On September 17, Ann Curry of NBC News spoke with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Speaking from the presidential palace in Tehran, Mr. Rouhani denounced ISIS for its savagery, at the same time saying the coalition currently involved in fighting the Islamic State of Iran and Syria is "ridiculous."
He specifically questioned why President Obama decided to focus on airstrikes.
"Are Americans afraid of giving casualties on the ground in Iraq? Are they afraid of their soldiers being killed in the fight they claim is against terrorism? If they want to use planes and if they want to use unmanned planes so that nobody is injured from the Americans, is it really possible to fight terrorism without any hardship, without any sacrifice? Is it possible to reach a big goal without that? In all regional and international issues, the victorious one is the one who is ready to do sacrifice."
CBS' Charlie Rose spoke with Mr. Rouhani yesterday and the Iranian leader again spoke of what he sees as a wrongful approach to terrorism in the Middle East.
"The way to combat terrorism, sir, is not for us to give birth to another terrorist group in order to stand up to an existing terrorist group. These are the series of mistakes that have composed the rings of the chain that have taken us from where we were to where we are today, we must accept the realities."
what eye thynk: First, I want to address his remarks about "sacrifice," remarks that I find especially galling.
As of April 2014, over 6800 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I say we've sacrificed enough.
And, yes, our invasion of Iraq really had nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with a weak and clueless President looking to "one-up" his father and who was being led by a war-mongering Secretary of State who saw an opportunity for huge personal economic gain. It was a recipe created by a chef using all-artificial ingredients and then sold to a restaurateur who never owned an oven. But that does not mean we have not sacrificed.
But, when it comes to his remarks to Charlie Rose about giving "birth to another terrorist group," I hate to admit it, but I agree with him. Arming one foreign, religious-based group to fight against another foreign religion-based group is what got us where we are in the first place. If (or when) we dismantle ISIS, there will be another group waiting to take its place. It's like an international game of Whack-a-Mole where nobody ever wins.
And, it all comes back to the Cheney/Bush decision to invade a country using cooked up evidence, an ill-conceived meal for which we are still paying the tab.
Not to make light of the result, I find this cartoon more true than not:
We, the good old US of A, started something that we were totally unprepared for. We did the same thing in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteLater on, we saw the good old USSR do it in Afghanistan. We even compared that war to our miscalculation in Vietnam. We pointed out that an 'ideal' cannot be defeated, but Russia, etal, soldiered on and, ... well, they got their collective communist butts whipped.
We patted ourselves on the back because we knew that would be the outcome. Especially after Vietnam.
So, what did we do next? We invaded Afghanistan. Now there's a classic case of learning how to correct our mistakes: repeat them.
Then Dubbya invaded oil rich Iraq to free a peace loving population by bringing our boys and girls and occupying a country comprised largely by Muslim folks and impose our will on them. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Now we know. Oh what a terrible web we weave ...