The bravery of the men and women in Iraq has never been an issue, but to compare the global pushback against fascism with Iraq dishonors World War II veterans and their families, friends and fellow citizens on the homefront who never wavered in their support for this just cause.
Now, I’m not going to pick on Shaun specifically, his argument is one that has been repeated plenty by lots of people flat out opposed to any military confrontation. By belittling the cause of the conflict, it makes the conflict less logical. However, I do disagree 100% with that argument. Here’s a couple of reasons why.
To keep it real simple, let’s look at dictionary.com:
…a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
Now, that seems to define the Hussein regime in a nutshell does it not? I could stop here, but my problem is much bigger than just Iraq. When Bush was comparing the struggle against terrorism, he wasn’t just pinning the entire thing on Iraq. Now I would link to a source of the comparison, but too many people feel compelled to abuse the term “fascist” by tossing out conspiracy theories that Bush is fascist. So, the problem I see more often than not is people don’t care what the term means, they just know it sounds bad and therefore it must apply to Bush. But, the fact of the matter is Iraq was a fascist state. For all intents, Iran is as well ( presidential candidates are hand-picked by a religiously intolerant committee ). North Korea is as well. The axis of evil is well-defined by fascist states where choice of religion is basically non-existent and the consequences of not following the state mandated religious fundamentals, as well as human rights, are severe to the point of allowing public stonings. That folks, is fascism pure and simple. Bush and his administration are dead on accurate calling it what it is. There’s no need to drag Hitler into the mix, fascism was state-wide in Germany as it is now in those countries. But is it on a global scale as it was during World War II? Let’s take a look, shall we? During World War II, the primary focus of the military conflict centered in Europe. Although Germany had invaded several countries, it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that finally motivated the US people to care enough to get involved. By the time the US did get directly involved, Italy had invaded North Africa and Japan had invaded most of the Pacific. All three were fascist governments of either a total degree, or partial. The US made the initial decision to take out the leader of fascism in Germany primarily. It could have been said then that by focusing on one leader in a country that did not attack the US that we had screwed up completely. However, the leader in the country who did not attack us was supplying all the others. By forcing them to focus their resources on one major conflict to protect themselves, they were no longer able to supply and abet the others in their efforts to spread their fascism.
Fast forward sixty years. We have seen several major conflicts and currently there are several conflicts going on. To make it quick, I’ll just post wiki’s summary:
- Arab-Israeli Wars
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Iranian Revolution
- Lebanon
- Iran-Iraq War
- UN-Iraq War and the later US invasion of Iraq
- Soviet-Afghan War
- US invasion of Afghanistan
- Bangaladesh‘s secession from Pakistan
- several India-Pakistan conflicts over Kashmir and the later India-Pakistan nuclear standoff
- Somalia
- Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Kosovo
- Chechen rebel movement
- Philippine rebel movement
- Saudi Arabian rebel movement
- Afghan rebel movement
- Iraqi rebel movement
Now, Wiki is simply acknowledging the major conflicts here. We have also had “radical” Muslim attacks in:
- Bali, Indonesia in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.
- London, England in 2005 ( also a thwarted bombing in 2007 )
- New York City in 1993 and 2001.
- Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.
- Saudi Arabia in 1996.
Well, to put it in a little better perspective, I’ll just post Wiki’s list:
- January, February: 52 civilians killed in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan according to Human Rights Watch.[151]
January 05, 2007 & January 06, 2007: A suspected LTTE suicide bomber blows themselves up aboard a bus and there is an explosion on another, during rush hour in Nittambuwa and Peraliya killing six and 16 civilians respectively. A further 100 are injured in the incidents.[158][159][160] See 2007 Sri Lankan bus bombs.
January 10: Three bombs kill six and injured twenty seven in the southern part of the Philippines. Muslim militants trying to disrupt ASEAN Summit suspected.[161]
January 12: Rocket causes minimal damage at the US Embassy in central Athens; police suspect spinoff of Greek left wing group November 17.[162]
January-February: 2007 United Kingdom letter bombs
January 22: A bombing in a market in Baghdad, Iraq, kills 88 people and wounds 160 others.
January 26: A suicide bomber kills himself and a security guard trying to enter the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.[163]- January 27: A suicide bombing Pakistan’s north-west city of Peshawar kills at least 14 people, mostly policemen, and injures at least 30. Security forces had been on high alert ahead of the annual Shia festival of Ashoura.[164]
January 29: A suicide bombing in the Israeli resort city of Eilat kills three people. Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed joint responsibility.[165]- February 3: A truck bombing in a crowed Baghdad market kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339 others.[166] See 3 February 2007 Baghdad market bombing.
- February 17: A suicide bomber kills 15 people, including a judge, inside a courtroom in Pakistan. The Taliban is suspected.
