Fit to be Fried

In my post two days past, "Dead will rise…" , I predicted that “Undertaker” Mark Callaway would be returning to the WWE in time for SummerSlam, next month’s pay-per-view event. Tonight at the end of Smackdown, Edge met up with GM Vicki Guerrrero in the ring to apologize for cheating on her, spearing her at the Great American Bash, and teling the whole world about her granny-panties. Or, to make a long story short (too late!), for being a complete douchebag. Guerrero decided to stand by her man, but made it clear that she was still angry with the “Rated R Superstar”, and that, to retaliate against him for his various crimes, she would be re-instating none other than the Dead Man, and that he would be her hubby’s opponent at SummerSlam.

I fucking told you so.

I’ve been a bit blocked lately, as the three of you who actually read this on a regular basis may have been able to tell. I only intended to take a few days off, but, as you can see, it’s been a bit longer than that. Here’s the skinny…

I went to drill in Austin two weeks ago, fully expecting to give the class I’ve been tasked with for the past two months, and yet again it was postponed. This, in and of itself, was not so bad, as we did the same thing we’ve done every time this has happened in the past- hang out in the woods bullshitting and trying not to get tasked with anything else. Not so bad, right? It was what happened Saturday after we were turned loose that really rattled my cage.
I got into a three car accident.

The roads were slick with rain, and even though I saw the driver of the Honda minivan in front of me signaling to turn into the Costco on Hwy 128 Northbound and tried to stop, it made no difference, and my van hydroplaned right into the rear of her vehicle. She careened forward into the Nissan SUV which was sitting in the intersection waiting for us to pass. Immediately I jumped from my vehicle to make sure the other drivers were OK, and was horrified to find I’d just rear-ended a mother and two young girls, all of whom were terrified and crying uncontrollably. The driver of the Nissan was an elderly woman. No one appeared to be injured, but when the elderly woman saw me trying to console the children and the mother in the minivan before checking on her, she got pissed and started yelling at me.

As if I didn’t feel like shit already.

The mother kept thanking me for stopping- she hadn’t realized she’d been hit from behind and had thought she was at fault. I didn’t have my cell phone on me and she was too shaken up to dial; the third driver was too busy screaming at me to take matters to hand, so it was on me to borrow the mother’s cell and call 911. The EMT’s arrived first, followed by the cops. They took everyone’s statements, insurance information, etc, and then wrote me a ticket. No one was seriously injured, but there was considerably more damage to the other two vehicles than there was to mine (say what you want about minivans, but damn, that Chevy Uplander is one well put-together machine) The whole thing took about an hour, and I never ended up getting the ice cream I’d gone out for in the first place.

Of course I realized what lay ahead. Telling the wife wasn’t easy, I knew I was in for an ass chewing for wrecking her van and she didn’t disappoint. My buddy Trey in California brought my spirits up a bit by sharing his own harrowing accident stories, and I began to count my blessings that things didn’t go as badly as they could have; I was lucky the van was still in driving condition, otherwise I would’ve been stuck in Austin- my LeBaron wasn’t in running condition at the time. Needless to say, this became a priority when I got back home. It had been out of commission for a few months because every time I stopped at a red light it would overheat. Everyone gave what they thought was good advice (thermostat, water pump, flush the radiator, etc…), and my wife and uncle had followed through on most of it already while I was away at a previous drill, to no success. It turned out to be a combination of the radiator fan motor and a blown electrical relay. A hundred and twenty bucks, eight hours labor in the sun later and it was running good as new. Still, that was small consolation, because the next day I spent almost entirely on the phone, dealing with the insurance company.

Thank God it was a payday week, am I right?

Not a bit.

Let me tell you first that my wife hasn’t recieved child support from her ex in something like two months. I didn’t get paid by the National Guard for almost the entire first half of the year. Despite this, we hadn’t been hurting for money, at least not too badly. However, with the wreck and having to get my car fixed, topped with the plane tickets we bought for my daughter’s graduatiuon trip back to Cali to visit the grandparents, had left us kind of drained. I was really looking forward to the weekend, as we had planned a trip to Northeast Texas to visit my folks. Friday when I deposited my paycheck, though, I made a startling dicovery- we were a hundred and fifty bucks in the hole. As rent was due in the next few days, this presented a bit of a problem. It was going to cost us another hunsky to fill the gas tank for the trip to my parents’, and we were already short on the rent. We held out hope that the natural order would return soon, rent wasn’t late yet and people owed us money- government-regulated people that by all rights should have been reliable.

Boy, were we wrong.

It turns out that my Guard pay never got filed (a week later I found out it got issued manually and instead of being directly deposited, my check got mailed to St. Louis to be deposited in my bank’s main branch, which wouldn’t happen until the 9^th.

semperfried76 is the last hope for humanity.
Too bad he hates you all.

My wife’s child support still hasn’t come in. The landlord’s cool with getting a partial payment, but is still going to charge me a late fee when I get the rest of it in. My bank account’s drained, and I don’t have enough money for smoke past tomorrow, let alone buy fireworks for the 4^th.

The only good thing to happen this week was that I got to prove my cahones by catching a boa constrictor that had hidden in the snack machine at work.

So, I’ve been a bit blocked. So sue me.

