Let's call it what it is: a Crusade

[needledriver]

On the Greatest page today is a terrific post called "The Central Truth about George Bush’s “War on Terrorism”".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2000780

It gives a lot of great insight into the fallacy of the War on Terra.

We already knew that the Military Industrial Complex had mixed emotions about the Fall of the Iron Curtain. After declaring yourself both the winner of the Cold War and the World's Only Superpower, what do you do for an encore?

More importantly, what do you do to keep the orders coming in for the fancy weapons systems?

We need a new adversary - one even more difficult to defeat than ever. Let's declare a war on a concept!

We no longer need to confuse the issue by having an actual enemy!

All we need is to sell the idea that "they" are coming to get us and we can keep the munitions factories humming!

Then * hit the trifecta with 9/11.

Sooner than you can credit, we were scrambling to Secure the Homeland.

Oh, I was all pissed off. I was ready to nuke Kabul. I was willing to do ANYTHING to get back at "them".

I wasn't too fussy about "anything" or "them" and Boy, did I get more than I asked for!!!

Iraq has WMD! Robot Planes that can strike the US!! Mushroom Clouds!!!! (and nothing at all to do with 9/11, but who cares?)

I shamefacedly admit I was a total dupe in the run up to IW2. I sneered at cars with a "No War" bumper sticker.

I completely bought the reasons to vote for the IW Resolution. I sat by the TV waiting for Shock and Awe.

Then a random Google search took me to a page called Top Ten Conservative Idiots and the scales dropped from my eyes.

I was LIED TO! LIED TO! LIED TO! LIED TO! LIED TO!

This isn't a War on Terror. There's plenty of terror going on around the world that * doesn't give jack shit about. It is not really even a war on Islamic Fascism. It is a war against-

Well, let me tell you a story. My friend Ken lost his son in Iraq the same summer that Cindy Sheehan was camped out in search of an answer to the question, "What noble cause did my son die for?". When I saw Ken again for the first time after his son died I offered my deepest sympathy. He accepted gratefully. He was wrecked, devastated at his loss. A hollow shell. Yet later in the conversation he found the time to bitch about what Cindy was doing. I had to ask him, "What noble cause did Cindy's son, YOUR son die for?"

He launched into an analogy with the soldiers on the walls of Byzantium, how it had taken Islam 600 years to take the city, but when the last soldier fell the city was gone over to Islam. The terror, the threat was that Islam was willing to TAKE 600 years to do it! His son was one of the soldiers on the bastions of Western civilization against Islam. He believed this firmly, and it helped assuage his grief.

After I heard that I began to notice other places where I have read that Iraq is the front line of the war to save Western Civilization. Our increasingly Christianized military is embracing this as the real mission; not to find WMDs, not to bring Democracy, not even for the oil (!)

IT IS A HOLY WAR OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY AGAINST ISLAM!!! A fucking CRUSADE!!!!

I grieve and weep for the generations of death and hatred this ill conceived disaster will visit upon the world.

[EFerrari]

1. Given the enforced Christianity in our armed forces

and the fundamentalism behind Blackwater, yeah, I agree.

[Klukie]

2. Here is what the original mission was called....

Bush also made reference to the crusades at the time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1563722.stm

[bdamomma]

3. Welcome to DU!!!

apparently that is what it is a Crusade, and this sick * continues to say we must finish the mission, wtf is the mission? again he is talking to his base of religious wingnuts.

[nashville_brook]

4. nice post -- welcome to DU!

:hi:

you're correct -- it's a holy war.

[snappyturtle]

5. K&R Absolutely it's a holy war....or in this case an occupation.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

Good post.

[EVDebs]

6. They live by deception

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1998959&mesg_id=1999373

The stuff re the Third Temple and * talking to Chirac re 'Gog and Magog',

Bush Cited Biblical Prophesy As Reason To Attack Iraq
http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=25744

should make us all sleep well at night knowing that he has the nuke-u-lar football. But fear not, Ahmadinejhad is just as warped in his eschatology re the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi.

[Bum Whisperer]

7. It is something that has been going on forever

and will continue to go on...forever. Not everybody will get along with oneanother and there will always be power struggles over religion, territory, commodities, and whatnot. It's in our natures to destroy ourselves and until we get that accomplished, war is inevitable. My condolances to your friend's loss.

[Amonester]

8. Welcome, and worry not, the Western Civilization is on schedule...

for SELF-DESTRUCTION with these crazy crusaders for endless greed at the wheel...

Global warming, global hunger, global poisons everywhere, and all that jazz...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x3087

They can have it. I'll be dead a few years before (or after...).

After all, who's there to stop 'em, disgusting war criminals?

[RethugAssKicker]

9. It's a combination of things....

Yes.. it is a crusade... a holy war.

but it is also

.... about controlling oil
.... about Western domination and strength.
.... about keeping our military industrial complex flowing in cash.

[EVDebs]

18. Don't worry, the oil runs out within 27 years

1 trillion barrels of recoverable oil / consumption of between 85 million bbl per day (current) and 120 million bbl (2020 estimated) per day , average say 100 million barrel per day /365 days in a year

and you come up with around 27 years.

If jihadis haven't left the Middle East by 2034, assuming there is still a world left (!) and Armageddon hasn't happened, they may want to go 'solar' and avoid the nuclear headaches of waste disposal etc.

If everybody's on a Crusade/Jihad the world isn't going to make much progress on discussing real life day to day standard of living problems.

See Lester Brown's excellent online book Plan B 2.0

http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm (see especially 'Learning from China')

[CrispyQ]

10. And both sides desire "the end of times."

We're fucked.