February 18: A car bomb in Mogadishu killed four people, the first such attack of the Islamist insurgency in Somalia (2007€present).[167]
February 19: Two bombs explode aboard the Samjhauta Express, a train headed toward Lahore, Pakistan, hour after it left New Delhi. 68 people died in the incident.[168]- February: 2007 chlorine bombings in Iraq
March 1: Ten injured in a car bomb blast in Neiva, capital of Huila. Rebel group FARC is believed to be responsible. The action is believed to be an assassination attempt on Neiva’s mayor.[169]- March 3: A bomb kills four police officers and one civilian in the city of Neiva, as they attempted to deactivate it.[169]
March 5: A Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a hit man to behead New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and bomb police headquarters in retaliation for the controversial police shooting of Sean Bell. The suspect wanted the bombing to be considered a terrorist act.[170][171]
March 5: The Taliban kidnap Italian Journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo whilst beheading his driver. Mastrogiacomo was released March 19 after Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to free five Taliban prisoners. His translator was left behind. On April 8 an Afghan government official confirmed the translator was killed.[172]- March 6: Two suicide bombers kill 114 Shiite pilgrims in Hilla, Iraq.
- March 16: A bomb kills 16 and injures 16 in Buenaventura. Authorities blame FARC.[173]
- March 22: A rocket or mortar lands within 100 yards of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in the Green Zone in Baghdad, in an apparent assassination attempt.
- March 27: Two truck bombs kill 152 people and injure 347 in Tal Afar, Iraq. See 2007 Tal Afar bombings
- March 28: A bomb injures ten in a grocery store in Buenaventura. Authorities blame FARC.[173]
- March 29: Two suicide bombers kill 79 people and injure 81 in a market of Baghdad.
- In the two weeks prior to April 8 at least thirteen Afghans and two French aid workers have been kidnapped. Rebels have demanded further releases of their jailed associates in exchange for some of the hostages.[172]
- April 9: A bomb against a police headquarters in Cali kills one and injures 30. FARC are blamed.[174]
April 10: Three suicide bombers kill one police man and injure 23 people in Casablanca, Morocco.
April 11: Two suicide car bombs kill 33 people and injure 222 in Algiers, Algeria. Al-Queda takes responsibility. See 2007 Algiers bombings- April 12: One suicide bomber kills eight people and injures 20 in the cafeteria on Iraq Parliament in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
April 12: A U.S. federal grand jury indicted Christopher Paul, 43, a U.S. citizen and resident of Columbus, Ohio on charges of joining al-Qaida and conspiring to bomb European tourist resorts and U.S. government facilities and military bases overseas.[175]- April 14: A suicide car bomb kills 65 people and injure 100 in Karbala, Iraq.
- April 14: Two suicide bombers explode near of the American Language Center in Casablanca, Morocco. One person was injured.
- April 16: Seung-Hui Cho killed 33 people including himself in the Virginia Tech massacre the worst civilian shooting spree in United States history, and the worst case of mass murder in the United States since 9/11. (Note: this may be commonly considered a general massacre and thus included in the List of massacres, but there had been several hints of Cho’s attempt to kill € an attempt to terrorize.)
- April 18: A series of explosions kill 198 people and injure 251 in Baghdad, Iraq. See 18 April 2007 Baghdad bombings
April 18: In Malatya, Turkey, hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, three Christian men, one of them 45-year-old German father of three children Tilman Geske, were brutally murdered by at least four young men who already have confessed the slayings. The assassins tortured their victims for hours before cutting their throats. An autopsy of the German victim found 156 stab wounds. Hurriyet newspaper quoted a suspect: “Let this be a lesson to enemies of our religion.”[176][177][178]
April 25: The American International School in the Gaza Strip is stormed by a dozen gunman claiming to be a members of al-Qaida of Palestine who stole eight computers, planted explosives in adjoining buildings, doused the school with gasoline and set it ablaze.[179]
April 28: Saudi Arabia announced it has arrested one hundred and seventy two people in an Al Queda plot to attack oil facilities, military bases and public figures using civilian aircraft as suicide missiles.[180]- April 28: Interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao of Pakistan suffers minor injuries, 28 are killed and 35 are injured, ten critically, in a suicide bombing after the minister had finished speaking.[181]
- April 28: A car bomb kills 63 people and injure 70 in Karbala, Iraq.
- May 6: A car bomb kills 35 people and injure 80 in Baghdad, Iraq.
- May 6. In a bomb attack on a UN-run elementary school in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah by Muslim extremists one person, a bodyguard of a local Fatah politician, was killed and eight others, including two children, were injured. The attack happened during a sports festival that earlier had been denounced as un-Islamic by the extremists.[182]
- May 7: 2007 Fort Dix attack plot Six men inspired by Jihadist videos arrested in the US, in a failed homegrown terrorism plot to kill US soldiers.
- May 9: A roadside bomb kills nine police officers engaged in anti-narcotics operations. Attacked is blamed on FARC.[183]
- May 10: A second roadside bomb kills ten soldiers while on patrol. Attack is blamed on FARC.[184]
- May 12: In Izmir, Turkey, a bomb explosion on a market kills one person and injures 14 others, one day before a planned march of secular Turks to demonstrate against the Islamic-rooted government.[185]
- May 13: A suicide truck bomb kills 50 people and injures 115 in Makhmur, Iraq.
- May 15: A bomb explodes in a restaurant in Pakistan’s north-west city of Peshawar. Up to 24 people are killed.
