"THE SHIFTING SANDS OF HELL"
________________________________________
THE MIDDLE EAST!
THE MESS WE CREATED
THE MESS THEY CREATED
THE MESS IT REMAINS TO THIS DAY
========================================
________________________________________
THE MIDDLE EAST!
THE MESS WE CREATED
THE MESS THEY CREATED
THE MESS IT REMAINS TO THIS DAY
========================================
First of all, if you are reading this...that means you are FROM the Middle East. Live there now. Are in the military stationed there. Have friends or family stationed there.
HAVE had...OR
are someone merely interested in that region of the world and are aware of the strategic importance to the rest of the world that the Middle East represents. IS.
are someone merely interested in that region of the world and are aware of the strategic importance to the rest of the world that the Middle East represents. IS.
The Middle East is large and diverse and very complex as most geographical areas which comprise many different ethnic groups and cultures and languages are. Traditions and biases and religions vary widely and often THAT breeds not just diversity but animosities as well.
From what I know most Americans and maybe most Westerners look at the Middle East and see...
One ethnic group, Arabs.
Everybody is Arab and Arabs are all alike.
Uh, NOPE.
Everybody is Arab and Arabs are all alike.
Uh, NOPE.
One people, one religion, one ethnicity. One background...
and this could NOT BE FURTHER
from the truth.
and this could NOT BE FURTHER
from the truth.
We are SO ignorant. We label people and like the Brits one hundred years ago, we do so in incredible IGNORANCE. WHY? Cause we are LAZY. LAZY when it comes to learning about people, hundreds of excuses but it still boils down to laziness in America, Europe, Asia.
So what IS the reality.
Arabs such as the Sunni, Shia, Pashtun.
PLUS, the Kurds, Uzbeki, and others. Muslim but not all, for there ARE Christians there and others too.
ALL different and none of them really like each other.
Persians, the Iranians.
You want to start a WAR? Call a Persian an Arab. THEY ARE NOT ARABS AND INTENSELY DISLIKE BEING LABELED THAT WAY. They see the ignorance in it and resent it and WELL THEY SHOULD.
You want to start a WAR? Call a Persian an Arab. THEY ARE NOT ARABS AND INTENSELY DISLIKE BEING LABELED THAT WAY. They see the ignorance in it and resent it and WELL THEY SHOULD.
ALL ONE COUNTRY, NO. But ALSO not the countries as they used to be. At the end of the British occupation of the entire Middle East, THEY drew new country boundaries WITHOUT ANY REGARD NOR KNOWLEDGE OF the people who would have to live there. After DECADES of occupation, the Brits had NO clue about the people who they had been occupying and didn't care. They didn't give a shit about the damage, the LONG-TERM damage they were doing. They created ENTIRE COUNTRIES comprised of people who were traditionally ENEMIES. The Brits had NO understanding of the way Middle East commerce worked. How the politics worked. Had NO understanding of the TRIBAL cultures and the nature of them and the way THEY worked. Like the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, they just threw these people together and said ON THEIR WAY OUT THE DOOR, CYA. GOOD LUCK.
What a bunch of SHITHEADS.
IGNORANT AND LAZY-MINDED.
IGNORANT AND LAZY-MINDED.
Course the Russians did no better,
AND WE HAVEN'T EITHER, sad to say...
but at least SOME OF US ARE TRYING,
especially a lot of our men and women in uniform.
They have done heroic work but also historic work
in trying to get to know and understand and appreciate the PEOPLE in the Stans, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq.
I BOW LOW to these HEROES, from America, Canada, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Germany and elsewhere.
I cannot condone nor defend the actions of the leaders, cults, warlords, nor the populations of the Middle East and what THEY have done to destroy themselves and their fellow Arabs etc.
TRUTH:
The Middle East was a TOTAL DISASTER...
LONG BEFORE the Brits showed up
and has remained one.
But the rest of the world
has done them no favors EITHER.
The Israelis keep building and the Arabs etc keep destroying. Sad fact but true.
The Middle East has NOTHING to be proud of, waging war against its own for a thousand years. The tribal hatreds might have seemed kewl 200 or 1000 years ago. We had them HERE, but WE outgrew them. The Middle East hasn't grown nor matured. NOW, thanks to the likes of Mustafa Kazemi, Ehsanullah Amiri and others, AND ME, maybe it will.