In my last post in this series, I laid a little knowledge on you about the Military-Industrial-Complex and the Nanny/Welfare-State, and in this post, I’ll explain how this ties in with my original point, which was to lay bare the diminishing “American Spirit”, and to explain where it went.

(more…)

Ten kids in cadillacs,
stand in line for welfare checks
hey, let’s all leech off the state,
Gee, the money’s really great…

The Circle Jerks, When the shit hits the fan

In the last post of this series, I said that America had become a socialist nation.

Apparently, this doesn’t bother people all that much, or maybe it’s just that people didn’t bother reading the post in full, instead skipping along to the archives in hope that there’s been some more Bakken Formation news¹. How disappointed those folks must be to get a history lesson instead?
Too bad, sez I.

You see, it’s important to know these things, and a lot of people just don’t know what’s been going on around them. Truth be told, it’s been going on for a long time, even at the height of McCarthy-era, “Red Scare” paranoia.

Throughout the time spanning the end of WWII, and on to the present day, our country has almost constantly engaged in rampant, constantly-increasing deficit spending². In fact, the National debt of the United States has not been reduced since the Eisenhower administration. Rampant government spending has plagued this country since the Great Depression, and despite every screaming ounce of common sense out there, it just keeps going.

The two biggest offenders in this monstrous crime against the American people are Defense and Health and Human Services spending, the former favored by Republicans, and the latter by Democrats. Spending on HHS is higher than spending on defense, but not by much when compared to the spending in all other areas. In fact, the only other department that receives even close to the federal funding these two agencies get, is the Treasury Department, and this is just to pay down the interest on the National Debt. In other words, no matter what you may have heard during the Clinton administration, there is no such thing as a budget surplus. (more…)

Senator Ted Kennedy was diagnosed this week with an inoperable brain tumor, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I know, nobody wants to say it, in this age of political correctness. How dare we make this kind of judgment call on the man when the Grim Reaper is knocking on his door. To these folks, I cite Hunter S. Thompson’s obituary for former president Richard Nixon as published in his book, Better than Sex; Confessions of a Political Junkie as precedent, and must ask you to kindly shut the fuck up.

Edward Kennedy has been a dagger in the back of the American body politic since even before he ever took office. While in his sophomore year in Harvard¹, he was failing Spanish² and was expelled for paying a friend to take his final exam. After being kicked out of school, Kennedy joined the army, but neglected to read his enlistment papers. His parents were horrified at the notion that their son had signed up for four years instead of two, prompting his father, Joe, to pull strings to get his enlistment reduced and have him stationed in Europe³. Kennedy was allowed to return to Harvard after his enlistment ended, and graduated in 1953. He became a Senator 9 years later when he turned 30, filling Jack Kennedy’s old seat⁴

No matter what anyone tries to say to the contrary, Kennedy got away with the murder of Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969. He was, at the time, driving drunk, had an expired license, and a history of reckless driving; in short, he had no business getting behind the wheel of a car, and as a sitting Senator, he damn well knew it. He was acquitted thanks to a team of lawyers paid for through the family fortune, and spent the rest of his life riding on the political legacy of his two smarter, better-looking brothers.

That’s to say nothing of the man’s actual politics. Besides doing everything possible to undermine this country in his tenure as a United States Senator, and actually admitted in 1995 that he was a socialist.

Economist Milton Friedman was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of a national constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Kennedy argued that a requirement for a balanced budget would restrict the federal government’s power and its ability to spend – thus, he said, Washington’s role in more fairly and equitably distributing wealth, goods and services.

“Senator, socialism hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history,” explained Friedman. “Why won’t you give up on it?”

Kennedy rose to his feet, according to Nuttle, who attended the hearing, and replied: “It hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn’t have me to run it.”⁵

As a Senator, Kennedy has supported Affirmative Action, Amnesty for illegal aliens, partial birth abortion, date-rape⁶, and the former Soviet Union (while it was still the Soviet Union). Kennedy is an America-hater of the worst kind, and blames his country for all the world’s ills, despite having had an active part in the running of said country for over half a century. He is also a collaborator , a sexual deviant and a coward, a man whose life is generally not even worth the cost of a bullet similar to the two that killed his brothers Jack and Bobby.

I, for one, sincerely hope the man never gets better, that the cancer takes it’s time eating his empty brain, that it eats it’s way down to his testicles and that he rots in Hell for all eternity.

This one goes out to all those who think that it’s the government’s job to provide them with healthcare, free money when they can’t pay their bills, college education, food, a roof over their heads, personal happiness, etc…

“You must obey this now for a Law, that he that will not worke shall not eate (except by sickness he be disabled:) for the labors of thirtie or fortie honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintaine an hundred and fiftie idle loyterers”

Captain John Smith of Jamestown Colony uttered that famous phrase back in the early 1600’s, and for hundreds of years, this was the prevalent attitude in America- the term American Spirit came to embody a can-do attitude combining initiative, ingenuity, integrity and ambition. Men made their fortunes from the sweat of their brow and the power of their minds, and, combined with a tradition of inventiveness sparked by founding fathers Benjamin Franklin¹ and Thomas Jefferson, this spirit caused America to flourish in the face of constant adversity. America, as a young nation, was beset on all sides with forces that would do anything to see it fail², and yet it refused to die even through one of the bloodiest Civil Wars the planet had ever seen. Even up to the 1960’s, this was the case, as evidenced in President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote:”Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.