- May 15, May 16: Hamas launches twenty eight rockets into an Israeli town injuring five. Despite Hamas claims the motive was retaliation for Israeli violence, NBC News claims “likely it was an attempt to draw Israel into the fighting as a way of uniting the Palestinians against a common foe”.[186]
- May 18: 5-year-old Adril Watangao was killed and 37 other people were injured when a bomb, probably laid by Islamic extremists, exploded in the Weena bus terminal in Cotabato city, in the Mindanao region of southern Philippines.[187]
- May 20: Two women, one of them pregnant, were stopped at the Erez Crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip while they were en route to commit suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Netanya. Both women admitted to being members of Islamic Jihad.[188]
- May 21: A Qassam rocket fired by Hamas hits a car in Sderot, killing 35-year-old Shir-El Friedman in the blast.[189]
- May 22: A suicide bombing ripped through an Ankara shopping district Tuesday, killing at six people and wounding dozens more. See 2007 Ankara bombing.
- May 25: Attack on Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad.
- June 3: The Righteous Swords of Islam splash acid on women in the Gaza Strip who dress immodestly and threaten female employees of Palestine TV with beheading unless they dress more modestly.[190]
- June 3: John F. Kennedy International Airport terror plot. Thwarted homegrown Islamist terrorism plot to destroy the fuel supply system for the airport located in New York City and cause a large amount of causalities by blowing up the connecting pipeline system that runs through densely populated neighborhoods.
- June 3: A car-bomb suicide attack to the Prime Ministers House in Mogadishu kills six guards and injures 20, while PM Ali Mohamed Gedi survives this third assassination attempt unhurt.[191]
June 8: An explosion occurred outside of a tea shop in the city of Yala and killed one woman and wounded 28 other people.[192]- June 8: A bomb exploded on a bus as it was traveling through the town of Hub, in Baluchistan province. Two passengers died and five suffered injuries.[193]
- June 8: An improvised bomb exploded aboard a bus in a remote area of Cotabato. 10 people were injured.[194]
- June 10: A bomb exploded outside of a clothing store in Istanbul and injured 14 people.[195]
June 11: A bomb exploded in a business district of Nairobi. The blast occurred outside of the Ambassador Hotel just a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy, the scene of a devastating bomb attack in 1998, and killed one person while injuring 37 others.[196]- June 13: Explosions occurred at the Askariya mosque in Samarra and destroyed the two minarets. No casualties were reported. The same mosque was the target of a February 2006 blast that damaged the building and destroyed its golden dome.[197]
June 14: A car bomb kills ten people in Beirut, Lebanon. Among the killed is the MP Walid Eido.[198]
June 14: Motihar police were able to defuse a bomb planted at the main gate of the Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (RUET). The bomb was the latest in a series targeting the area and was claimed by Jadid al Qaeda.[199]- June 19: A truck bomb blast on a square near to a mosque killed 75 and wounded 204 people.
- June 24: A suicide car bomb targeted and killed six members of Unifil near the border with Israel. Two others were also injured. The casualties were Spanish and Colombian nationals.[200]
- June 29,June 30: 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack, 2007 London car bombs, 2007 UK terrorist incidents. Car bomb plot suspected Al-Qaeda. At Glasgow Airport car rams into main terminal causing minor injuries to five and setting off blaze. Explosive device caught fire instead of detonating. In London’s West End attempt to set off two car bombs by suspected cell phone triggers fail. One car is towed before device is discovered in underground car park. Police link two incidents. Police find suicide notes on two suspects in London incident[201].Eight men arrested. One Glasgow suspect critically burned. One of the five men could be an associate of Dhiren Bharot a high level Al-Qaeda operative. Authorities say London bombs could have caused “significant loss of life”.[202][203] The two incidents have been linked, by police, to the same two people.[204]
- June 29: Sri Lanka Navy personnel find a truck packed with over 1000 kg (2200 lbs) of high explosives in the eastern port city of Trincomalee. It is suspected the Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels were planning to use it to blow up a major civilian target in the area. Two weeks earlier a similar explosive laden truck of the Tamil Tigers was detected close to Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka.[205]
July 2: Seven Spanish tourists and at least two Yemenis killed and another 5 wounded in suicide bombing attack at the Queen of Sheba temple in Marib[20].
People, that’s JUST 2007.
Now, granted that’s the entire list and not just one specific threat, look to see how many times you see the phrases “Muslim”. What they are wanting is Sharia Law.
So, don’t belittle what’s happening now by pretending this is a silly folly in Iraq. It’s a lot more than that. If you’re offended by Bush comparing it to WWII, then call it what it is, WWIII. If these people could get ahold of nukes, I have no doubt whatsoever they’d use them in a heartbeat. And, since you’re not Muslim, they won’t care that you’re dead. If you are Muslim, but not the right kind of Muslim, it won’t matter either. That, folks, is fascism pure and simple. It’s all over the damn planet.
And, just like World War II, a LOT of US citizens are quite sure that the silly folly over there will never involve or threaten us.
The comparisons to WWII are a lot easier to make than they are to disprove.
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Moonage Political Webdream on 07.18.2007
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