It will take courage and bravery. Mustafa, Ehsan, Ahmed Mukhtar have it in abundance. May God give that kind of courage to thousands that the EVIL which persists in the Middle East may be countered and destroyed so that Peace, Love, and freedom may finally prevail.
____________________________________________
PART II
HOW you may ask DID ALL THIS HAPPEN?
Let's start with 911.
===========================================
911 was perpetrated upon the country of the United States by Middle East terorists mostly from Saudi Arabia, NOT Iraq.
But then-U.S. President George W. Bush still had an old score to settle against Saddam Hussein. The embarrassment of his father during the 1st Iraq war.
The embarrassment if indeed it was one was the fault of the senior Bush, not Iraq. But facts never have been much of a factor in Republican politics.
911 was a heaven-sent opportunity to take out someone he hated AND consolidate his power as U.S. President at the same time, and then the force of the office kicked in and they sold a bogus bill of goods on a gullible, hurting population.
It is NO question that the 911 attacks had KICKED OUR BUTTS, scared us, and made us paranoid and ill at ease.
Understandably so. The pics played OVER AND OVER ON TV of people jumping to their deaths in the WTC, the pics of the plane in Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon...tore our hearts apart. People sat glued for hours and hours and hours...watching the same pics of the WTC's being destroyed..over and over and over. I hope to GOD I NEVER see anything like that again.
Thus it was easy to sell a country SO overcome by fear and pain. And the likes of Bush, being led by the greedy and manipulative Dick Cheney and the nutty Defense Dept head, Don Rumsfield...took full advantage to settle an old score PLUS help their buds in the Military Industrial complex in America.
Scurrilous but real.
So off to war we went, based on faulty and outright wrong intelligence. We went BLAZING into Baghdad like a woman with PMS (with an arsenal of weapons). WE cared little that the justification for that war was pretty much ZILCH. We could have waited and done a more thorough job of vetting the intelligence...but no. We went HELL-BENT for leather, into a quagmire of mis-applied military might...often incredibly stupidly applied. The mistakes kept mounting such as the disbanding of the Iraq Military and then the shit really hit the fan.
Afghanistan was where Bin Laden the REAL mastermind behind the 911 attacks, but of course our intrepid Bush and his minions blew that to smithereens...and as a traumatized nation sat in pain, watching this horror show of a war playing out...and the information that the weapons of mass destruction Hussein was supposed to have was WRONG...we began to question but it was too late. Nobody wanted to admit the error and kept defending the entry into Iraq.
There was obviously NO justification and to make matters worse, Saddam Hussein was an Arab to his toes and HATED Iran. He was a natural barrier to the Ayatollahs like Khomeini. But now HE was GONE and so was our insulation from the likes of ACK my jimmy jeans. One of the biggest looney tunes to EVER run a country in the Middle East.
The longer this went on the worse it got...until Barack Obama became President and while he isn't and hasn't been perfect by a LONG shot, he did get Bin Laden...something despite ALL THE BLOODSHED, THE $$$, spent and frittered, Bush NEVER DID. NOR Rummy nor Cheney. They never tried that hard to be honest...and it was NEVER all that important to them to
do ANYTHING but do retribution for the Senior Bush's embarrassment.
Thousands of Americans DIED, more thousands of Iraqis, and almost a TRILLION DOLLARS was spent on a fools errand...and this bunch of IDIOTS got away with it.
Even Obama never held them accountable, something I WILL NEVER forgive him for.
I think it is one of the things history will look back on and not be kind to Obama. Like the same with Wall Street. He AND Holder. I think more concerned with their future potential job security than making CRIMINALS pay for their misdeeds.
NOW, we are mostly out of Iraq, and watching the devastation that some of us at least warned out is playing out BECAUSE WE DID NOT FINISH the job. Many in the Middle East FEARED that and they were right. We are great at STARTING shit, just not finishing it.
Next, Afghanistan it is feared.