Welcome to DU. Glad to hear that your blinders are off.

[Rhythm and Blue]

11. Well, we could, but...it's not a crusade, so that would be difficult.

Many people are devoutly Christian in America. In times of trial, many religious people redouble their level of faith. Iraq is a difficult situation. Many soldiers, officers, and family members looking for an answer (and not liking "this war was the result of imperial hubris, and you are suffering because your government considers you disposable") choose to interpret Iraq through a Christian lens.

That does not make it a crusade. It doesn't matter how soldiers and family members see it, because they're not the ones making decisions; they're just coping with the decisions their government made.

Now. On to your claim that it's a Crusade.

First of all, America and America alone is part of this. Other Christian nations are not involved; Britain is pulling out, and even when this was a multinational operation, no non-Americans came close to invoking God. God is rarely invoked by our government, and certainly never as a matter of policy. No church has sanctioned this. No territories are being captured for Christianity. In no way is Islam being threatened or pushed aside; in fact, the opposite is happening. Iraq before the invasion was a secular state, and the leading powers in Iraq now are Shi'a clerics. Frankly, the only decision-makers in the conflict that are considering religio-political principles are Islamist terrorists, and they are such small players as to be insignificant.

I understand your anger at being lied to by the military-industrial complex. I understand your frustration with people who refuse to come around as you have by instead retreating into religion. However, that does not mean that this is a religious war.

[immoderate]

12. Multiple Causality -- religion is one of them.

It's hard to weed out all of the causes, but if Iraq were a Christian country, one can't help wondering if things would be different. Certainly oil, the military industrial bonanza, and strategic concerns factor in. But it's hard to deny the religious/racist aspect of this. How many times have we heard people who are urging us to "kill all the Muslims" or Arabs?

--IMM

[Rhythm and Blue]

13. If Iraq were a Christian country, this war likely would not have happened, no.

We have very strong social taboos against warring with people with whom we find some solidarity. However, a lack of religious barrier preventing war is not the same as a religious cause for war, and certainly not the same as a religious war launched to drive a competing religion out.

People frequently talk about "killing the muslims," but in the same way they talked about killing the Communists, the Russians, the Vietnamese, the Japanese, the Germans, the Spanish, the American Indians, and basically every single group of people at whom we've fired bullets. The fact that the Other in this particular war are distinguished from us by their religion does not mean that this is a religious war.

[immoderate]

20. Muslim is a religion.

The other groups you mentioned are not religious. To me, "KIll the Muslims" sounds like a call against a religion. It adds fuel to the other reasons.

--IMM

[needledriver]

14. I see what you are saying

It is not a Crusade by the standards that it was not overtly sanctioned by religious authorities, and that it is not a real multinational effort (Poland notwithstanding)

Perhaps Crusade is the wrong word to describe it..

So what single word crystallizes the defense of Western Civilization against the ravenous encroachment of Islam? :sarcasm:

Reconquista doesn't really fit. I don't think even Karl Rove could sell the idea that we were re-conquering Iraq for Christianity, and it doesn't resonate with a red state mentality.

I dubbed it a Crusade because it carries with it the stench of blinkered righteousness; the inevitability of the just cause of the Rapture bound.

It is a distillation of the arrogance of Western self-interest, and drags with it the horrific weight of the lingering results of the LAST Crusades.

BTW, are you serious about the "God is rarely invoked by our government, and certainly never as a matter of policy."?

[Rhythm and Blue]

16. Yes, I am serious about that.

Individual leaders frequently invoke God, generally when giving speeches to religious audiences. Religion is rarely invoked in any official capacity, and it is never used as an explicit justification in documents establishing official policies.

I agree that it is a war launched in Western self-interest. However, Islam is not the target. The specter of a particular political movement that draws some (but certainly a minority) of its strength from religious fanaticism is often the nominal target, but the actual actions of our government would suggest that Islamist terrorism is more a symptom of that which we are targeting rather than the target itself. Our target is not Islam, our target is the confrontational regionalism of the Muslim world. The PNAC goal was explicitly to politically and economically liberalize (in the classic sense, not the American one) the Middle East, by applying force to political structures that resisted. The idea was to start a chain reaction that would turn the entire M.E. into Dubais and Qatars, not to defend Christianity.

Many Red-Staters certainly believe in fighting in fear of the Muslim Menace, but they're not the ones making the decisions. They're the ones merrily going along with the decisions the government makes.

[needledriver]

19. Who came up with it?

Again, I agree with what you have so clearly stated. However, it is the muddy gap between "official policy" and private speeches that gives me pause. How much difference is there between what the Decider tells a religious audience and official policy?

I get that Islam is not the official target. However, the rest of your paragraph reflects nuanced thinking that doesn't play well with the base. I doubt the rank and file themselves came up with the idea that they were fighting to save civilization itself. This policy has to be tacitly encouraged by higher authorities, if not actually planted by them. If the soldiers believe that is what they are fighting for, what difference do high minded policy statements make? A soldier fighting for his very way of life might be well willing to compromise that way of life in its defense, and justify it later. (torture, anyone?)

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

17. As a matter of fact, many MANY Christian denominations vocally OPPOSED the Iraq war.

Lest we forget when we should remember that fact.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

15. Perhaps, in the minds of some. But, certainly not in the minds of the neocons and their,...

,...co-corporate-conspirators.

Bottom line: it's all about money and power. Money and power are the neocons' ideology.

However, the neocons have held out 'democracy' as the ideological reason for their violence. Therefore, they are engaging in terrorism.