Where is the American Spirit now?

I wish I knew.

What I do know, is how it started to dwindle

In 1929, a combination of rampant debt, a sudden crash in the stock market, a decline in exports, and a shortage of money caused what was known as the Great Depression. Keep in mind that the Great Depression was a worldwide occurrence, not isolated to the U.S.; People worldwide were out of work and starving as a direct result of mistrust on the international trade market, which caused prices to rise uncontrollably while wages and jobs dwindled. The unemployment rate had soared to over 25% by 1932, a rate that has never been exceeded since, nor has been even halfway matched since 1940. To combat the depression Roosevelt instituted what was known as “The New Deal”, which was, in short, an attempt to give everyone everything they wanted ³.

Though the New Deal can be credited with such notable improvements as the repeal of Prohibition, and the stabilization of the banking system, it was criticized soundly by both the right and left wing of American politics and eventually resulted in a national debt that has never been paid off to this day, and in fact never stopped growing in size. ⁴

More on this Wednesday, I get the feeling this one’s gonna have to be a series…

The New Deal,Roosevelt,Social Programs,lies,Government,Great Deprssion,National Debt,Unemployment

Author’s Note: Throughout this text I have included quotes from Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, a highly significant writing with regards to the anti-western holy war, originally published by the Muslim Brotherhood, a known terrorist organization and antecedent of Al-Qaeda in its current form. Its author, Sayyid Qutb, was convicted of treason in Egypt, and executed two years after its publication (Coll, 2005). I include these texts as an illustration of the modern radical Islamist way of thought, in the hopes that some further degree of illumination into their motives may be attained.

“Indeed Islam has the right to take the initiative. Islam is not a heritage of any particular race or country; this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions which limit man’s freedom of choice. It does not attack individuals nor does it force them to accept its beliefs; it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and which curtail human freedom.”
- From “Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq”(Qutb, 1964).

With terrorist activity under close scrutiny by government agencies around the world, it has become more important than ever to recognize the root cause of such actions. Its one thing to squelch the plans of terrorists in action, but identifying the underlying factors that cause terrorism and eliminating them before we suffer more attacks similar to those that occurred on September 11th, 2001 seems an even more proactive solution. Some may argue that responsibility lies with socioeconomic factors such as poverty and oppression for the wave of terrorist activity currently plaguing the world; however, though socioeconomic factors may contribute in some ways, ideology and extremism remain the true roots of modern terrorist motivation. By taking a closer look at the goals, ideology, and prominent members of Al-Qaeda, this case becomes clearly evident.

Before delving into the goals of Al-Qaeda, one must know the facts behind the group’s history. Broader in scope by far than any terrorist group of the previous century, Al-Qaeda has raised terrorism from a tactic of rebellion and protest to a truly fearsome weapon with which to challenge all opposing ideals. It first saw life in 1987, as a concept created by radical militant Abdullah Azzam, for the Islamist journal Al-Jihad. Azzam went on to found the Mujahidin with Osama Bin Laden as a response to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. After their success against the Soviets, Bin Laden and Azzam were eager to find a new, worthy cause on which to focus their followers. In 1988, Azzam published his eight guidelines for training Al-Qaeda (“The Foundation”, or “Base”) Upon returning to their homelands, the warriors that had come from other nations to aid in the holy war alongside the Mujahidin brought with them the ideologies of Azzam, powered by the will of Bin Laden, and so became the international network of independent cells that would make up Al-Qaeda. The network utilized secrecy to mask it’s existence, committing relatively minor attacks against U.S. interests overseas, and is believed to have backed the failed, first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center. Until September 11th, 2001, when terrorists linked to Al Qaeda hijacked aircraft, and utilized them to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, (as well as partially destroying the Pentagon building in Washington D.C.), the world at large was not completely aware of the group (Gunaratna, 2002).

