Ted Cruz Assumes a Bunch of Arab Christians are Anti-Semites.
And again, this is not some nutbar out on the fringe, this is not even just an elected representative, this is a pillar of the Republican Party. Many people want this guy to run for President.
The day after the Government Shutdown ended, I saw a truck with a “Ted Cruz 2016” bumper sticker.
That was when I knew I had to get out of the South.
If anyone cares to know why I made no note of the anniversary of 9/11 yesterday, it is because I hate what happened, and most of all I hate what it did to this country. 9/11 was the test of fire for American Ideals and we failed. We so utterly failed.
Y’know, I grew up during the Cold War when all of humanity’s fate rested on two men getting out of bed on the right side every morning. And the United States was strong in our identity as Americans. We believed in our ideals of freedom, democracy (yes, I know we’re actually a republic, but you get what I’m saying) and pluralism. And of course capitalism.
And 9/11 wasn’t even the first terrorist attack on our soil (I notice no one likes to bang the drum for the Oklahoma City Bombing), but al Queda slips one by us, and we completely collapse as Americans. All those ideals just go away and were replaced by paranoia, xenophobia, limitations of our civil liberties and now even our democracy as Americans citizens across the country are being disenfranchised. The only thing that is still there is capitalism, and the Right looks to that like it is a god that is going to make all of our troubles go away if we give up our rights, our children, our standard of living and our immortal souls to it.
We are even conquerors as so many in the Right scream at the President for withdrawing troops from Iraq at the request of the democratically elected Iraq government, according to an agreement that Bush signed. I even saw one person write “Obama gave up our gains in Iraq.” Gains? We were supposedly there to fight for the freedom of the Iraq people (I distinctly remember the selling point switching from “WMDs” to that two weeks before the invasion). Maybe the Iraqis should not have asked us to leave (I think they should have, but the argument can be made that the request was premature), but they were within their rights to and we had a duty to respect their sovereign wishes.
But the Right, many of whom still think that Hussein had something to do with 9/11, think that we should basically make Iraq the 51st state so we can ‘Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.”
Never realizing that maybe if we left them alone we wouldn’t have to fight them, period. The fact is we created the environment that allowed ISIS to flourish. We politically destabilized the region and created more poverty and desperation. Moreover, all that al Queda “The great Satan” rhetoric was just theoretical until we invaded Iraq based on a lie, we went in there for the oil, for the profit of contractors, and proceeded to violate many Iraqi human rights. (Abu Ghraib anyone? You think they just forgot that? I know we want to, but they’re not gonna.) We became the terrorists’ greatest recruiting poster. So now in dealing with that problem we helped create, we are box office poison the requires a large NATO cast to legitimize our involvement.
And I was totally down with the invasion of Afghanistan, and so was most of the rest of the world. The Taliban were fuckers and they were shielding even worse fuckers who were causing problems for everyone. Yeah, take them out. No problem. That was at least reasonable. But I marched in two of the major protests in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq. Yes, Saddam was a bastard, but he was not a threat to the U.S. and there was no way to invade without it all coming apart in our hands. And again, attempts at nation building by the U.K. had already failed there. (All the academic history community was screaming ‘No! No! Don’t!”) That war cost America so much on so many levels. It is one of the greatest foreign policy blunders we have ever made.
Yet much of the U.S. is still so pants-wettingly terrified of brown people they want to do it all over again.
9/11 is the reason that so much of the U.S. has became hysterical enough to wage an unjust war and still want to wage them, no matter if it destroys our own country in the process. 9/11 is the reason that racism is openly flourishing in our county. 9/11 is the reason fuckwits like Cruz, and there are so many of them at the highest level of government now, have political power.
Because we threw our hands up, said the American Dream was a lie, and gave in to the worst devils of our nature. 9/11 was the day we lost.
Why in the name of the Gods would I need to be reminded of that?
Kip's Kardo 
This was an informative and passionate rant I very much enjoyed, However before I could leave my comment you took away the thing that made me titter somewhat…hehehe…sod.
Haha. Yes, I caught that too late! Gotta run some felines to the Vet’s. Hope you are having a good day.
Yes, I am. I’ve just bought a vintage leather jacket in the charity shop that is actually too small. But I’d rather stuff my porcine figure into it than let someone else look cool…I’m an ‘eartless wench.
I hoped sometime, somewhere we would eventually learn from our mistakes, but I forgot that war seems to be in the very heart of nations. I’d like to blame the big corporations and their greed, but even they need the cannon fodder. And without fail men, well mostly men, put themselves forward to fight for values that are ideological fakes.
These are not ‘Righteous Wars’, it’s not about honour or human rights, it’s lies, hormones, and illogical fear that drives the fodder forward into the trench and the barbed wire.
Very true, and very well put.
Rare is the just war, and always soldiers on at least one side have been conneded into fighting for something wrong.
I usually avoid discussing politics on the interwebs as I get enough aggravation just discussing an inoffensive actor. But with this post you are preachin’ to the choir. (I love that phrase :D) Amen sistah!