Soldiers Pulling out of Iraq's Cities...

I saw a picture today on the BBC site, with a line of soldiers outlined on an horizon, marching as if toward home.

We are at a very tricky point in Iraq. If the extremists decide to come back in and fight the Police and Iraqi military after our troops pull out. the USA will be forced to possibly make an unpopular decision.

I want the war to end. I sympathisize with the security concerns that make the ending of this conflict so complicated that years are involved. We have to leave behind in the country a seed of Democracy. Saddam Gone. Democracy declared. The battle line drawn between the extremist jihadists and the forces of the free. I do salute the soldiers for fighting this hard, horrible battle. They are the front line. Between us and the masses of folk who would reduce our lives to their particular religous vision.

I am sympathetic to anyone who is oppressed, at war, etc... However, the Taliban and their influence is the fucking enemy to people like me, and the people I love. Oppressing women. Period. Nothing else I have to say about that religous delusion. Add to that stoning adultererr's, killing Christians, etc... Taking the women out of school is a sin against humanity itself. This is pure and simple prejudice, and however institutionalized and sanitized it is in some countries (like saudi arabia, where women cannot have drivers licenses, passports, fly on their own... the system is built to enslave, and indeed, a many servants have found themselves enslaved in such system -- remember, there is more slavery now than ever before in the history of the planet... if you do not see it all over the place, that is simply because you are not looking. People run around making opinions about Paris Hilton, instead of going after slave masters.

I mean, have you ever heard of a charity that free's slaves? You would think the black community in Chicago would be involved in such an endeavor, but they tend to think they have enough on their hands representing their communities, and with everything so ultimatly out of control in certain ways, they have to choose their battles carefully because war can break out anywhere.

The allied forces in the Middle East are the predecessors of the wars to come. Iran and Syria and other countries who are not under Russia, america or China's nuclear net, are going to be scrambling for the bomb. Lot of countries already have it, and they will not stop until they have one. One of the countries they consider their worst enemy, Israel, has nukes... so there is no way that they can go against the most demonized government in the area, unless they can fight nuke-fire with fire...

I like to think the USA could lead the world in reducing nuclear bombs, and offering help to countries who wish to use nuclear power, as long as they then sign a treaty allowing inspections, etc. Why not? They are going to get bombs if they want them bad enough, and pretending otherwise is foolish. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt that very much.... We need to go in now and do everything we can to settle this peacefully. If we continue to fly in,like Israel did with Syria, and blow up their nuclear facilities, we are inevitably going to miss one. All it takes is One Bomb, mind you, to bring nightmares to life.

How does one start a movement that transcends religous and political differences, and peacefully applies a few universal principle? I think of the soldiers like this to some degree. The principles may be written in blood at first, but freedom is something that we breath here in the usa like air, and we notice it almost as much... take it away, like happened to me when I went to jail, and you realize just what is meaningful in this world. Being Free is more important than being alive to.

Soldiers have fought for this creed on american soil for as long as humans have existed. Native Americans fought one another, enslaved one another. Europeans kept serfs and treated them like slaves. African tribes sold each other. The middle east is filled with endentured servents, the eastern block overflowing with enslaved prostitutes, children being exploited almost anywhere the law has short arms or is just plain old corrupt. These are wars that we expect the police force to deal with, and they don't.

Why cannot a people's movement be started that supports worldwide activists who call out theses industries, expose them, and try to get the attention of law enforcement officials? People would donate money to buy children and others out of slavery. I dream of being a millionaire and hiring a small army of mercenaries, killing our way through the organized crime behind the slavery, and setting the women and children free to heal in some mountain retreat.

Soldiers and activists, activists and soldiers. What we really are is the infantry -- as in how the Romans used the term, which meant sending out the youngest soldiers first into battle so they would get killed and not them. We still send our young out first to die.

I am proud of soldiers. Have quite a few in my famalies history, stretching back over a thousand years of blood. I respect the sacrifice, know what they are going through is much worse than I could ever imagine. I see their names on the tv on Sunday Mornings, the weeks' dead, as George Stephanapolous looks all serious. Some are too young to have lived much of a life at all. Others old enough to leave a life half lived behind.