The goals of Al-Qaeda include “The “creation of societies founded on the strictest Islamic principles” (Gunaratna, 2002). In his 1964 book Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, Sayyid Qutb stated “If Islam is again to play the role of the leader of mankind, then it is necessary that the Muslim community be restored to its original form. It is necessary to revive that Muslim community which is buried under the debris of the man-made traditions of several generations, and which is crushed under the weight of those false laws and customs which are not even remotely related to the Islamic teachings, and which, in spite of all this, calls itself the ‘world of Islam.’”(Qutb, 1964). Osama Bin Laden has expanded on this goal in his attempts to re-establish the Caliphate and unite all Arab peoples under one Muslim power structure. Another of their goals is to drive out western influence including American citizens and soldiers from all Islamic nations. This goal exposes the xenophobic nature of Bin Laden and his followers, and may stem from Bin Laden’s bitterness over the Saudis choice to ask the US for aid after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, rather than his own forces. Bin Laden believed the US had no business setting foot in the Middle East, and has harbored a grudge against America and all westerners ever since.
Also among the aims espoused by Al-Qaeda, the destruction of the nation of Israel, is widely believed a smokescreen to encourage potential recruits, rather than an actual goal. Al-Qaeda’s direct activity against Israel has been negligible, and instead, the group has in the past focused its efforts on America and her allies.
Less a formal group than a collective of like-minded individual cells, Al-Qaeda’s main strength lies it’s ability to adapt itself to new causes and goals in order to survive. It is this adaptability that has allowed Al-Qaeda to gain support from the most unlikely of sources. Evidence shows that Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim group, has been cooperating with Hezbollah, a Shi’ite organization, shocking due to the blood-feud that has existed between the Sunni and Shi’ite factions of Islam for centuries. Al-Qaeda has even found support among several white-supremacist movements, as well as Marxist organizations in South America, for their stance and actions against the government of the United States (Stern, 2003).
As before when Bin Laden shifted the groups stated goals to include Palestinian liberation, Al-Qaeda has also striven to boost the morale of disenfranchised Muslims the world over – by violently attacking perceived enemies of Islam (Stern, 2003). This is evident in Bin Ladens’ latest videotaped message, in which he called for more violence against the United States, yet offered an ambiguous cease-fire. Though seemingly ludicrous to those in the west, Bin Laden has, in the minds of Islamic viewers, made a correlation with himself and other great Arab leaders of the past. Most notable of the leaders Bin Laden has associated himself with is Saladin, who gave a similar offer to the Crusaders when his homeland was threatened. By setting himself up in the same league as these heroes of the Arab world, Bin Laden has gained even more inspirational power than before; despite the fifty-million dollar bounty on his head that has forced him into a life of seclusion (USA Today, 2006).

“And it is life from God for the martyrs: “Do not consider those as dead who were killed in the way of God; they are living and find sustenance from their Sustainer. They enjoy what God has given them from His bounty, and are glad for those who are left behind (on earth) and have not reached there yet, that they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve. They are jubilant at the favor from God and His bounty; indeed, God does not destroy the reward of the Believers”

- From “Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq”(Qutb, 1964).

Taking it’s ideology from extremist interpretations of Islamic scripture, Al-Qaeda seeks to drive western influence from the Middle-east and establish a new Caliphate, a unified nation of Arab states under one ruler, The Caliph, with laws derived from the strictest interpretations of Shariah (Islamic Law). Al-Qaeda’s motivation goes beyond mere religious ideology, however, and stretches deep into the collective Arab sub-conscious. Middle-Eastern civilization sprang from an honor culture that still thrives in many Islamic nations; after their successful campaign against the Russians in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden wanted to take the Mujahidin to Iraq to fight Saddam Hussein upon his invasion of Kuwait, and felt insulted when the Saudi Government chose to ask the UN (and the United States) for aid. Bin-Laden also believed US presence in Saudi Arabia blasphemous, and so began his war against western influences around the globe. Al-Qaeda sees themselves as warriors of God, and their motivation deeply rooted in Islamic scripture, twisted into a doctrine of hate and violence by charismatic ideologues.

In order to deal yet another blow to the theory that socioeconomic factors make up the root causes of terrorism, we turn to investigate the backgrounds of some of the groups more prominent members. The group’s leader, Osama Bin Laden (AKA, “The Sheikh”), was born to Yemeni immigrant parents in Saudi Arabia in 1957, the seventeenth of fifty-two children. Bin Laden’s father, Muhammed Bin Laden, founded the Saudi Bin Laden Group, a construction company that had won substantial contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The group gained much respect from the Saudi royal family, and Muhammed himself was well-liked by Faisal ibn Abdul Azziz, the Saudi King. Ironically, Muhammed Bin Laden had always discouraged his children from political and religious interests; after his death in 1968, Osama became the only member of his family to disrespect this wish.
Bin Ladens boyhood classmates from the Al Thagher Model School in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, describe him as an “honorable student” who looked after fellow students belongings to safeguard them from thieves and practical jokers. There, Bin Laden first received a taste for holy war, from the after-school lessons taught by the schools’ Syrian gym teacher, a man who may have been linked, or at least strongly influenced by the ideals of the Muslim Brotherhood. At first, the group resembled something like a Bible study, with memorization of Koranic verses and other such religious activities, but soon lessons took on overtones of violence. Though some students opted to distance themselves from the group at this point, Bin Laden remained. It was soon after this point that Bin Laden and his compatriots overtly began to take on the look and way of thought of an Islamic militant (Coll, 2005).
While attending University, Bin Laden studied Islamic history and law under Muhammed Qutb, brother of Sayyid Qutb, author of Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq (“Milestones along the way” or “Milestones”, as published in the U.S.). In 1978, he journeyed to Pakistan to prepare for a holy war against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, and rose to power as one of the seven principle leaders of the Mujahidin, backed by a coalition formed by the CIA. In Afghanistan, Bin Laden would meet the man who would influence his thinking for the next ten years; Abdullah Azzam.
Abdullah Azzam’s life and ultimate fate had much to do with the current courses of action taken by Al-Qaeda, and make him a figure worthy of a closer look as well. A former leader of the radical militant group Hamas and Al-Qaeda’s ideological father, Azzam met Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and working with Bin Laden formed the Mujahidin to combat the Soviet presence in that country, and the Maktab al-Khidmat (or MAK), a group which served to fund and recruit new members for the Mujahidin, as well as care for jihadis who had come from abroad.
Although agreeing with Bin Laden that the Mujahidin and MAK could be put to good use after the ouster of the Soviets, Azzam did not believe that Al-Qaeda should train in the use of terrorist tactics, citing examples from his time in Egypt as demonstrating the futility of such actions. Azzam, who had a Bachelor’s degree in Islamic Law (Shariah), also cited Koranic scripture which warned against attacking children and non-combatant women. Azzam also believed that the MAK should concentrate its efforts in Afghanistan where he thought they could do the most good. This did not fit in with Bin Laden’ dream of a new international Caliphate, and in 1989, assassins using a remote-controlled bomb murdered Azzam and his two sons while on their way to prayer services, thus leaving the way open for Bin Laden to turn al-Qaeda to his own ends (Gunaratna, 2002).
Another prominent figure that bears close study is Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Ayman Al-Zawahiri (AKA, Dr. Muez) grew up in Maadi, a secton of Cairo favored by the wealthy and well educated, and came from quite an impressive lineage. His relatives include a former head of Cairo University, a former religious leader at the world’s most influential Arab school, Al Ahazar, and Abdul Azzam. Those who knew him as a youth as “polite, composed, well-read, and even funny” (Lacayo , 2001). Zawahiri first met with arrest in Egypt at the age of fifteen, and earned a three year sentence for his part in the Muslim Brotherhood’s assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1966 (Perry, 2004) Though implicated as one of the top conspirators out of hundreds of defendants (Zawahiri was number 113), Egyptian police were unable to find sufficient evidence to convict Zawahiri on anything more than weapons possession (Lacayo, 2001).
Zawahiri went on to join his relation Azzam and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, joining his group, al-Jihad, with their own forces to fight the Soviets. Zawahiri later became Bin Laden’s closest advisor and personal physician, and has been described as being to Bin Laden “…like the brain is to the body” (Lacayo, 2001). Zawahiri’s goals have always been more political rather than religious, and Bin Laden’s shift towards a worldwide jihad has been widely attributed to his influence.
In a 1999 trial of a group charged with terrorist attacks against the Mubarak regime in Egypt, Zawahiri acquired a death sentence in absentia (Lacayo, 2001), and many believe that Zawahiri had a large part in the orchestration of the September 11th attacks on New York City and Washington DC (Perry, 2004).