And like the Russians and the Brits before us, my fear is that we will continue to make a MESS out of the Middle East...EVEN THOUGH, THEY seem to be doing an admirable mess of it ALL BY THEMSELVES. They really don't need our help, to do that anyway.
THEY have been fighting as I alluded to earlier EACH OTHER, for centuries. They can fight til the end of time, without our help. WHAT THEY NEED IS HELP TO FIND THE PEACE SO DESPERATELY NEEDED.
What they need, frankly, is the REST OF THE WORLD to stop dithering, sitting with collective fingers UP THEIR ASSES, and go in with A LARGE ENOUGH PRESENCE...to TAKE OUT Isis, the Taliban and the rest of the troublemakers...standing with the GOVERNMENTS in the region WITHOUT TAKING SIDES.
WE DO NOT need to be seen siding with Sunni, Shia, Kurds..we DO need to be seen siding with the PEOPLE of the Middle East as a WHOLE. THAT needs to be made clear FROM THE GIT-GO.
WE WILL HELP YOU, ALL OF YOU...NO FAVORITISM..
AND WE SHOULD BE DEMANDING THESE FOOLS SIT DOWN AND TALK. NEGOTIATE, COMPROMISE, BARGAIN...and while likely nobody will be completely, there will be peace. FINALLY, an end to the bloodshed. OR we WILL keep wiping out and killing the perpetrators until they are all gone or DEAD. PERIOD.
PART III
THE SHIFTING SANDS OF HELL CONTINUES
----------------------------------------------------------------
Let's take a look at the countries I am working with right now, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Much of what I will be sharing will surprise, amaze, but inform and educate you on what the modern Middle East is REALLY like, told by the people who live, work, and travel there...those who know it best.
AND WE HAVEN'T EITHER, sad to say...
but at least SOME OF US ARE TRYING,
especially a lot of our men and women in uniform.
They have done heroic work but also historic work
in trying to get to know and understand and appreciate the PEOPLE in the Stans, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq.
I BOW LOW to these HEROES, from America, Canada, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Germany and elsewhere.
I cannot condone nor defend the actions of the leaders, cults, warlords, nor the populations of the Middle East and what THEY have done to destroy themselves and their fellow Arabs etc.
TRUTH:
The Middle East was a TOTAL DISASTER...
LONG BEFORE the Brits showed up
and has remained one.
But the rest of the world
has done them no favors EITHER.
The Israelis keep building and the Arabs etc keep destroying. Sad fact but true.
The Middle East has NOTHING to be proud of, waging war against its own for a thousand years. The tribal hatreds might have seemed kewl 200 or 1000 years ago. We had them HERE, but WE outgrew them. The Middle East hasn't grown nor matured. NOW, thanks to the likes of Mustafa Kazemi, Ehsanullah Amiri and others, AND ME, maybe it will.
It will take courage and bravery. Mustafa, Ehsan, Ahmed Mukhtar have it in abundance. May God give that kind of courage to thousands that the EVIL which persists in the Middle East may be countered and destroyed so that Peace, Love, and freedom may finally prevail.
____________________________________________
PART II
HOW you may ask DID ALL THIS HAPPEN?
Let's start with 911.
===========================================
911 was perpetrated upon the country of the United States by Middle East terorists mostly from Saudi Arabia, NOT Iraq.
But then-U.S. President George W. Bush still had an old score to settle against Saddam Hussein. The embarrassment of his father during the 1st Iraq war.
The embarrassment if indeed it was one was the fault of the senior Bush, not Iraq. But facts never have been much of a factor in Republican politics.
911 was a heaven-sent opportunity to take out someone he hated AND consolidate his power as U.S. President at the same time, and then the force of the office kicked in and they sold a bogus bill of goods on a gullible, hurting population.
It is NO question that the 911 attacks had KICKED OUR BUTTS, scared us, and made us paranoid and ill at ease.
Understandably so. The pics played OVER AND OVER ON TV of people jumping to their deaths in the WTC, the pics of the plane in Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon...tore our hearts apart. People sat glued for hours and hours and hours...watching the same pics of the WTC's being destroyed..over and over and over. I hope to GOD I NEVER see anything like that again.
