side of America.  I can’t imagine how scary that must be.

Between what I see on the street every day, and what I read on the Internet news comments every day, I can’t even fathom how this nation is going to survive in the future.  And I’m not just talking the distant future when I’m wheelchair-bound and drooling.  I’m talking about our future in 2 to 5 years.

The youth in this nation blindly put Obama in office without any thought as to what they were voting for.  They just wanted to see a “brotha” get in there, ‘cuz it would be so cool.  It fit in with their gangster mentality – put a liberal brotha in office, and we can all legalize pot and get high.  We can stop worrying about our jobs ‘cuz we can get more welfare to live on.  We can get free healthcare, paid for by “the man”, whoever that is.  We can get huge discounts on new cars, too!  With Obamessiah as the prez, we can gets all kinds o’ free shit ‘cuz he cool like dat!

The jerks and morons that support this president’s policies and programs have no idea what the repercussions are going to be in the future.  It’s laughable to sit back and remember how all the Obamatons flagrantly LAMBASTED the Bush administration for wrecking the economy.  Apparently, Bush spent too much, according to them.  But I think it’s plain to see now that Obama has spent, and is going to spend, this nation’s economy right into the ground.  When it’s all said and done, Obama’s spending will make George W. Bush look like a fiscally responsible genius.  The only way to pay for all this bullshit is a major tax hike in all sectors.  Sure, the rich will get hit harder with taxes, but so will the rest of us who aren’t rich.

Listen up, all you pot-smoking gangster-wannabes who can almost read this (sorry, this is in English – I don’t speak street-ganglish):  quit getting high and pondering your next fucking tattoo.  Quit expanding your earlobes with hoops so big I could shoot basketballs through them.  Quit worrying about how you can steal someone else’s shit so that you can pay for the parts to pimp out your fucking Ford Focus.  Turn down the thumping kicker boxes, because that sorry excuse for music you’re playing SUCKS.  Please quit blazing down the expressway on your crotch rockets with one wheel in the air and one foot on the seat – stupidity doesn’t impress me.  Quit pretending to be bikers when you’re not – that realm belongs to the Hell’s Angels, the Invaders, and all the other REAL biker gangs that have been around for years.  They’re laughing at you.  And so am I.

And far be it from me to tell someone else to NOT be judgmental, but for the love of God please stop sitting around the bars acting like your shit doesn’t stink, because your shit stinks worse than you can possibly imagine.  So does mine, but I’m not going around in public looking down my nose at everyone who walks into the room, looking to pick them apart.  That is, unless it’s one of you gangster-punk wannabes – you nimrods deserve to be picked apart, if not picked off altogether.  And to the youth of America:  please wise up, stay off drugs, and get an education (if you can).  Learn about this foreign concept called RESPECT.  Aretha Franklin can teach you more about that, if you’ll turn off your crappy Lil’ Wayne CD long enough to give real music a chance.  And a little self-respect should be included in that learning process, in the form of how you present yourself.  Freakish tattoos and sagging earlobes that rest on your shoulders do NOT make good impressions when it comes time to get a real job.  Unless, of course, you consider a real job to be working at a tattoo parlor.  Then it works fine.

I weep for the future of America, and all the nimrods who thought Barack Obama was going to save it.  If I may quote Jack Nicholson’s Joker character in the 1989 “Batman” film:  “This town needs an enema…”  So does this nation.

All The Talking In The World

Back around July 10th, I came across an article that indicated the Taliban would be willing to talk to the U.S., according to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.  The ISI still has communication channels to various warlords and leadership figures in the Taliban, including Mullah Omar himself.  These communication channels have apparently existed since the 1980s when the ISI (with help from the U.S.) was supporting the mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviets.

I find it interesting that our supposed “ally” in the war on terror, Pakistan, has had these communication channels at their disposal all along since we first became embroiled in the war on terror in 2001, and only NOW have they revealed that these communication channels exist.  We’ve been looking for Mullah Omar since day one.  If Pakistan had been so interested in helping out the U.S. (which clearly they have not been), then they should have helped us to exploit those channels in such a way that we could have tracked them and led us straight to the head of the snake.  Rather than do that, they’ve kept this trump card in their back pockets and sucked the U.S. for every dollar of money they could get.  We’ve pumped an inordinate amount of money into Pakistan’s government and economy, all in the interest of gaining their favor to help our efforts in the war on terror.  And what do we have to show for it?  Okay, so they’ve let the U.S. military’s supply lines pass through their territories.  They’ve done that much.  They’ve allowed us to pass through their airspace.  I hardly call that a great deal of “support”.