Upon close examination of the goals, ideologies, and members of Al-Qaeda, it’s clear that socioeconomic factors have little to do with the current state of terrorist activity. Instead, we see a loose-knit group run by like-minded ideological demagogues under the auspices of religion. Said leaders cannot be considered poor and disenfranchised, instead, for the most part, they have wealth, education, and an extreme bitterness over a supposed blow dealt to the pride and dignity of Arab and Islamic peoples of the world.
Since religion inter-twines with the daily lives of nearly every resident of the Middle East, it makes perfect sense that Al-Qaeda’s leaders use it to control the minds and wills of those sympathetic to their cause. Promises of martyrdom and religious purity have enabled Al-Qaeda to whip up a clandestine coalition of people who believe more than anything that they do the right thing, not only for their own people, but for the entire world. Such motives seem to carry hate and frustration in their wake, and any outside criticism of the differences between Al-Qaeda’s actions and the teachings of the Quaran tends to cause more trouble than it alleviates. Likewise, trying to force those sympathetic to the terrorists to think and feel differently would not only constitute a breach in our own ethics, but would equally result in disaster. Finding a new way to deal with this new enemy remains the only course of action available. Perhaps even as we meet the terrorists on the battlefield, we can change the hearts and minds of those the terrorists would recruit; as Jesus taught in the Bible “…bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you…” (Matthew 5:44); Perhaps by consistently and earnestly pursuing the trust and goodwill of all the people of the Middle East through aid and other acts of friendship, we can win over those that currently would like nothing better than to see us dead.

References
Coll, S. (2005). Young Osama. The New Yorker, 81(40), 48-61.

Gunaratna, R. (2002). Inside al Qaeda : global network of terror. New York: New York Columbia University Press.

Lacayo, R., Gibson H., Macleod S., and Radwan, A. (2001). Public enemy no. 2. TIME, 158(21), 77-80.

Matthew 5:44-Hollman Bible Publishers. The Holy Bible; Authorized King James Version. Crown Reference ed. Nashville, TN: 1985.

Perry, G. (2004). The History of Egypt: Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Qutb, S. (1964). Ma’alim fi-l-tariq (“Milestones”). Revised ed. Burr Ridge, IL: American Trust Publications.

Stern, J. (2003). The Protean Enemy. Foreign Affairs, 82(4), 27-40.

