XPost: soc.culture.china, soc.culture.usa, soc.culture.latin-america   
   XPost: soc.culture.iraq, soc.culture.syria, soc.culture.african   
   XPost: rec.sport.tennis   
   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
   Wars have costs - lives that are lost, terrorism that is engendered,   
   and Islamophobia   
      
     Captain Khan's mother told us even today what she told her son when   
     she learned that he was going to Iraq.  The mother said, "Come home   
     to me as my son.  Don't come back as my hero!"   
      
   Millennial wars have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and   
   wrecked the homes of millions.  These wars also sacrificed many   
   American lives.  All these deaths are, whether you know it, a   
   significant part of the cost of the pointless wars we sowed in the   
   Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.   
      
   Although our leaders have coerced us into equating our own war deads   
   as "heroes", it is only a term of art, an euphemism, and nothing more.   
      
   In Ukraine, they talk about their Maidan Square deads as heros who   
   will never die, it's just Kool-Aid or morphine - a pill to encourage   
   more bloodshed, more conflict.   
      
   The fact remains that if we had a president who hadn't been so bent on   
   invading Iraq, hadn't been so duplicitous in tricking us into that   
   unnecessary war - that war of choice - those heroes of the Iraq War   
   would still be living and breathing today.   
      
   Captain Khan's mother told us even today what she told her son when   
   she learned that he was going to Iraq.  The mother said, "Come home to   
   me as my son.  Don't come back as my hero!"   
      
   It's likely the most heart-wrenching moment for a mother.   
      
   No mother would want to bury her son - regardless of what sugar her   
   president would feed her.   
      
   But to keep their favorite war(s) du jour going, the powers-that-be   
   simply feed them Kool-Aid or some sugar cubes.   
      
   And that's exactly what Trump tried - once again - to remind us in   
   last night's presidential debate: the costs of war.   
      
   "If he were president, he would not have invaded Iraq." he said.  And   
   Captain Khan would not have died.  And that was exactly Captain Khan's   
   mother's most fervent wish for her son.   
      
   Alas, while the reality of war did not take into account her wish, nor   
   those of other mothers of fallen soldiers, at least if we heed Trump's   
   message now, we may be able to stop more of this kind of death in the   
   future, which is a necessary price to pay for the neocons' agenda of   
   regime change.   
      
   At least then there wouldn't be more mothers of Captain Khan or   
   mothers of Sean Smith to grieve their irreplaceable losses today.   
      
   Yet the warmonger-controlled news media didn't like Trump's message,   
   just as they didn't the last time.   
      
   They made a concerted effort to accuse Trump of once supporting the   
   Iraq War, citing a pre-war conversation with the shock-jock Howard   
   Stern, while ignoring a public record of his opposition to the war.   
      
   So why has there been such a frenzy to hose down Trump each time he   
   talks about his opposition of the Iraq War?   
      
   Cui Bono?  Who benefits?   
      
   What is the purpose of their concerted frenzy to frame Trump as an   
   Iraq War supporter?   
      
   Not because they are interested in the truth, that's for sure.   
      
   If you ignore the quantity of someone's opposition and simply pick a   
   vagary remark as your basis of denunciation, you are worse than the   
   Red Guards during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  And while the Red   
   Guards were typically young and unsophisticated, those who insist on   
   Trump being an Iraq War supporters harbor the malicious intention to   
   destroy their target.   
      
   Why they want to do that?  Because, for these neocons, the stake is   
   high if someone who has a visceral disinclination to wage another   
   regime change war is able to slip through their control and become our   
   president.   
      
   In a row last night, Trump again asserted his non-interventionist   
   credentials: his opposition to bombing Syrian government troops, his   
   advocacy of working with Russia to fight ISIS, and his public record   
   of opposing George W Bush's Iraq War.   
      
   At least from hindsight, we ought to be able to answer the question of   
   what is the point of invading Iraq?   
      
   So, why is it such a bad idea for Trump to remind us of his record of   
   opposition to the Iraq War?   
      
   These neocons and their sycophants are not patriots.  They just want   
   their wars while disregarding the cost.   
      
   But should the American people roll over and let the neocons take them   
   to more regime change wars, such as shooting Assad's soldiers, in   
   order to save Hillary's hand-picked terrorists?   
      
   These warmongers created a massive cultural conflict between Muslims   
   and people in the West.  That's why we have Islamophobia today.   
      
   These warmongers also created the random terrorists that wreaked   
   havocs in American cities and Western capitals.  How did the Tsarnaev   
   brothers came to become terrorists.  The neocon propaganda operators   
   would tell you that there wasn't causality in their violence.  But   
   educators think otherwise, as the expert witnesses in the surviving   
   Tsarnaev's trial showed.   
      
   So, Trump is doing this country a vital service by educating us the   
   costs of war.   
      
   What are these costs besides Captain Khan and Sean Smith's deaths?   
      
   Plenty, in fact.   
      
   To pay for these endless wars, Washington's decision-makers need to   
   keep both wages and interest rate low so that business sputters along   
   and so that the stock market does not collapse.  And they give welfare   
   to the economic underclass to make sure that there isn't mass unrest   
   to interrupt with their belligerent foreign policy.   
      
   But Washington really can't keep inflation down forever, even with   
   Walmart stores and outsourcing of labors.  Costs of Food, housing,   
   education, and healthcare have greatly outpaced wage increases, if   
   any.   
      
   So, even as Trump is the messenger of pivoting American resources back   
   to rebuilding the country from foreign wars, the Establishment, which   
   includes both the Republicans and Democrats - the White House and the   
   Congress - has colluded with the mass media to pour water on any   
   message that is perceived as linking Washington's endless wars to our   
   nation's want.   
      
   But it is good for Trump to keep bring up the relevant issue, every   
   chance he gets.  Trump will be that gadfly who landed on warmonger   
   Hillary's heavily-powdered face.  Just as the bird which landed on   
   Bernie Sanders' lectern might be telling us something and making his   
   supporters very happy, the unwelcome fly's landing on Hillary's face   
   may yet be another yet-to-be-fully-revealed message for all of us to   
   see.   
      
   lo yeeOn   
      
   http://fortune.com/2016/10/09/presidential-debate-hillary-clinto   
   -spokesman-donald-trump-captain-khan/   
      
   A spokesman for Hillary Clinton had a strong reaction to Donald   
   Trump's comments at Sunday night's presidential debate on Captain   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)