Instead, they’ve connived and conspired to suck us dry, while allowing the Taliban to run rampant in their ungovernable territories.  When the Taliban got too cocky and started suicide bombing Pakistani civilian targets (as well as government targets), the government negotiated peace talks with the Taliban.  That resulted in granting the Taliban the right to impose sharia law in “their” turf in and around the Swat Valley.  The Taliban was given an inch, so they took a mile.  They took a LOT of miles, actually – to the point where they were within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.  That woke up the Paks, and they decided to push the Taliban back out.  That battle is still raging on, although from what I’ve read it’s somewhat stalemated at the moment.

Regardless, the point I’m trying to make is this:  Pakistan foolishly decided to engage in “peace talks” with the Taliban.  They actually believed that the Taliban was willing to embrace a peaceful solution to the conflict.  The problem is that the Taliban always attempts to use the “peace talks” tactic when they’re on the ropes and they need time to retreat and regroup.  If any overtures are being made by Mullah Omar to engage in “peace talks” with the U.S., you can rest assured that such overtures are NOT legitimate.  They are simply a stalling tactic to allow the Taliban insurgents time to regroup and re-strategize.  I’m unsure why the ISI is even floating the idea of such talks when they themselves fell victim to the folly of “negotiating” with the Taliban.  They attempted it, and they got burned.

Folks, the Taliban does not negotiate.  They do not honor agreements.  They don’t MAKE legitimate agreements.  They lie, cheat, and connive in order to further their sadistic cause.  Obama has already indicated that he’s willing to talk to anyone that will engage him.  If he’s truly that trusting with the Taliban and Mullah Omar, then he’s going to get burned.  And when I say “he”, I mean “us”.  Our troops will be the ones to pay for such a foolish endeavor.  I can already envision some sort of “cease fire” being negotiated, immediately followed by a blatant disregard for it by the Taliban.  Either innocent civilians will pay the price, or our troops on the front lines will.  Or both.  No matter how you shake it, attempting to negotiate peace with people who know nothing of peace is a waste of time.  I just hope our blissfully ignorant president realizes that.

Another interesting article I read on Time.com covered the new strategy that our military is taking in Afghanistan.  Apparently, since the Afghans have become so enraged about civilian casualties suffered from U.S. airstrikes on buildings containing Taliban insurgents, it has been decided by our president that a new tack must be taken in order to win back the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.  Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked for the resignation of General David McKiernan, who was the commander in charge of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.  Historically, our forces under General McKiernan have generally used the strategy of calling in airstrikes on target buildings known to contain Taliban insurgents.  This is safer for our troops, as they do not have to storm booby-trapped compounds bristling with bad guys in every corner.  Using such airstrikes, the bad guys die, and our boys get to go back to base.  It’s a win-win for our troops this way.  Sadly, Taliban insurgents often hole up with civilians, using them as human shields and putting them in harm’s way.  This plays into their hands, because they can use the innocent deaths as propaganda when slamming the West in the media.  Our military has always done a good job of trying to avoid collateral damage and loss of innocent life, but the way the Taliban chooses to “fight” (and I use that term loosely – they fight like cowards, not like men), it often puts us in a bad position.

But there’s a new marshal in town where the ISAF is concerned:  General Stanley McChrystal has been installed as the new commander of ISAF.  And he’s taking his commander-in-chief’s lead in changing the way our forces conduct business on the ground in Afghanistan.  Airstrikes are to be nearly eliminated as a means of disposing of Taliban hold-outs.  The reason, obviously, is to reduce or eliminate the potential for innocent civilian casualties.  This is a noble endeavor to be sure, but here’s the “gotcha” that I see in this strategy.  This is going to force ISAF troops to eliminate hidden insurgents the old-fashioned and dangerous way:  face-to-face, gun-to-gun, hand-to-hand.  If you think you’ve seen a lot of good soldiers die from IEDs, you haven’t seen anything yet when the time comes for our troops to clear buildings and compounds room by room.  Sure, these guys train for this stuff, and can do the job effectively.  But it’s considerably more dangerous than dropping a few smart bombs on a known Taliban target.