To Muslim ears, bin Laden’s words carry different meaning. (2006). USA Today, 9- . Retrieved Jan 29, 2006, from MasterFILE Premier database. http://libsys.uah.edu:3052/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&an=J0E096454634706

On September 11th, 2001, the World Trade Center’s twin towers were the target of a vicious attack that ended with thousands of live ruined, and a country crying out for retribution. Vengeance was required, blood for blood. Our nation’s very honor was at stake, after all, no enemy had dared such a strike on US soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and never had the weapons used to wage an attack of this sort seemed so cowardly: hijacked, passenger-filled aircraft. An attack on unarmed men, women, and children, using their own countrymen and women as living bombs: in or eyes, there could be no more heinous act short of outright genocide. The men and women of New York’s Police and Fire Departments became national heroes that day, held in high esteem, and given every honor possible for their valiant rescue efforts. However, on the other side of the world, those responsible for orchestrating the attacks and those sympathetic to their cause revered their own heroes, the hijackers themselves. Al-Queda had scored a victorious blow against the great Satan, and had gained honor in the eyes of its followers. How, it may be asked, is it possible for one nation to view this act as cowardly and heinous, while others view the events with feelings of pride and honor? What causes a country to revere the murderers of thousands of innocents? When closely examined, honor is seen to have many more facets than the majority of us have been led to believe.

It is said that there is no honor amongst thieves, but in truth, it is largely because of underworld culture that honor even evolved as a concept. Criminals carrying large amounts of contraband and/or cash could hardly bring up a complaint with the local constabulary if any of it were stolen. Likewise, cultures of honor arose out of the shepherds of the English and Scottish border country, the Bedouins, even America’s old west, Though geographically diverse and, in some cases, of differing languages, similarities did exist – these cultures were largely rural and/or nomadic; the presence of law was either absent altogether, or spread too thinly. (Wikipedia) Without the law to guarantee safety of life, land, and property, an honor-culture developed to fill the void. In an honor-culture, swift vengeance is demanded for any infraction upon one’s honor, (read: stolen property, insults, infidelity, accidental injury, or as was the case with John Wesley Harding, having a bunkmate that snored too loud); an infraction that goes unanswered results in dishonor and shame. Since, in most of these honor-cultures, women were viewed in a manner akin to property, honor came to be recognized in a fundamentally different way for men and women. For men, bravery was revered, as a strong, valiant man could be seen as a great protector. For a woman, her chastity was often seen as her only source of honor. Even today, so called “honor-killings” persist in some honor-cultures (such as they did under Taliban rule in Afghanistan) as vengeance for infidelity in women, many times even if the woman’s only infidelity was being a rape-victim. Is this the same honor that exists in our own “Genteel South”, where it’s considered unthinkable to even strike a lady? The answer is both yes and no, for honor is indeed what you make of it. It is a compulsion to do what’s right, or at least, to be viewed as someone who does what’s right. Just who determines what is right is different for each individual. The persons whose opinions matter most to an individual are most likely to form that person’s sense of honor. To use a somewhat fanciful metaphor to illustrate, in the Marvel Comics series “Earth X”, the race of Asgardians (who the Norse viewed as gods), were actually shape-shifting aliens whose appearance was altered by the opinions of those who they came in contact with. An old, Norse storyteller who viewed them to be gods was the first person they encountered upon reaching Earth, and so it was they became the Norse deities of legend. In much the same way, our view of honor, ourselves, and the world around us, is shaped by our environment, and the individuals we look up to most. The so-called “honor-system” employed by universities and even our Nation’s military calls for individuals to inform the authorities of any rule infractions by their peers, yet calls for such informants frequently go unheeded; said individuals often value the respect of their peers over the administratively-imposed “honor-system”, and refuse to become a “rat”. Similar behaviors are found within nearly all Police departments, and within the FBI itself, but are most well-known within the world of organized crime. (Bowman) The Italian Mafia called it “Omerta”, literally, silence. This “code of silence” applies not only to avoid punishment but also as a measure to “save face”. In the recent war in Iraq, the Iraqi Minister of information denied on television that US troops had broken down Baghdad’s defenses, even when they could clearly be seen in the background, over-running the city. Though it seemed humorous to us, it would have been considered a great dishonor for him to admit such a defeat, by the Arab/Islamic honor-culture he lived in.

One might ask, “What do gangsters and comic-books have to do with the perpetrators of the most egregious crimes in our Nation’s history?” There has long been a strong feeling of resentment towards the United States and her allies within the majority of the Arab/Islamic denizens of the middle-east. Though it stems from the formation of a Hebrew nation-state in the form of Israel, religion is less a motivator than it is a convenient backdrop. They feel that their honor was attacked, and those primal feelings regarding their Palestinian kin’s lost property have resulted in a myriad of terrorist attacks around the world; in their eyes, these are acts of vengeance. The honor-culture is so deeply entrenched within the collective Arab psyche that a Jihaad, or holy-war, can be used as an interchangeable term for “international vendetta”. In their honor-based culture, suicide bombers receive honor because they believe they are righting a wrong, and there is no such thing as collateral damage. We in the west, on the other hand, are brought up to believe that all life is viewed a sacrosanct, and the loss of any life is something most of us wish to avoid, at all costs. If this sort of honor-culture is difficult for those of us in the west to understand, it is even more difficult for their culture to understand ours. In the wake of other terrorist bombings in the recent past, Osama bin Ladin gloated via videotape over the perceived cowardice he saw in the US withdrawals from Beirut, Somalia, Rwanda, and Yemen. He called America a “paper tiger”, a seemingly fearsome beast that will fold with the slightest pressure. He was goading us, even expecting a violent response, and when he did not get it, was even more convinced of our dishonor. He saw our desire to avoid conflict and our compassion, our unwillingness to kill, as weakness. If it can be said without seeming sympathetic to terrorists, he may have even been right.

