"Bait"
An Iraqi blogger weighs in on the "flypaper" rationale:
Back to Bush. There was one sentence in what he said that really provoked me and made me feel disgusted. I was about to throw the ash tray at the TV when he said "to win the war on terror we must take the fight to the enemy." how dare he say that? He brought these enemies to our country and now he wants to fight them there? to keep Americans safe?!! Is it on the expense of innocent people?! Is it on the expense of destroying and dividing an entire country to make Americans safe?! I consider every American supporting him in that is selfish and mean and blood thirsty. Think of the bread you are eating and compare it to the blood-mixed bread Iraqis are eating. Think of the children crying when they hear an explosion. Think of the pregnant who lost their babies because they were unable to reach the hospital. Think of those deprived from their education. All of this is happening because his majesty believes in "taking the fight to the enemy" so that you become safe and we become the bait in which he could catch "terrorists" with.Anyone who thinks the carnage over which we're presiding in Iraq is making us "safer" is delusional. Remember, there are now hundreds of thousands (or more) Iraqis who have lost a child, sibling, parent or relative -- most at the hands of other Iraqis, but some from our bombs and bullets (and now Iraqis have started blaming Augmentation/Plus Up for bombings like the one last weekend that destroyed a Shiite market in Baghdad). Is it unreasonable to worry that at some point a sliver of the accumulated anger from all that loss might touch us here? As the means of destruction become ever more available to individuals via vials and backpacks -- no safe haven or "caliphate" required -- it's worth thinking about.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Tuesday, February 06, 2007
18 Comments:
Thanks very much for this. Maybe it will help me the next time I get in an argument with my unquestioning Bush loyalist/war supporting sister. But probably not. There's no reasoning with these people. How anyone can think that our actions in Iraq are justified because we are now fighting a small number of al-Queda jihadists who were drawn there by our invasion is just incomprehensible to me.
IMO you have written the best piece ever on "flypaper" http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2005/07/tragedy-and-failing-strategy.html
But has anyone thought about why we're justified in using another nation as flypaper in the first place, even if it was a viable, effective strategy? What gives us the right to use a sovereign nation as a catch basin for carnage so we can go on blissfully consuming and merrily flipping real estate here? Instead of flypaper, this should be called the "Night of the Living Dead Nation" strategy---using the undead, zombie-like carcass of a failed state for our own benefit. Beyond the sheer selfish immorality of it, has anyone thought about the potential for blowback? How would you feel if we were invaded by the Chinese on a false pretense, and they stated openly that their strategy was to attract and fight the scum of the earth in the streets of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago so they did not have to fight in Beijing?
I wish more people had the guts to say it.
Not to worry. In the fullness of time, we can cite those same embittered Iraqis you describe for the next cycle of fear- and hysteria-mongering. Thus, the permanent garrison state can grow ever stronger, and demand even more trillions from the public trough. In this way, Iraq is an unmitigated success.
-- sglover
What I don't understand about the "flypaper" argument is how the invasion of Iraq is/was supposed to keep us from being attacked. While it may be true that anti-American terrorists joined in the battle for Iraq, there's nothing about the invasion that in any way prevents another 9/11-type attack (or even diminishes the threat of such an attack). Does the Bush Administration really believe that the terrorists are so stupid that they can't simply open up another "front" in their "war" against us by setting off a suicide bomb in Times Square?
"But they certainly believed that enough Americans were so stupid..."
They did and they do.
For example: the 2003 SOTU is a prime example of the level of contempt the administration holds not only for average Americans but also for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both Houses of Congress, and The Supreme Court (who were all in attendance whilst George W. Bush smirked his way through one dissemblance after another). A grand deception for all to see. One wonders if that speech, in of itself, isn't grounds for remedy?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020107N.shtml
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020407D.shtml
The "flypapaer" only works for the US...other members of the "Coalition of the willing" were hit after the invasion. Call it selective flypaper!
All of the many rationale for war require ignorance of the public in one shape or form.
1. Iraq-911 connection
2. Democracy blooming/ greeted as liberators.
3."WMDs" as if ww1 era mustard gas(which sane people thought iraq had)was worth an invastion and Nuclear program(which only cheney thought Iraq had) but was worth an invasion or somehow the same!!! Yeah that is right ..."WMD" mustard gas/nukes...its all the same.
4. "flypaper"
The american public got the war it deserved...for being stupid!
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/02/06/lieberman-suggests-a-war-on-terrorism-tax/
I wouldn't call the American people stupid, rather too inclined to trust authority. We entrust Presidents with broad powers. Sometimes those we entrust are naturally inclined to abuse those powers.
http://www.votesolari.com/catherinesblog/?p=96
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/possessed.html
Your post, CR, strikes at the heart of a wild irony I've suffered of late: The grizzlier the scenes from the streets of Baghdad become, the more I encourage the war effort, especially the possibility of a draft which I wholeheartedly support.
Only then might we realize the seismic magnitude of this terrible debacle. For decades, we’ve pooh-poohed European powers such as France for being too reluctant to take up arms. (We’ve tolerated England’s reluctance only because it reminds us of our own by-gone and glorious victories.) It’s impossible for us to fathom what the word “war” means to the billions of people who populate Europe and the Middle East, or Africa and the rest of Asia for that matter. We scratch our heads when they insist on giving diplomacy another chance or believe the United Nations might bring two rival countries to the table. From the comfort of the Western hemisphere, with two world oceans skirting our shores, we pretend to understand what it means to go to war. We meddle in centuries old disputes and fragile societies for the sake of national security, which has sadly become a euphemism for economic prosperity and an ever-bullish stock market. Foreign cities are raised, death squads roam Iraqi streets, and we talk knowingly of the brutality of war. Evasion, hypocrisy, and outright lies have become the lexicon of our national language, and perhaps a cornerstone of our national character. Only recently have our leaders and begun to understand how the Sunni-Shiite schism might affect the situation in Iraq, and this nearly FOUR YEARS after the invasion began.
The amount of recruiting material we provide the caliphs in Sadr City boggles the mind. “See,” he tells them, pointing to the front page of the New York Times, “they are a nation of mercenaries. They first vote for war and then complain about budgets and outlays. The war is not efficient enough for them, they say. The killing is not efficient enough.”
We owe it to the Iraqi people to get this right.
Thanks for article!
Thanks for interesting article.
Glad to read articles like this. Thanks to author!
Excellent website. Good work. Very useful. I will bookmark!
Thank you for sharing.
It's cruel as you said... The world should nto be like this... but It is, is sad, innocent people die everyday because people like him wants money and money and more money.
oh my god, I'm totally agree with you, poor babies, poor woman poor man.
obama need to stop this please they need peace
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