It Doesn't Compute

Two and two are not going together.

     I have been distracted with the news and politics. I have been thinking about what I have learned and the reason why I registered to vote when Obama was running for president. I was incredibly insensitive and uneducated. After voting, I forgot why I did in the first place after getting the shaft financially. 

     Around September, Ahmed was telling me that he can apply for his citizenship. I began to think because it was September and he was an Arab. Even though he has not been practicing, he was a Muslim. I questioned if they would get concerned if he went in on the 11th. It dawned on him that it was 9/11. 

     Something did not occur to me at the time. He was completely unaware of what exactly happened and who did it. I think he was aware of the planes that struck the towers, but he didn't know that the hijackers used box cutters to do it. I was under the impression that he did not know that there were more than two planes that crashed that day. How could he since he wasn't here when it happened? 

     There was an interesting twist to this, though. I had mentioned the Taliban once. His response was, "Who is Taliban?" I had no idea what to think. Perhaps it is some cultural boundary of the press? I knew that politicians had their hands in the press in most cultures. Did we dream of some conspiracy theory and blame the Arabs? I could not understand why he did not know who they were. 

     I never thought of what was going on. The only thing I knew was that there were terrorist attacks and we were fighting in Iraq. I believe we went to Iraq to look for nuclear weapons and there are conflicting arguments about whether we found them or not. I began thinking about it after the conversation. How come he didn't know who Taliban was? 

     I was listening to Democracy Now one day and Amy was talking about the prisoners of Guantanamo. At some point, I already knew the prisoners were being tortured. There were prisoners in there that were being held without trial. 

     I began to think about the fact that we say innocent until proven guilty. Why were there people in a prison without a trial? How can they be held for so many years? 

     When some of the prisoners released in return of Bergdahl, I began to realize that this was Pearl Harbor all over again. Here were a bunch of Americans throwing a fit over terrorists being released. They were guilty until proven innocent instead of innocent until proven guilty. These were people who didn't commit any crime. We were accusing people of a crime they did not commit. We can deal with someone going AWOL, but why would anyone keep someone who never had a trial captive? 

     Something did not sit right with me and I could not put my finger on it. Didn't I ace critical thinking in college? Normally, I could put two and two together. How many different countries were these prisoners from? 

     I conducted research on Iraq and could not find any relation to the current events. I watched videos and wondered Iraqis really celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein.

     I watched Control Room and wondered why President Bush thought he could just go to another country and tell them to hand Hussein over. What if someone from another country came and did that here?  

     Why were people shooting Sikhs and attacking them at their temples? I thought that they were from India. The sabers they carry could place people on edge, but they certainly were not terrorists. 

     Then I thought of the question that nobody was really asking. Where is Pakistan? It is next to India. Where is the Taliban from? They are from Pakistan. Where was Malala shot and where are schools being attacked? Pakistan. 

     I felt stunned because I began to wonder about our purpose in Iraq. We had no purpose there. What did Saddam Hussein have to do with Pakistan? This was where I was stumped. I could barely remember Desert Storm. I was never aware of where exactly each country was. 

     Then the records about Guantanamo were released. In my opinion, it didn't really matter because there are so many racist people. The issue about race and playing the race card had escalated. Reports about Arabs being tortured would have been and were shunned. 

     I lost some friends over the ordeal. Someone posted a picture of the Twin Towers engulfed in flames stating that he did not care how a bunch of terrorists were tortured. I deleted him immediately. He may have been an American soldier, but it feels un-American to hold these people in prison without probable cause. Perhaps this was why we held them in another country.

     Maybe people like that should have the police raid his house without a warrant, arrest him, and throw him in prison for 13 years without trial. Maybe accuse him for terrorism and give him a hummus enema. If we were holding people hostage, that made America look like terrorists.  

     Again, I felt really terrible. I felt terrible about our country. McCain gave a speech about how terrible we were to do such a thing. The only thing I could think is that we don't even have the maturity level to keep people in prison. Wouldn't this create more enemies? Didn't we ever think about how mentally damaging torture is? Especially, when you didn't even do anything wrong? 

     When there was "police action" in Vietnam, there were soldiers who were manipulated by the enemy. The enemy would broadcast rhetorical devices to get the Americans to join them. There were Americans who felt like nobody in their country loved them. They felt like their families abandoned them and everyone mistreated them. They ended up going to the other side. 

     When people are abused, they are easily manipulated by someone who is going to welcome them. People think that grass in greener on the other side. Why do you think so many people join militant groups and cults? Iraq had went through so much, especially since Hussein reigned terror onto them and oppressed them. This festered and turned into a bigger problem called ISIS.

     Additionally, this only deepens our racist roots. When we enslaved the citizens of Africa, we called them N*****s. We developed this habit of treating Africans as animals and referred to them as such. When we segregated the Irish with the blacks, we called them Irish Monkeys. When we were fighting against Japan, they were referred to as Japs. Every time we are in the Middle East, we refer to the Arabs as Dune Coons and Rag Heads. 

     The military dehumanizes everyone. They dehumanize the people they train. They allow an environment that consists of mental abuse and rape. "I resisted all of the attempts by the military sergeants and trainers to dehumanize the Vietnamese. They trained us to call them "gooks" and other horrible names. Obviously, I knew immediately that, had it been a war in Africa, we’d be calling them "n*****s."  (Smith, 2015).  

     I think that we had long forgotten what has happened. Most people think that history is not important, but it has been more important now than ever. 

     The questions ran through my head. What was the significance of Hussein? Why did so many people say that Bush Jr. wanted to finish what daddy Bush's work? I was a child when Desert Storm happened and was unaware of so many things.

     I decided that I needed to start there. I vaguely knew what he did. I knew who he was, but what exactly did he do? How come people from Iraq act the way they do? They do not stand up and get into the face of others.

     As unbearable as the footage was to watch, I conducted research on Saddam Hussein. For the longest time, I thought he was from Saudi Arabia. He was from Iraq. He was raised by his treacherous uncle. Saddam gained leadership with the Ba'ath party. He passed his treacherous ways to his children and murdered thousands of Iraqis using chemical weapons and various methods of torture. 

     Again, I felt terrible. Here was a culture that had already endured this hardship. Family members were lost because of Hussein's regime. We were making them go through the same thing all over again. They flee to our country and we mistreat them. We arrest them and mistreat them. 

     I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 and it gave me insight to what I was thinking about. We gave the real enemy a chance to run. Osama Bin Laden was never caught until after Obama was president. Bush was trying to protect his investment by attacking his father's arch enemy. Our attention was diverted with misinformation and fuel for racism against Muslims and Iraq. 

     Will we ever pick up the pieces? How can we fix what we did? Will Bush ever go on trial for crimes against humanity? If it is anyone who needs help, it is America. We need to learn that we need to help people by not resorting to violence and hatred. That is something that must start from home. 

     The only thing that this does is create paranoia. Since we do not do anything about it, the hatred and distrust remains. People will only focus on the bad and not the good. It creates a delay and obstacle for those who are not evil. All I could see was a delay in Ahmed getting his citizenship.  

Goodman, A. (2015, May 25) I never wanted to hurt any Vietnamese: former combat medic recalls antiwar resistance within army. Retrieved from http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/25/i_never_wanted_to_hurt_any