Some may say that calling in airstrikes is no more honorable a way to conduct warfare than when the Taliban hides out among civilians.  But my retort for that notion is that we wouldn’t HAVE to airstrike targets in the first place if the Taliban insurgents would come out and fight like men.  Our soldiers would love nothing more than an open gunbattle with identifiable combatants that fight like soldiers.  We could completely wipe the floor with any group of Taliban fighters if they would actually FIGHT.  But they snipe and ambush and plant IEDs, conducting themselves in something even less than guerilla-style.  Their methods are just plain pathetic.  They strike and then run away like pansies, hiding out amongst women and children.  The Taliban are cowards of the lowest sort.  They talk a big game, but when push comes to shove, they run and hide rather than stand and fight.  This leaves us no choice but to choose an equally low method of elimination:  airstrikes.

Frankly, I’m all in favor of bombing the living bejesus out of them whenever possible.  If they nestle in like ticks, then roast ‘em.  Sure, we’ll probably take out some “innocent” civilians along the way, but when it comes down to it, those “innocent” civilians are often poppy farmers, cultivating their cash crop to make a quick buck.  Their money often ends up in the hands of the Taliban, and their product ends up on our streets, in the bloodstreams of countless drug-abusing ASSHOLES here in America.  Incidentally, allow me to take this opportunity to openly insult drug users here in the States:  every time one of you assholes uses a narcotic, you’re potentially supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Nicely done, you fucking losers.  Do us all a favor and overdose sooner rather than later, okay?  But I digress…

I don’t like the U.S. to be part and parcel to the deaths of innocent women and children – please don’t misunderstand me.  Every time we inadvertently kill innocent people, we create new enemies in those that survive.  I fully understand this.  My take on the matter is that most of these people are our enemies anyway, and I don’t really believe that we are ever going to succeed in winning over their hearts and minds.  Our government, to its credit, is attempting to do more to provide money and opportunities to the average, uneducated Afghan, which in theory should help turn them away from violence and help them become more civilized.  But you mustn’t forget one important fact here:  they’re all Muslims.

Islam is fundamentally incompatible with the West.  I’ve written on this topic many times.  If moderate Islam is the dominant force in the world, then why aren’t the moderates doing more to isolate and eliminate their extremist brethren?  Where is their sacred notion of “jihad”, or “struggle”, for their faith?  Why won’t they claim their “tolerant” faith back from the extremists?  Rather than castigate fundamental extremists and eliminate them, the moderates often side with them, even if they aren’t willing to strap on a suicide vest or to plant the next IED.  In principle, moderates will always side with a fellow Muslim long before siding with an infidel who tries to win them over with money and job opportunities.

I truly wish it were so simple to win over the hearts and minds of Afghans by building them schools and roads and hospitals.  But I’m willing to bet that in that war-torn pile of rubble we call Afghanistan, those projects don’t stand a chance of succeeding.  Who’s going to teach in Afghanistan?  Who’s going to work in an Afghani hospital?  Who’s going to drive on the nice new roads?  Most folks over there don’t have their own vehicles.  Most folks over there aren’t going to be schooled to become doctors.  Most folks over there are certainly not going to worry about teaching a version of Islam to their children that can tolerate Western points of view in any new school we build.

Islam is a lost cause.  All the talking in the world isn’t going to change that fact, and all the painstaking care our troops take to spare innocent civilian lives isn’t going to change the Afghans’ opinions of Americans.  The only outcome of our being more careful regarding Afghani civilians is that we’re going to fill a lot more body bags with American soldiers.  In the end, Afghans will still hate the West because Afghans are Muslims.  That being the case, why not bomb them?

I don’t recall seeing much Afghan sorrow for the loss of 3000 innocent American lives on 9/11.  Rest assured, they’re feeling some sorrow now.  Let them hurt.  Pain is all they understand.  Kindness sure as hell is not something they understand or embrace.

My Thoughts On Obama’s “A New Beginning” Speech (June 4, 2009)

I forgot to set my DVR to record Obama’s speech to the Muslim world this morning.  I wish I had remembered to do so, because I prefer to see such speeches live to observe not only the actual delivery, but also to observe the audience’s reaction.

