America: Victim or victor?

Victory is such a powerful word in America. President Bush uses it frequently in his speeches about Iraq. The other day on CSPAN, he stated, "We are going to make a democracy out of Iraq." I can only reason this is what he presumes victory to be. Democracy will be a great triumph if it happens. I am certain he would go down in the history books as a great leader. My take on this is that even if we win by this democracy measurement, America is shortchanged.
Remember September 2001? the Twin Towers? With due respect, President Bush obviously has forgotten his understanding of the Islam religion. Otherwise, how can he continue to stand in front of America and proclaim Iraq will become a democracy? A fundamentalist Muslim nation such as Iraq and the word democracy do not belong in the same sentence. Democracy in Iraq is impossibility.
It is the religion of Islam that is fighting us. We are not fighting it, but it is certainly kicking our rear end and will for years to come. In 2006, I told a Veterans Day audience the reasons I felt like this. Let me paraphrase a few of those reasons.
Islam sees Christianity as the only hindrance to its efforts of world domination. It strives to create havoc in our lives and anything to do with American traditions and values. Terrorist ambitions are to take away all certainty from our lives, to confuse us. They make us speculate about events we should not. Some features about America I do not believe need changing. For example, I see evil slipping through our doors and winning the struggle, and all I have to do is look around our country's surrounding cities and towns. In some places of worship, spiritual leaders are going as far as removing God from their appellation because those same leaders do not want to offend anyone who might otherwise attend.
"Clergy, did you ever consider you might be offending God?" I ask.
Do we allow our circumstances we find ourselves in to drive us to follow the world and take away our certainty? Is it God-inspired or of man? You decide. I close my eyes and visualize the tears flowing down the face of Jesus for our worldly actions. Members of the clergy this action relates to should be ashamed. Yes, be very ashamed. Those that remained silent and allowed it to happen, are you guilty by association?
Facilities where worship occurs for this next generation of humanity are beginning to look more like amusement centers than a holy church structure. You won't see a mosque looking like a leisure hangout with Starbucks, Burger Kings or basketball courts. Muslims remain faithful to Allah and will not desecrate the name, or even the appearance of such. Right or wrong, they hold tight to what they believe as their "certainty." Perhaps that is why they are growing stronger as we seem to grow weaker. They do not respect our Lord Jesus, and I am not totally convinced these types of actions do either.
America, you are still asleep and need to wake up. We continue to argue the wrong issues. At the beginning of the Iraq war, it was our search for weapons of mass destruction. Were any found? The answer is no.
Afterwards, we transitioned to the argument, "We have to fight 'em over there," as the Bush administration incorrectly linked Saddam Hussein with Sept. 11. In fact, time has proven the intelligence was bad. It was an honest mistake. Not enough spies, that's human intelligence, not artificial - thank the previous Clinton administration for that. Regardless, many Americans do not realize this as truth.
Then the goal was to rid the world of Hussein. We did. However, in Saddam's final 48 hours with the CIA operative who stayed with him day and night, Saddam confessed he was more show-and-tell than action about the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Saddam stated, "I had to keep up my image in the world and especially to my neighbor, Iran."
Sen. John McCain recently supported a military surge that is proven: It's working. Its success is the proof we are winning. However, another important aspect to remember is that we have spent more than five bloody, frustrating, costly years in Iraq. I supported the war those first years, and I support our troops with everything that I am, but in my opinion, the Iraq war is not winnable under the circumstances and restrictions under which we fight.
Democratic processes and victory would be great, but Islamic religion will not allow it. Haven't the thousands of years of fighting in this land presented enough convincing evidence that cannot be refuted? What this means is that under the present restraints, 10, 15, 20 years from now, American taxpayers still will be pouring money into Iraq. Currently, $4 billion a week is what our government spends. I will not even mention the young servicemen and women who continue to die because you cannot place a value on their sacrifice, their life.
The situation we are in is not at all like other political and military situations we have faced as a nation. This time, it is a religion opposing us, even though we are not necessarily opposing it. We should be, but we are not.