I wonder at such times, if George Bush, in lying about nuclear bombs and al queda connections in Iraq, didn't cause all these deaths for no good reason at all? I remember than how much I despised Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, even before america declared them the enemy. And I wanted to see their movements stopped. I could see how dangerous religous extremists would be with nuclear bombs. God could tell them to do something that no sane man would. They want to be martyred, you see, so it is win/win to them if they kill us and die. Like playing a video game where whoever you kill goes to hell, while your fallen rise to heaven into a horizon filled with 72 virgins spread eagle, their labias looking all pink and juicy... dripping into small pools at their feet as they await their Martyr.

In times of war, no matter what our Mullah's or ministers mumble, God takes the side of widows and orphans, and soldiers on all sides, forced to go into a war where the enemy could be anywhere, anytime. How appalling. Can you imagine living in a place where at any moment, an enemy could be lurking, driving by, watching you from a window as they plan their next attack on you and yours? The very ground at your feet could betray you and just fuckig explode.

I was raised on a library in Garrett, Indiana, and heavily influenced by a series of elementary level biographies about Great Men; Lincoln, Washington, etc.. a lot of them were soldiers. I played soldier like anyone. Loved the John Wayne movies...

Then I saw the Vietnam war as a huge mistake. We were the colonialists. Most would argue that the history comes down to this -- we not only fought on the wrong side, we created it ourselves. I lost a lot of faith in the judgement of the armed forces, as well as the politicians, during those years. This one war stopped the USA from wanting to send troops anywhere -- Bosnia's Ethnic Cleansing -- the mass murder and land grab that stains their culture -- finally got Clinton to act. We saved lives. The situation was horrifying.

This was a noble cause. Not some Big Brother machine that was out to take my mind and body for the usages of theMilitary Industrial Complex; just an army sent out across the planet to stop mass murder. Had we not opened our two front war, I would have liked to see our soldiers in Darfur. Years ago. Why not?

Iraq, however we got there, is where we are... the pile of shit George Bush left behind has to be cleaned up. Obama has to make sure that the citizens of Iraq are not left livingin war zones when we leave. If the peace is that tentative, then our pledges to remove troops from Iraq should be changed. Period. It is that simple. Just say, to the american people, this is the only way we can guarantee the safety of the civilians.

Probably will not come to that. Our soldiers will pull out, mostly, and spend their time training new troops to maintain the lines of order that they have left behind in the hands of the fledging Iraqi Police Force, Army, etc...

Others will go where we should have went, after al queda, in Afganistan.

I want to see our soldiers stop the spread of this mental virus. Someone has to do confront the kind of warped minds that blow up a statue of Buddha on a mountain because it offends their religous sensibilities... bans music, keeps women our of schools, etc...

I am proud of the soldiers who removed Saddam Hussein. The people of that country have been given a gift that they will understand as the years pass and the wounds heal. There will be a day when their history books will tell about the Americans who saved their country from a dictator. Afganistan will one day tell their children about how the americans fought of the Taliban, so their country could remain a democracy. This is their revolution. Their chance change for the better. Seize that fucking day.

Why not? Today they were all out celebrating that the American soldiers leaving their city.

I follow the war. Try to imagine what the soldiers are going through, research what the stat's say about how their minds have been effected -- especially after the Stop Gapping started to unravel otherwise sane soldiers.

What are our soldiers symbolically representing as they slouch into Bethelhem? In a way, they are the secular soldiers stopping religous fanaticism. The Taliban originally got a toe hold in Afganistan and other countries, because they offered Law where there was none. They were willing to give up freedoms to get security. First things first, I understand. No one should have to make such choices, and no one can be blamed for doing whatever they could to stop the lawlesnes that was erroding their countries.

Our soldiers give them an option, now. They may hate us a bit, because we brought Hell's Own Fire when we attacked them; later they will benefit from our efforts, whether they acknowledge our footnote in their story.

TO BE CONTINUED....

.. yet writing about the world of war is difficult for me. What else can I add to the endless chatter about these wars?

Some 131,000 US troops remain in Iraq, including 12 combat brigades, and the total is not expected to drop below 128,000 until after the Iraqi national election next January.

'Now is the time'

Iraqi soldiers paraded through Baghdad's streets on Monday in vehicles decorated with flowers and Iraqi flags, while patriotic songs were played through loudspeakers at checkpoints.

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway