How Do You Say “Mission Accomplished” in Arabic?
[font color=330099]Note: I am not certain, but I believe Carol Morgan wrote this blog in response to the inane Islamophobic rants by Mr. Conservative, Dr. Donald May, that appeared this morning in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal entitled[/font] "Comments at Big Spring 9/11 Memorial 2015"[font color=330099]. (Big Spring is a small city in west Texas).[/font]
By Carol Morgan
French novelist and essayist, Marcel Proust, wrote this paragraph of timeless acumen in his masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past: “There is no man...however wise, who has not at some period in his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man.”
#Neverforget, the hashtag commemorating the 14th anniversary of 9-11, is entirely appropriate because America has not yet, as Proust stated, become wise.
On the contrary, Americans transmit the youthful immature notion of a teenager, that America is indestructible and invincible; ordained and anointed to be the designated driver for an inebriated universe.
For over forty years, we watched the horrific images on television during dinnertime; the bus-bombings in Israel, the destruction of people at sidewalk cafes in Beirut, and the killing of children in Palestine. All the while, the audacity of our silent subconscious convinced us: It can’t happen here.
For a brief period after the event, Americans united in compassion and patriotism (just as we have throughout history when tragedy strikes), but it didn’t last. The mercenaries and lovers of war in the Bush administration and the military-industrial complex recognized their golden opportunity to monetize our nation’s heartbreak.
Most of those people who wrote #neverforget did indeed forget what transpired after the twin towers fell.
In March 2003, we began our descent into foolishness, a freefall without boundaries. Shock and awe came and went and two months later, our President stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner bellowing a smug and reckless declaration: “Mission Accomplished”.
And yet, the mission declared to be finished, instead, continued on to Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, to Libya, and then to Syria, a body count without end. Of course, all the defense experts and military heroes throughout our history, from McNamara to Schwarzkopf to Franks, claim that “we don’t do body counts”.
It was incalculable to them, but not to the families of soldiers and civilians who died, and those victims who were still alive, but lost their careers, their homes and possessions, and were forcefully driven from their homeland to the unwelcoming arms of an uncertain future.
Another forgotten incident is Osama Bin Laden’s infamous tape of 2004. He told America straightforwardly that al Qaeda’s goal was to “bleed America into bankruptcy”. He reminded us about Russia and their ten year invasion of Afghanistan, one of the factors in the demise of the USSR. And he reminded Americans (but they didn’t listen) about the “contracts acquired by the Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind” and that the real losers were the American people and their economy.
Bin Laden’s words were prescient. Ten years after his message to America, U.S. expenditures for the war in Iraq totaled $815.8 billion, more than 16 times the Bush administration's original projection. We are still reeling from that and from the continued expenses in our war on terror, CIA spying, and the incarceration and force-feeding of those at Guantanamo.
The monetary expense was the lesser consequence of our foray into revenge (even though none of the hijackers were from Iraq or Afghanistan). It's what America has become since 2001 that is the real casualty.
America unwittingly carried out Osama Bin Laden’s mission, as if he were calling the shots remotely from Abbottabad. The fear mongering, the attack warnings, the state-sanctioned torture, the imprisonment of American whistleblowers who told the truth, the drone wars, the domestic terrorists, a militarized police force with first class war weaponry, and the making of war into a profitable industry (62%of the largest defense contractors employed 2,435 former generals, and political senior executives. 70% of top retired generals since 2009-2011 have gone on to a second career in the defense industries), so that war is routine; seamless wars back-to-back with no end in sight.
No doubt there will be additional wars in the near future; wars that are more costly and bloody. If the profiteers can’t stir one up, our politicians (at the behest of their war-related donors) can find false intelligence to prove war’s legitimacy.
The refugee crisis in Europe will “compel us” to a final solution with Syria (especially with their recent cozy association with Putin) and ISIS. The GOP’s refusal to accept the Iran Deal will not die (remember the ACA? The GOP made 50 attempts to repeal it) and Israel will continue to spend millions to send our representatives on a goodwill vacation to buy their complicity in the false-justice of Palestinian genocide or a pre-emptive strike on Iran.
In view of the facts and in contemplation of America’s fourteen-year transformation, it’s no longer clear who the real enemy is. How do you say “Mission Accomplished” in Arabic?
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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, a freelance writer, and former Democratic candidate for the Texas House. She is the award-winning author of two books: Of Tapestry, Time and Tears and Liberal in Lubbock. Email Carol at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org
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