Day 118: Let’s Get Ready to RUMBLLLLLLEEEEEEE……
I’m on a blogging roll today. About this getting ready to rumble, though….
Sunni and Shiite Muslims are gonna have a battle royale soon and I’m gonna be right in the thick of it. A Shiite mosque was attacked yesterday and the Arab world is pointing fingers at the Sunnis. Iran would rather point its finger at the U.S. and Israel.
This wasn’t any old mosque that was attacked, apparently it housed tombs of descendants of the prophet Muhammad. Everyone’s pretty pissed. Nineteen people are already dead, according to news reports; stores and shops are closing early in the day because they fear violence at night; and an RPG fell right by our compound today. I don’t know if that last one there has anything to do with the violence, but it’s worth noting.
Here’s my take on the whole thing, and I say this at the risk of some severe backlash.
At a time when by all accounts, Islam should be making a mockery of itself, somehow it continues to be embraced by the world in general and I really don’t see how. Islam is a religion that was founded on violence, no matter what the Koran says. If you need further proof, just remember the Muhammad cartoon backlash, celebrations during Ashura, and now this…and that’s all within the past month. The line between the violent acts that the so-called “extremists” and ordinary citizens do has been erased. On the Mohammed cartoon note, people make fun of Jesus and even say His name in vain all the time. I don’t see us Christians going around burning buildings and chanting curses to everyone who speaks against His name. Instead, we speak peace and blessings to those who curse us, as the Bible instructs us to do in [bible]Luke 6:28[/bible]. Killing people and inciting violence in the name of your religion makes you look like an idiot, it brings discredit upon you and your viewpoint, and it makes your religion look like total crap.
Which brings me to another point. America will never successfully help rebuild Iraq. We can put all the money we want into the reconstruction of this place (and believe me, I have seen some good stuff and many Iraqis are thankful we are here), but please tell me how a historically Christian nation is going to rebuild an Islamic nation. It’s not going to happen. Considering that America sucks at rebuilding nations already, I think we’re gonna fall flat on our face over here and as a result, my grandchildren are going to be paying for this war in 2070.
Enough about that. That’s the hot topic of the day…other than that, our internet is STILL not up in our hooch and I’ve placed a $20 bet with my roommate that it won’t be up before I move out of here. That’s in 61 days.
Oh, by the way, I bought a DVD box set of the Simpsons today. Seasons 1-16…every episode until the currently airing season. That’s right. Haji copies…for $60. The guy wanted $75 and I was able to drop his price down to $60 when I started bidding with him at $40. Anyway, the DVD set comes in its own packaging that could fool the undiscerning eye. If only they knew how to spell and punctuate English words a little better, it would pass as legit…just about. But all in all, I have every Simpsons episode ever made…Aftan, aren’t you jealous???
Love you all, be good out there and pray for our safety. Things could get ugly here in the days and weeks to come.
[tags]mosque, Iraq, war, Christianity[/tags]
5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Jason Brewer
We suck at rebuilding nations? Look at Germany and Japan. They worked out alright. It is all this NATO bull crap that prevents us from doing what we really need to do. Just because we messed up in Vietnam doesn’t mean we are doomed. It will take time to hand it over to the Iraqis, but we didn’t come to reconstruct, that is the Iraqi’s job. We came to liberate them from Saddam and that is what we did. But we learned from the Gulf War that we can’t just back out quickly. We need to let them get on their feet. What I don’t get is why are we worrying so much about their infrastructure? Train their troops and get out! They can worry about how their government will be ran. Besides, it will eventually come to another dictatorship (good or bad). Yes I am glad we got Saddam out of power, but we need to let the Iraqis rule themselves (we can’t be their military forever).
Since we are on the subject of being other countries militaries, why is the Army in active operation in over 68 countries! We need just a few key bases around the globe, and let the rest come back home to defend in case of an attack. Sorry for rambling a whole bunch, but that is what I feel.
Feb 23rd, 2006
Jason Brewer
Whoa, sorry if that didn’t make sense. I am going off of about five hours of sleep and am very tired. So here is my point: train the Iraqi military, get out, centralize our troops in America to defend us. The end. Once again I’m sorry about that….
Feb 23rd, 2006
Aftan
Actually I am not jealous at all…why you may ask? Because I know you…being the kind, considerate, caring person you are…are going to bring them in July when you come to visit so I can burn them and have my own set! Aren’t you just the sweetest guy in the whole wide world for doing that for me!? Yea…I thought so too! hahahahahaha Heck yes to you for being so thoughtful!!! Talk to you tonight…interesting conversations I had about you today. Apparently Trina thinks you are pretty good looking…I couldnt agree more
Feb 23rd, 2006
Chris
Uh no, Jason, if we really did a decent job at rebuilding nations, we wouldn’t have to still maintain some sort of troop presence over there. I think it’s completely asinine that we have troops in Germany…Japan and Korea I can see as valid, because of the instability with North Korea.
I predict that once we finally leave Iraq, they’re gonna turn on us once Afghanistan did after we helped Bin Laden and his buddies fight of Russia during the Cold War. The future looks bleak and it’s gonna take better Republican leadership than Bush and his buddies to lead us in the direction we need to go. I support Bush but sometimes he does the dumbest stuff.
It’s as if we removed Saddam from power and then looked all around us and asked “Now what?” We are doing some good things over here, but I wish it would all come together. I understand full well that a war is not won overnight, but I think we’re eventually wasting our time over here.
Feb 24th, 2006
Jason Brewer
I have a good idea! Let’s leave our troops in our Regional Readiness Command (in the US) and pull out of the 63 countries we aren’t doing crud for. There are 2,000,000 in the Army (Active, Reserves, Nat Guard, and civilians) and they are spread all over kingdom come. Centralize in America, like we were before WWII. We do need to keep strategic bases such as Korea and Germany, ut the fact is we are spread too thin. And when crap like Katrina hits (despite all the screw ups on the Mayor and Governor’s part) half of the National Guard troops are deployed! What good does that do? I think it’s well time we come home. The only reason I want to deploy is that a couple hundred thousand of my battle-buddies are over there, and if I go it means one more dad gets to come home to see his kids. Other than that, I could care less. We did our job, and we should have trained their military by now. We could be out of there if we had played our cards right, but our Gov’t officials obviously like piddle-dee-deeing around. We did a good deed, but let’s be done with it.
Feb 24th, 2006
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