a post just for Lisa.

seeing as Lisa banned me from posting on her blog, I figure I'll be nice and not just post on it anyway. if she's still swinging by here, she'll see this. it's in reponse to her post "America vs. the world". (which frustratingly enough, I can't find a way to link directly to, but it's her April 15th post. scroll down a bit for it.)

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surprisingly enough, generally speaking I agree with pretty everything that was said here. the only thing I can clarify is that a lot of the reason why support for the war in iraq wained, was because the US chose to disregard the UN and the wishes of the world community and go in unilaterally. that was the most fatal move on "our" part. (please note that I am extremely against Bush and do not condone the actions of the US government)

there has never before in the history of mankind been so many people on the streets around the world simultaneously protesting against one man.

also, please remember that the US actually backed Saddam's right to gas the Kurd's. we were "allies" with Saddam then, and we are the ones who sold him the weapons that he was using to do these things.

with that in mind, just remember, it's not just that history is written by the victors, which it is... but it is also revisionist "historians" that you have to really watch out for. without a watchful eye, groups can fairly easily sway the perception or general belief of historical events to be dramatically different from the actual HISTORICALLY DOCUMENTED events. the problem is people just swaying with current opinion and mass media and not digging back into the archives to see for themselves what really happened. we see this with the history of the US's involvement with the funding, arming and training of Al-Queda in the 80's to use to fight to Soviets in Afghanistan, we see this with the holocaust victims in WW2, with Viet Nam, with Saddam... the list goes on. The US has done a lot of terrible and very stupid things, but because the stories we generally hear tell us otherwise, most people don't bother to dig for the facts, and so even though they're there, most people never know about it.

some trivia... when asked when the last time a war was fought on american soil, most people would probably say the civil war, right? actually the Japanese held several islands in the aleutian chain off alaska during world war 2, and some of the bloodiest and costliest battles of the entire war were fought on american soil. also, the japanese were firebombing the US with paper balloons... but the information was supressed because the US didn't want morale affected in the US population.

and to touch on what she said, far more lives were lost in japan due to our firebombing the cities etc, than were during the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. the cities were bombed simply to show such a dramatic show of force as to convince Hirohito to endorse surrender. without the express order of the emperor, the japanese people would have fought to the death, to the last man. it was a matter of honor.

also, we were covertly already "at war" with Japan before the attack on Pearl Harbor. contrary to popular belief, Pearl Harbor was NOT unprovoked.

but as everyone said... history is written by the victors... however, in modern day, if you look in the right places, you can usually figure out the truth.

there are lots of interesting things in history when you really dig for it. I'm glad to see Lisa learning about this stuff.

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a few things I thought of after the fact were things like Bush's extreme arrogance and ignorance. claiming that the war was won, and major combat operations had ceased? far far more american lives have been lost since then and the war has only gotten bloodier. we are fighting a losing battle. the world has ceased to care as much and we're left mopping up the mess we created.

have a look at the body counts for yourself. make sure you don't miss the fine print. the actual number is believed to be around 10 TIMES that for the Iraqi's. the military only lists people reported as directly killed by military action.

I don't really want to get into all the other aspects of this, such as the many recorded lies Bush and his administration told to the UN and to the American People, along with the deliberate deceptions in trying to claim that Saddam had ANYTHING to do with 9/11 etc. as the 9/11 commission finally stated clearly, Saddam Hussein had NO involvement in 9/11. honestly the country who was BY FAR most directly involved with 9/11 was SAUDI ARABIA. the 28 pages blacked out of the report mostly detail that involvement. the reason the US won't admit to it, it because the Saudi's account for around 6% of the US economy. so, even though Bush said we would hunt down and kill anyone involved with the terrorists, he just turned a blind eye to the Saudi's who WERE partially responsible for 9/11 and instead attacked a country that had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT under false pretenses!

Bush managed to turn the greatest outpouring of sympathy and solidarity towards the US in decades, into a catalyst for the US being the most feared rogue nation on earth.

I'll leave this sit for now... as it's depressing going into detail on a topic, when you feel that either noone will give a shit or bother to post... or will just say that you're full of shit and completely miss the point.

Lisa, hopefully this will provide you with some more food for thought and bolster your belief that standing up for the truth is the right thing to do, even when you are in the minority. don't sway with the fashionable trends, stand fast with the facts. good job.

(4:38am, so sorry if I'm a little incoherent. bad habit of posting LATE at night.)