There is a theory that states that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt actually had prior knowledge of the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor, yet allowed it to happen all the same, in order to shake America out of its’ isolationist slumber and get it involved in the war against the Axis Powers in World War II. Roosevelt knew, the theory goes, that without American involvement in the war, America’s allies, and eventually the entire world, would come under the oppressive rule of the Axis Powers. Without an attack on our Nation’s soil, however (that age-old gut-connection to property, again) the American public would never back US involvement in the war. Bound by his sense of honor, Roosevelt did what had to be done, and allowed the Japanese forces to decimate one of our own bases. (Stinnet) Whether or not the story is true, it is with an eerie sense of deja-vu that we can look at the September 11th attacks. Like the Japanese, (who revived their samurai code of “Bushido” to justify kamikaze raids), Al-Queda is very big on honor, and as before, we found comfort in isolation until we were hit way too close to home, rather, right inside its’ very doors. The attacks struck a chord within the American peoples’ hearts; our honor had been impugned, and vengeance, blood-simple and violent vengeance, was called for against our enemies.

Sources:
WikiPedia: The free encyclopedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor

Whatever happened to Honor?- James Bowman, Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute. June 10th, 2002 (transcribed for http://www.jamesbowman.net)

Earth X- Krueger, Ross & Leon, Marvel Comics Group, April 1999-June 2000

Day of Deceit – The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor- Robert Stinnett, Free Press, 1999

I awoke at 9:30 am the following morning to the realization that the pounding in my brain was at least in part emanating from the door of my hotel room. I looked around. Bryan and Schwarzenbach’s sister were already gone. When I answered the door, the face I saw didn’t surprise me one bit.
“You seen Bryan?” a very pissed Schwarzenbach asked me, flanked by two of the bigger tank mechanics from our platoon.
“Not since last night.” I didn’t mention that I’d last seen his sister at that very same moment. Schwarzenbach poked his head in my door to look around, and when satisfied of Bryan s’ absence, took off with his two cronies to resume his search. As for me, breakfast seemed like a better idea by the second. I changed my clothes and packed up my belongings, then headed down to the fast-checkout box to drop off my key, then on to the breakfast buffet, where I ran into my traveling companions once again.
They told me that Hopper and Raye would be heading home with some other members of their platoon, and Keaton and Katt asked me to join them for the day in Las Vegas.
“You mentioned something yesterday about never really seeing anything the last time you got to go” said Katt. It actually wasn’t true, I saw plenty… of strippers and hole in the wall bars. I remember not straying far from Fremont Street and public urination on cars. However, given the chance to see more of the place, I gladly accepted. Hell, what else was I going to do, they were my ride home.
The day passed beautifully, we drank and watched free shows and stole ashtrays in every casino along the strip, played video games in the biggest arcade I’d ever seen, and embarrassed the living hell out of Katt in the mall inside of Caesars Palace. Keaton and I started it off by walking down the wrong moving-walkway, when Katt caught up to us she tripped and nearly took a header into the guardrail. We hadn’t planned it, but she laughed it off with good humor that she would later regret, as Keaton and I snorted the perfumes and soaps in Bath and Body Works. We proceeded on our quest too make asses of ourselves by taking over Kay-Bee toys and chasing each other around with Light-sabers and Remote-Control cars. We decided o end the night with a little tradition from Katt’s childhood, the trip to the dinner buffet at Circus-Circus.
After the buffet, it was beginning to get dark, and it was time to start heading home. On the way out of the building, however, something caught Katt’s eye, and though I didn’t know it at the time, it would change my life forever.
It was a balloon. Katt said she wanted it.
Keaton gave an amused nod to the balloon, which was part of an arrangement outside the convention hall, but brushed it off that she was joking. I decided to take action. I whipped out my keys and slowly walked back to the balloon.
A minute later, I was blazing past Katt and Keaton, yelling, “RUN!” at the top of my lungs, balloon in tow. A conventioneer had spotted me stealing the thing and was now trying to get security after me. We high-tailed it to the parking garage, giggling like idiots, and sped off into the night. On the way home, I donned the paper hat I’d acquired from the Krispy Kreme in NewYork-NewYork, and got an even bigger smile out of Katt. It was quickly becoming one of my favorite pastimes, and it hung heavy in my heart to think that she was my friends girlfriend, and not mine.
It didn’t for long. They stayed together about a month after the Ball, and after trading IM ID’s and spending Thanksgiving and Christmas together as friends, Katt and I started dating. By the time the next ball we were newlyweds. The moral? Don’t ditch your sick date to go drink with your buddies. I can honestly say I enjoyed the next two birthday balls a lot more, in the company of my wife, than I did my first, but what the hell, I guess that one didn’t turn out too bad after all.