Thankfully, CNN.com posted a transcript of the speech shortly thereafter, which I promptly downloaded and read.  My first observation is this:  if this were a college speech course and Obama were a student in class, he would probably flunk the speech course for plagiarism.  It’s truly uncanny how much material his speech writers lifted from George Bush’s speech writers.  If I bothered to track down all the detailed records of such things, I could probably match a number of phrases verbatim with phrases snagged from speeches that Bush has given over the years.

What really sickens me is that Obama is going to be glorified for making the same comments that Bush was vilified for making.  I don’t understand it, but that’s how it will undoubtedly play out.  Maybe if George Bush had a Chia Pet designed after him, or a collectible plate made to honor him, his speeches would have somehow carried as much weight as Obama’s “groundbreaking” speech this morning.  I guess if you’ve got slick images and slick catch-phrases on your campaign posters, your words somehow carry more weight than the other guy’s, even if your words ARE the other guy’s.

That aside, as a whole, the speech itself was well done.  The messages contained within are mostly on the money.  Of course, there are a few statements about which I would like to make some comments.  I’ve selected the excerpts that stood out as “gotchas” in my mind, and will follow each with my comments:

“And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

I guess this means that Obama’s gonna scold me for my scathing viewpoints on Islam contained within these blogs.  If Mr. Liberal sends his goons out to censor this blog, folks, then rest assured that Obama is a far greater threat to our civil liberties than George Bush ever was.

“Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion.”

The problem I see with that statement is that it ignores the fact that Islam by its very nature does not really allow for freedom of religion.  With Islam, it IS the religion, and will tolerate no other.  Well, let me amend that.  If Muslims follow the Koran’s rules for “tolerating” peoples of other faiths, then you’ll find that people of other faiths must pay a fee called the jizya, which then entitles them “protection” by the Islamic state.  In our culture, we call that extortion.  Organized crime has used that tactic quite regularly here, offering “protection” to its subjects.  In Islam, this is expected.  This is the “holy” way to accept people of different religious beliefs.  When an outsider pays the jizya, he/she is known as a dhimmi.  A dhimmi would typically have fewer legal and social rights than a Muslim.  So much for convincing Muslims that freedom of religion is a must.  That notion is contrary to Islam.  And if you’re an agnostic, well, then you’re just considered an infidel or worse.  That likely will lead to more severe forms of punishment, up to and possibly including death.  Oh, who I am I kidding?  It would definitely mean death.  They’re good at the killing part.  OFF with your heads, non-believers!

“So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.”

In my mind, Islam represents everything that America is NOT.  Islam is not part of America unless Islam learns to lighten the fuck up.

“Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.”

Well this is conveniently and blatantly ignorant of the facts.  I seem to recall that the United Nations tried for nearly 12 years to get Saddam to cooperate with his post Gulf War agreements and obligations, using diplomacy to do so all that time.  Saddam thumbed his nose at the world every step of the way.  It’s amazing how many Americans, including our own president, have forgotten that fact.  Obama implies here (and did so all through his election campaign) that no diplomacy was ever attempted prior to our 2003 invasion of Iraq.  That’s complete bullshit.  Saddam Hussein had plenty of chances to respond to diplomatic overtures up until March of 2003.  He essentially flipped us off repeatedly.  This is why we WENT to war against Iraq: because Saddam refused or rejected all attempts at diplomacy.  Obama is one ignorant ass if he doesn’t know this.  What the fuck is wrong with him?  I thought Obama was the intelligent one with the Harvard degree.  How is it that he doesn’t know this simple obvious fact?  Was he asleep all through the 90’s when Saddam was shooting surface-to-air missiles at our patrol aircraft in the no-fly zones?

“Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”

Not toward Jews, they don’t.  Islam is as bad as, if not worse than, the Nazis when it comes to anti-Semitism.  No tolerance there, my friends.  The news archives, hell the historical archives, are full of evidence to the contrary.

“Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of another’s.”

SOME Muslims?  I think that’s grossly understated.  While the extremist crowd may be this supposed “small minority” amongst the greater Muslim world, I think it’s safe to say that the rest who do not participate in jihadist warfare still sympathize with the cause, and often financially support such extremist movements.  More on that next…

“For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”

Zakat, as I learned today, is one of the pillars of Islam.  It is expected of Muslims to offer up a percentage of their wealth as a form of charity, or welfare, for the poor and deprived in Muslim nations.  On the surface, this sounds all fine and good.  Obama wants to help American Muslims more easily fulfill this obligation.