Thus it was easy to sell a country SO overcome by fear and pain. And the likes of Bush, being led by the greedy and manipulative Dick Cheney and the nutty Defense Dept head, Don Rumsfield...took full advantage to settle an old score PLUS help their buds in the Military Industrial complex in America.
Scurrilous but real.
So off to war we went, based on faulty and outright wrong intelligence. We went BLAZING into Baghdad like a woman with PMS (with an arsenal of weapons). WE cared little that the justification for that war was pretty much ZILCH. We could have waited and done a more thorough job of vetting the intelligence...but no. We went HELL-BENT for leather, into a quagmire of mis-applied military might...often incredibly stupidly applied. The mistakes kept mounting such as the disbanding of the Iraq Military and then the shit really hit the fan.
Afghanistan was where Bin Laden the REAL mastermind behind the 911 attacks, but of course our intrepid Bush and his minions blew that to smithereens...and as a traumatized nation sat in pain, watching this horror show of a war playing out...and the information that the weapons of mass destruction Hussein was supposed to have was WRONG...we began to question but it was too late. Nobody wanted to admit the error and kept defending the entry into Iraq.
There was obviously NO justification and to make matters worse, Saddam Hussein was an Arab to his toes and HATED Iran. He was a natural barrier to the Ayatollahs like Khomeini. But now HE was GONE and so was our insulation from the likes of ACK my jimmy jeans. One of the biggest looney tunes to EVER run a country in the Middle East.
The longer this went on the worse it got...until Barack Obama became President and while he isn't and hasn't been perfect by a LONG shot, he did get Bin Laden...something despite ALL THE BLOODSHED, THE $$$, spent and frittered, Bush NEVER DID. NOR Rummy nor Cheney. They never tried that hard to be honest...and it was NEVER all that important to them to
do ANYTHING but do retribution for the Senior Bush's embarrassment.
Thousands of Americans DIED, more thousands of Iraqis, and almost a TRILLION DOLLARS was spent on a fools errand...and this bunch of IDIOTS got away with it.
Even Obama never held them accountable, something I WILL NEVER forgive him for.
I think it is one of the things history will look back on and not be kind to Obama. Like the same with Wall Street. He AND Holder. I think more concerned with their future potential job security than making CRIMINALS pay for their misdeeds.
NOW, we are mostly out of Iraq, and watching the devastation that some of us at least warned out is playing out BECAUSE WE DID NOT FINISH the job. Many in the Middle East FEARED that and they were right. We are great at STARTING shit, just not finishing it.
Next, Afghanistan it is feared.
And like the Russians and the Brits before us, my fear is that we will continue to make a MESS out of the Middle East...EVEN THOUGH, THEY seem to be doing an admirable mess of it ALL BY THEMSELVES. They really don't need our help, to do that anyway.
THEY have been fighting as I alluded to earlier EACH OTHER, for centuries. They can fight til the end of time, without our help. WHAT THEY NEED IS HELP TO FIND THE PEACE SO DESPERATELY NEEDED.
What they need, frankly, is the REST OF THE WORLD to stop dithering, sitting with collective fingers UP THEIR ASSES, and go in with A LARGE ENOUGH PRESENCE...to TAKE OUT Isis, the Taliban and the rest of the troublemakers...standing with the GOVERNMENTS in the region WITHOUT TAKING SIDES.
WE DO NOT need to be seen siding with Sunni, Shia, Kurds..we DO need to be seen siding with the PEOPLE of the Middle East as a WHOLE. THAT needs to be made clear FROM THE GIT-GO.
WE WILL HELP YOU, ALL OF YOU...NO FAVORITISM..
AND WE SHOULD BE DEMANDING THESE FOOLS SIT DOWN AND TALK. NEGOTIATE, COMPROMISE, BARGAIN...and while likely nobody will be completely, there will be peace. FINALLY, an end to the bloodshed. OR we WILL keep wiping out and killing the perpetrators until they are all gone or DEAD. PERIOD.
PART III
THE SHIFTING SANDS OF HELL CONTINUES
----------------------------------------------------------------
Let's take a look at the countries I am working with right now, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Much of what I will be sharing will surprise, amaze, but inform and educate you on what the modern Middle East is REALLY like, told by the people who live, work, and travel there...those who know it best.
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