Reposting of a quote from His Holiness, the Dalia Lama - gone crazy on facebook.

So the yesterday I posted a comment, a repost actually, from the Dalia Lama. Here is the post – “Love, compassion and concern for others are real sources of happiness. If you have these in abundance, you will not be disturbed even by the most uncomfortable circumstances. If you nurse hatred, however, you will not be happy even in the lap of luxury. Thus, if we really want happiness, we must widen the sphere of love. This is both religious thinking and basic common sense” and I added “- HH the 14th Dalai Lama”. Well from there , I am not sure how, it digressed into questions about my patriotism and comparing comments I made to doing a disservice to someone’s son, who PROUDLY served in the military – that WAS NOT my intent.

I want to warn you now though, if you are a Fox News automaton who lives, breathes and gets their talking points from the likes of Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly you should stop reading now because you will not enjoy the rest of this blog. There are still people who believe the United States did not START two wars by invading two different Sovereign Nations and I find that almost incomprehensible to understand. I can tell already, someone kept reading and their blood pressure just spiked, sorry but I told you to stop reading. I cannot be held responsible for any heart attacks, coronaries, strokes or any other malady brought on by reading further - ijs.

I remember 9-11 and I remember the stories about why we needed to invade these countries, testosterone and patriotism run amok is all I saw and it saddened me. Afghanistan did not blow up the twin towers, Iraq did not blow up the twin towers, invading those countries was testosterone and patriotism mixed together at a costly and ridiculous level.

First I guess I need to say that the war on terror is just as stupid as the war on drugs. War, by definition is (from dictionary.reference.com)

1. a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.
2. a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations: The two nations were at war with each other.
3. a contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns: the War of 1812.

We have deluded the meaning of war by attaching “war” to ideological differences. A war on drugs, a war on terror, they are nothing more than buzz words and they are silly, stupid and costly. How can you wage war on an ideology, it is an opened ended fool’s errand. Take a look at the war on drugs, how is that going for us and how much has it cost us? So tell me, how exactly, do you send troops to fight an ideology (terror), instead find the perpetrators of terror and systematically eliminate them

Now as much as it may surprise you al-Qa'ida is not a nation, not a place and not something that is tangible, it is a rag tag group of terrorists, who got lucky and were able to commit a horrible attack on the United States. al-Qa'ida, is a global militant Islamist group founded by Osama bin Laden back in the 1980’s, they say it operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad – not a place mind you, another ideology.

The folks who were in charge of Afghanistan were the Taliban, which means students in Arabic in case you did not know, were an Islamist militia group that ruled large parts of Afghanistan from September 1996 onwards. Although in control of Afghanistan's capital and most of the country for five years, the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Those that recognized their country speak volumes on unasked questions I think. While they were bad people who repressed the population in unimaginable ways, they did not plan, coordinate or execute the attacks on the United States. I think it is clear that we started that war and invaded that country. They did nothing but provide al-Qa'ida with a place to hang out. As did, AS DID Pakistan, the Sudan and many others countries that were not so easy to invade, so Afghanistan drew the short straw, sorry you get the shitty end of the stick Afghanistan.

There was one place that al-Qa'ida was NOT and that was Iraq. Saddam Hussein was WAY too much of a megalomaniac to allow ANYONE or ANY THING to block the sun from his presence. There is no way that the boogie men moved to Iraq when we invaded Afghanistan. It would be comparable to saying that the French moved to Austria after Hitler circumvented the Maginot line by going north through Belgium and took up the battle there, it is just as ludicrous. And yet there we are, still in that country, still spending an obscene amount of our taxpayer money. Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States on 9-11, he was a bad man and his government was tyrannical, he was a shit heel, but he did not attack us. There are A LOT of those types of leaders around the world, why not pick that one? We invaded a second sovereign nation within 2 years of invading Afghanistan. We put testosterone and patriotism together in the most heinous way, in a way that if one questioned the motives, asked why are we doing this, we had our own patriotism called into question – what bullshit!!

To me this war on terror is the worst thing our country has ever done and world history will not be kind to us when it looks back on these wars. War is NEVER a good thing and a nation should deliberate carefully before engaging in it. Let’s look back at our own history as a nation. If we go back to WWI the United States did not declare war until after the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson then called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917, that was 3 years after the war started, and then it was in defense of others and not a proactive attack on a sovereign nation. It was weighed very carefully (3 years) and there were clearly defined goals and a strategy. Same with WWII, Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 (he was being a rascal long before that though) and we did not declare war until late 1941, that day that will live in infamy when Japan perpetrated that horrible attack on Pearl harbor. There is an example of war, Japan attacked us, it was not a group that happened to be in Japan, but the government of Japan itself.

The term War on Terror was coined in the aftermath of 9-11 by President Bush, we were all stinging from the chaos our country was thrown into. We had a cowboy President standing on the rubble calling for action, here are the words:
President Bush: Thank you all. I want you all to know -- it [bullhorn] can't go any louder -- I want you all to know that American today, American today is on bended knee, in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. The nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens
Rescue Worker: I can't hear you!
President Bush: I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!
Rescue Workers: [Chanting] U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
President Bush: The nation -- The nation sends its love and compassion --
Rescue Worker: God bless America!
President Bush: -- to everybody who is here. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for makin' the nation proud, and may God bless America.
Rescue Workers: [Chanting] U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.

All patriot stuff, very cool and it all needed saying but the thing that never happened – cooler heads did not prevail. When faced with a crisis of that magnitude cooler heads had to prevail, but did not.  We needed our leaders to lead at that critical moment and they lead us into the craziest 10 years in our countries history.

Having served in the Military for 10 years I know we have capabilities that are beyond the comprehension of most, what should have happened is a strategic attack, against the actual terrorists. We could have reached out with any number of assets and jerked a knock in Osama Bin Ladin’s ass and every one of the leaders of that organization. No need to invade a country, just a well-planned mission using highly trained operators sent into a sovereign nation to kill a bad man who did bad things. Hey, wait minute….. isn’t that what we ended up doing to get him anyway? Almost 10 years later the name Osama Bin Laden should be nothing but a bad memory from long ago – him and his organization should have been systematically taken apart by the end of September 2001 - regardless of where the bastards were hiding. There would be no need to invade countries to do that and no need to have spent over a TRILLION dollars to get him – OBVIOUSLY!

I know this will not go over well for many, sorry but I told you to stop reading