The War on Terror, and How We're in Deeper Shit than Ever Before

Back in 2004, i wrote this column for the ASU State Press:

I’m not exactly sure how to say this without tempting the Campus Republicans to lynch me publicly from an umbrella in front of Einstein’s Bagels but I think that the War on Terrorism is making things worse. There, I said it and now that it is out in the open I can process it a little better. All around the world (even in Montana) our terrorist enemies are talking to God on their two-way radios and teaching their children how America is the enemy and how they will be rewarded for killing infidels, which I’m sorry to say, is all of us. These children will grow up and most likely take up arms against us because they hate us for our freedom and our prosperity and our Gucci backpacks and Burberry headbands. Something obviously needs to be done about these people and it is being done with varying degrees of success. However I can’t help but feel that all of our aggression is forming a new breed of terrorist that will grow up hating us because one of our bombs missed and hit his house while he was eating dinner and killed his mom and his little sister. Or his dad lost his job as a truck driver once Halliburton came in to help rebuild the country and he was killed at the Iraqi police station while applying for a job. This new breed of terrorist isn’t motivated by virgins or martyrdom, he’s motivated by vengeance. He’s motivated by something that we as Americans will rarely be motivated by. Unlike us, he gets to see the faces of the dead, he lives in the war and his biggest concern on the way to school is not finding parking but dodging bullets. While our government won’t even allow us the reality of viewing pictures of the coffins of dead U.S. soldiers, these people are given the privilege of digging through the rubble of their home in hopes to find enough of their family members to bury. The website www.iraqbodycount.net estimates that over 12,000 civilians have been killed in military intervention in Iraq. That is 12,000 moms, dads, brothers and sisters who have left survivors behind who now have a new reason to hate America. If someone murdered your family (even by accident) you would want justice. I supposed that is what got us here in the first place but would you feel justified in killing three of them for every one of us. That is exactly what has happened. If you don’t see their faces, if you don’t see them as people who get up in the morning and go to work and have the same basic concerns and desires as all other human beings then you don‘t have as much of a problem hearing about their deaths in enormous numbers. The people who hate this country are multiplying exponentially every time they look for a culprit and see an American flag. I’m not saying that we should leave the terrorists to their own devices and turn a blind eye but we are hurting our own cause by not doing the job the right way. Why add fuel to an already raging oil well fire?

And now the New York Times has released this report by the National Intelligence Council that confirms what i've been saying for quite some time now.

Damn, i hate being right.