"Progress" continues, and at some future point in time, let us believe the Iraqi government indeed will "stand up" and our American military will be allowed to "stand down." Perhaps violence will drop to the occasional car bombing or death squad beheading, and we will bring home all but a small contingent of "peacekeepers" for a democratic society.
Victory is what a sitting president will declare before the American people. Nevertheless, I ask you, "What is it that we have won?"
Originally, we invaded because of WMDs. That was the only reason for the preemptive strike when most Americans believed Iraq had them.
If Saddam had surrendered his WMDs, the President stated on television that U.S. forces would not invade. Saddam and his evil ways still would be in power today. The United States most likely never would have fired a single shot to help Iraq get rid of him. Saddam could not produce what he did not have.
Thank God for the recent surge that has toned down the violence in this lawless country raging with thousands of years of religious bitterness. We destroyed most of the infrastructure of Iraq, which you and I are paying to rebuild. We certainly have provided the enemy with its greatest recruiting tool ever. Al-Qaida is delighted in that respect as they laugh at those stupid Americans for playing right into their hands.
Congress needs to look at American shortfalls instead of sending all our jobs and money overseas. It is time we first feed the homeless and provide clothes, medicine, jobs and housing to our citizens here in the United States. Let our agenda be "us," the people of America. Afterward, we can reach out to others.
I recently lost a great job along with 15 colleagues because the money was deleted from the program I worked on. Why? To help pay for the Iraq war. This is happening all across America. We are losing our jobs, our homes, our very being. America is spiraling downward at blazing speed into a whirlwind path of economic destruction. It's time for us to repair, modify or delete our problems at home and not worry so much about the rest of the world. I didn't say forget; just place the priority back on the home front.
It does not matter who you are. If you pay taxes, many economists tell us your share is approximately $13,000 for this "victory." That equates to around $3 trillion. In earlier years, the estimate was only a mere $30 billion.
You are probably saying you haven't noticed any less in your paycheck. You're right. Everything is still good despite outrageous gas prices and mortgage payments. That is because we haven't paid for this war as we go. The President and our Congress decided the war would be funded on borrowed money and borrowed time to make it rest easier with us.
The borrowed money is funding programs we count on and support to other countries, friend or foe. The borrowed time is our children and grandchildren. They are the ones who will have to pay it back, plus the interest. We had tax cuts, and our government was very nice in sending out the stimulus checks to all Americans. It's as if we have printing presses to produce whatever we need, regardless how large the amount becomes. Moreover, we thanked leadership for this insanity and spent the money as fast as we received it. Shame on our President and Congress. But then again, it is an election year.
I'm no political expert, and I'm not exactly sure what action is most correct for our next leader to take. I don't necessarily believe either candidate is the best choice for America. Regardless, we must choose from the ones we have in the race. I see good things and bad things in each candidate. Someone unknown to me stated, "Insanity is said to be doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result." Is this the quagmire we are in? I guess all of us need to keep on praying that our next leader possesses great wisdom like Solomon so we don't keep doing the same things repeatedly with so little results.
Is it the oil that keeps us there? Iraq has the second-highest oil reserves in the world. But does America have enough military members to guard the hundreds of wells that need to be drilled and the hundreds of miles of pipelines to transport the oil? Why, we can't even guard our homeland borders with any consistency. Then we convict the officers who do guard the gates for being too rough on trespassers, even when they are just doing their job.
What I know is that last year, Iraq produced about $70 billion ($70,000,000,000) worth of oil. What happened to that money? I didn't get any of it. Did you?
I wonder, "Why wasn't the money used to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq that's been destroyed through war?" American taxpayer dollars, yours and mine, are rebuilding the infrastructure. America, something is desperately wrong here!
There was a time in America when we could possibly survive this stupidity, but we have reached the place economically that to survive, it is either going to be us or them. So who will it be? My vote is for America, but we are running out of time. Tic-Toc, Tic-Toc. What say you?
If we create this "democracy" and "win" the Iraq war, all of the above - from burying thousands of America's bravest citizens to losing our certainty to creating terrorists of the future and to leaving our offspring with the bill - will be the price we have paid for the victory, this Iraq democracy.
Does this sound like a victory to you?
Regarding Iraq, I can only theorize to you, "Even if we win, we still lose."