Bullies on the Playground

Someone pushed us, and as is protocol on the playground, we pushed back.

But our push didn’t just cause our opposition to stumble: it caused the global playground to look at us in a different way. Our push, somehow, was not clearly justified. Our push, from everyone else’s standpoint, didn’t have recognizable intent. We claimed we pushed back in the name of democracy, a push against terrorism. Others claimed we just pushed back because we wanted what they had - oil.

The series of events that followed the 9/11 attacks were not caused by the 9/11 attacks. The circumstances that lead to US involvement in the Middle East go back decades, when outside forces decided they knew what was best for people they knew nothing about.

That being said, the attack on the World Trade Center was a launching point for a long and confusing war that made even bumbling buffoons look like maniacal power-hungry men.

When the US invaded Afghanistan we were supported by the UN; because our attacks were aimed at the Taliban (the kids who pushed us first on the playground) they were justified. However, the Taliban were in control of the government. And our very own Bush Doctrine stated that it would not distinguish between terrorist organizations and nations or governments that harbor them. So the lines were blurred and essentially any action the US made could be interpreted as wrong... or right.

When the US invaded Afghanistan, our stated aim was to find Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, remove the Taliban from power, and destroy the al-Qaeda regime. Instead of taking out the powers that hurt us, we decided to take out more than we could handle: an ideology we have never understood, an elusive notion of fear and terror that we wanted gone.

When the US invaded Afghanistan, I wonder if our President knew that our army would soon be overextended into Iraq, that the American people would lose faith in their government, that the war would continue beyond the fiscal means and overall support of Congress. I hope Bush was an ideological fool sincerely trying to remove corrupt people from power, and not a conniving mastermind working to gain control of a diminishing resource. Despite countless suspicions and leaked information, I don’t believe the American public will ever really know how and why our country got to the point where we stand now.

So much has happened since the 9/11 attack. We invaded Iraq. Anthrax became an invisible evil. Saddam Hussein was captured and executed (and surprise - his country’s problems are still not solved.) The world was shaken by bombings that killed innocent people. Bin Laden has disappeared. American soldiers became conduits of torture in Abu Ghraib. In so many ways US involvement in the Middle East has spawned more wrong. Our acts of prevention backfired.

In November 2008 the Iraqi government passed a security agreement calling for US withdrawal by 2011. The point has been made clear that we need to leave. Our new president is working (or has promised to work) on removing troops from Iraq, from a mission that was never explicit or attainable. We need to tie up the loose ends that we frayed while in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and then let the countries heal. Military force is not the way to spread our way of life; we shouldn’t be trying to spread our way of life (democracy, equality, etc.) with force at all.

When someone pushes you on the playground, don’t attempt to convert them to your anti-pushing mentality. Just push back and walk away. Or better yet... just go tell the teacher on them.

photo from: http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2008/10/08-15/bullies.jpg

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