The Super Power That Was...

America’s Growing Irrelevance in the World


Right now, our government is claiming that we have opened thousands of schools in Iraq. My guess is that stands at the very top of the Big Lie heap.

If we have opened schools, nobody seems to know much about it. What we do know is that the kids in the Middle East learn at a very early age that we are the Big Bad Satan.

Why do they hate us so?

Because they don't understand our culture; they don't understand our way of life; and they don't understand what motivates us. Beyond that, everything they hear about us tends to be propagated by a radicalized clergy.

What's really sad in reviewing where things stand today are the many lost opportunities. Many years ago for peanuts we could have opened decent schools with decent books and middle-of-the-road teachers’ through-out the Middle East. With a relatively small effort, we could have worked with the minds of young people and changed their minds; or given them the impetus to think for themselves.

There was a hunger for education in the fifties and sixties. Now that hunger has been filled by the radicalized elements and the crazed mullahs and clerics who now see us as the enemy!
If you doubt that, let me ask if you remember Salmon Rushdie.

A fatwa was issued against him and everyone was out to kill him. Why? The Mullahs said so! That’s the truth. I know because I was a friend of Peter Mayer at Penguin who published him.
I spoke with Muslims at random in my Brooklyn community. They all agreed that Rushdie had offended the faith. "Where did you get that information," I would ask. They would tell me almost to a person, "my Mullah told me so."

But it was not only the fault of the USA, our so-called friends were also complicit in creating the present climate. For example, look back at the human rights record of Egypt, one of our longest standing allies. The Egyptians eliminated the liberal and moderate elements of their society. The only ones of influence left today are the extremists.

And while the US and the Israelis get blamed for everything that goes wrong in the Middle East, let’s remember that the Palestinians left their land of their own accord in the expectation of taking over all of Israel during their attempt to drive the Israelis into the sea. . And let’s not forget that it was the Palestinian land-lords who sold Palestinian land at outrageous rates to the zionists in expectation of profits; not the benefit of their own people. . And let’s not forget either that after the war was lost, no Arab state came forward to offer a few thousand acres of their own land as a home for the Palestinian people. No, the fact was that none of the Arabs want Palestinians on their land.

What’s more, we know that had we paid attention to the people, they never would have installed the Ayatollah in Iran; that our treatment of Mohammed Moussadegh was the beginning of the end for the west in one of the few countries where the people liked Americans and what they stood for.

When it comes to promoting democracy, we think it's okay to pit one country against the other; in the case of Iran, we sided with the anti-democratic Iraq to do our dirty work! And then we wonder why everyone now hates us! Inevitably, the Moslem sees our interdiction as the advance guard of the Fourth Crusade and who can argue with that perspective.

As Far as education goes, that boat left the dock a long time ago when we failed to fill the vacuum. And that vacuum was filled by Hezbollah and the other radicalized groups like Al Qaeda or the Moslem brotherhood.

Increasingly, only one thing is true regarding our occupation of Iraq. .

THE US IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE IRRELEVANT WITH EACH PASSING DAY!

Why doesn't anyone discuss that aspect? Is it too close to home?

If we have accomplished anything, it is to have broken up the stranglehold that the Sunni had over the Shia and the Kurd. But in so doing, we may actually have made things worse both short term and long term.

Consider, that once while we stood as a wedge between warring elements; today, what we have done is simply open the flood-gates to entropy and Civil War. Now, we cannot even lay claim to serving as a wedge between one group and another.

We preside over a city in tatters; and yet the lies persist. We are told that things are getting better all of the time while incidents double, triple, and quadruple before our very eyes!

Our role has become to serve as a vehicle for the radicalized elements to test their weapons and tactics....Therefore, at some point in time; someone has to ask how does our staying in Iraq make things any better.

We have not gotten the electricity going...
We have not made the oil flow.
We have not made it any safer to walk the streets...
Most of the parents are afraid to send their kids to school.
Most of the parents, the people in the middle, hate us as the cause of all their woe. How does that make our presence improve things?

Please Mr. Rumsfeld stop skirting the truth. Tell Americans the truth: That every day we stay in Iraq is a day we lose more credibility and relevance and hatred of us becomes more entrenched. Period. End of sentence.

Les Aaron...
THE UBIQUITOUS FLYING BLUE BLOG
http://www.lesaaron.blogspot.com/