What Obama omitted is that the reason it’s been “difficult” for American Muslims to fulfill zakat is because we’ve learned the hard way over the years where that money is truly going:  to Hamas and Hezbollah, both terrorist organizations responsible for countless acts of bloodshed in Israel and beyond.  Hamas and Hezbollah both do perform charitable functions for the poor in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories – I’m not disputing that.  The problem is that both organizations also have military wings that commit all the atrocities that you and I see on the nightly news every day.  Since we cannot control how those umbrella organizations distribute their funds, it’s anybody’s guess how those “charitable” contributions are being utilized.  It’s just smarter on our part to freeze that money.  Sure, it causes the poor to suffer even more than they already do, but does it make sense to allow that money through so that it ends up in the hands of suicide bombers?  Those lines of cash flow were frozen for a reason.  Well, according to Obama’s statement above, he intends to resume the flow of money to those types of organizations.  Let’s hope he’s got a plan to follow that money.  I’m not betting on it…

“I know there are many – Muslim and non-Muslim – who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn’t worth the effort – that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country – you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world.”

Well there’s a statement I can almost get behind.  I used to be all in favor of moving forward and trying to live in peace with Islam.  Sadly, Islam is not in favor of moving forward and trying to live in peace with me.  Muslims are too anchored by centuries of old animosities and grudges, and after 9/11, they’ve given me a grudge to bear against them, a grudge that’s too big to simply dismiss.  Sure, I know that Al Qaeda supposedly doesn’t speak for all of Islam, but like I said earlier, walk into any number of Muslim homes throughout the Middle East, and you’re bound to see shrines and posters on the walls of their martyrdom heroes, the boys involved in jihad against the West.  The moderate majority may not all be strapping on suicide vests or hijacking aircraft, but most despise Israel and the United States just the same, and all the flowery talk in the world from Obama’s mouth isn’t going to change those opinions.  I hope I’m wrong, but Muslims around the world are very steeped in their traditions and beliefs, and many of them believe we are the devil.  All the kindness and tolerance we can muster is still likely to be insufficient to change the narrow minds of the Muslim world.

I hate to point fingers, but the Muslim world needs to step up and stamp out extremism on its part.  The more that we infidels have to do it, the more resentment we build on their side.  Since deep down I know that the “moderate” Muslim world will never muster the courage to stamp out their own extremism (because they quietly encourage it), it’s apparent to me that we need to stay the course and continue striking terrorist targets militarily.  If the Muslim world won’t address the problem within their own culture, then we will have to.  The risk of NOT doing so is that we will again face another catastrophe like 9/11 someday.  You can call that fearmongering if you want to -- it’s a nifty liberal panty waste catch phrase to throw at me.  Like I recently told a friend:  I call it awareness.  If you’ve become complacent just because we haven’t had a large scale terrorist attack since 9/11, then shame on you.  When the next one happens, it’s the complacent people that will be the first ones up in arms crying, “How could we have let this happen?  How did we not see this coming?”  Those are two sentences I heard repeated a LOT in the days following 9/11.  Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

In our post-9/11 world, there should be no excuse for not doing all we can to eradicate terrorists wherever they are.  If that can be done through Obama’s precious diplomacy, then more power to him.  The realist inside of me knows better, and knows that militarily stamping out terrorists is the better option.  12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did nothing to sort out their insolent behavior.  There comes a point where endless efforts at diplomacy, with no progress made, have to be deemed futile.  It has been said that war is nothing more than a failure of diplomacy.  But folks, sometimes diplomacy simply fails.  Military intervention finally removed Saddam from power, and slowly…EVER so slowly, Iraq is working its way back from the brink.  Unless things take a drastic turn for the worse, I foresee that in the future we will not have to continually butt heads with Iraq at the United Nations like we did all through the 90’s.  And it was military intervention that got us there.

As far as Obama’s speech today, I commend him for trying, but he didn’t say anything today that wasn’t already said by previous administrations, INCLUDING the Bush Administration.  And all of those ideas and suggestions fell on deaf ears in the Muslim world.  I don’t expect it to be any different this time around.