Sounds of anarchy pumped loudly from the rental’s speakers as we pulled up to Whiskey Pete’s, where the ball was being held. We grabbed our bags out of the car and handed off the keys to the valet. Many Marines had already arrived, and more were getting there by the second. All of their bags clanked as loudly as ours did. Prepatory heavy drinking is a ritual among Marines, going back to the night before, and sometimes the morning of, checking into boot camp. It’s a sort of natural thing that everyone joining the Marines learns, mysteriously enough, without ever having to be taught. There may be some Marines out there who don’t drink, but if there are, I’ve never met them.
After checking in and gathering our room keys, my fellow travelers and I parted company. I was rooming with another armorer, and they were reserved rooms closer to the other members of their platoons. My roommate for the ball was Bryan Ray, a fellow Texan whom I’d known since boot camp. He’d been in the armory a month when I arrived on base. Like then, he was well ahead of me now, already halfway into his dress-blues when I arrived. I said hey, and offered him a Guinness from my suitcase, which he accepted. I opened another for myself, and started to get into my service Alphas. The Alphas are what you always see Marines in old war movies wearing when they’re out on the town, that Green and Khaki suit with the green and red rank insignia. Service Alphas are the only acceptable uniform for the ball other than the preferred Dress Blue Alphas, the one you always see on Marine Reservists in the Toys-for-Tots commercials, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving day Parade. You have to buy the Dress Blue Alphas yourself if you want them. I wasn’t planning on being around that long.
Three beers later, I was suited up and searching my uniform for Irish pennants (those little bits of string that poke out from the seams of your clothes) and scuffs on the patent leather on my shoes and cover. Finally, I checked my alignment and the measurement of my badges. Nothing had changed since the last three inspections we’d had to go through to get our uniforms ready for the ball. Satisfied, I headed downstairs with a fresh beer.
The halls were alive with the sounds of Marines running half dressed through the halls, frantically trying to track down someone who had brought extras of whatever item they were missing Oddly enough, none of them seemed to have forgotten their booze. I smiled at the thought as I entered the casino, and lit up a cigarette. The thing I love most about Nevada, and in particular the Vegas area, is that you can smoke nearly anywhere. Walking into that sea of green and blue that was the casino floor, I needed a smoke, or four.
Amidst the throng of Marines could be spotted the occasional Sailor from our battalion aid station. The Navy holds its own balls every year, but theirs apparently aren’t as great as ours (pause for big laugh, ho-ho), and many of them choose to attend the Marine Corps ball instead. The sailors at our BAS were there as Docs and Chaplains, as the Marine Corps had no desire to train either. The purpose of a Marine is to hurt and kill men, not to patch them up and make them feel good about themselves, after all.
I got three more beers in me before making my way to my table. Bryan was already there, as were Wes Rapaglia, a short Italian armorer who had joined at the same time we did, also out of Texas, and Willis and Anderson, two other Marines from our armory with a couple more years under their belts. Seated at the table behind ours were some of the tank mechanics from our platoon. One of them was a buddy of mine named Schwarzenbach, who had lived two doors down from my best friend in High school, but had never met because he was four years younger than we were. Funny thing is, he joined the year before I did, and already outranked me. He’d brought his kid sister along to see the ball, and Bryan was already busy chatting her up when I arrived.
Suddenly, the lights go down, and a booming voice over the PA welcomes us to the First Tank Battalion Marine Corps Birthday Ball, and would we all please rise for the National Anthem and the Marine Corps Hymn. The Band marches in and plays through both songs with everybody in the room snapped to the position of attention. Everyone remains at the POA as the band plays “March on The Colors” and the flags are posted at the front of the ballroom. When it’s all done, the voice asks us to remain standing for the chaplains’ prayer. Finally, the voice gives us permission to be seated, and four-hundred-and-fifty relaxed groans and sighs escaped simultaneously. This part is the exact same way, every year, without deviation. After everyone is seated, we’re treated to a historical vignette about the battle of Chapultapec, and the meaning of the Blood stripe on the uniforms of Marine Officers and NCOs. After that, another segment that remains exactly the same from year to year- the spotlight moves to the center as the birthday cake is wheeled out and the oldest and youngest Marines present are called to the front. They are both in their Dress-Blue Alphas, marching with drill-worthy precision, although the younger is silently mouthing “left-right-left” to his self, and praying he won’t fuck up and look like a bag of ass while representing his unit. The oldest Marine is presented with the cake cutter by the MC, and completes the symbolic gesture by cutting a piece and handing the cutter off to the youngest Marine. Though the marines used in this part change, nothing else about it ever does, or ever will. When they’ve finished, the cake is hauled away to be cut up for the buffet line, and the keynote speaker is brought out. This is usually some grey eminence of the Marine Corps, often a Veteran of either Vietnam or Korea, and occasionally, the Big Deuce. You never remember the guy’s name, and he ends up rambling for an hour about something crazy, like the motor-scooter he had in the war, or how useful it is to be able to take apart guns in the dark. Wait a minute, that’s what I did…). Once he’s made his speech, the music starts and we’re given permission to line up for the prime-rib buffet, which I have to admit, was the best spread I’d seen in years, and tasted better than the steak and lobster birthday dinner they had served at the chow-hall. In fact, I’d have to say it was the best meal I’d had all year, at least to that point. They also announced the free kegs were to be opened at that point, all two of them. A line so big you’d have thought it was a ride Disneyland formed quicker than you can say “It’s a small world”. I decided instead of braving the line for few drops of suds, to grab a beer from the cash bar outside the ballroom, and ate my dinner while it was still hot.
A while later everyone finishes eating, and gathers up their commemorative mugs. The dual-flag centerpieces begin to disappear from the tables as well. Many of the couples begin dancing, as well, and that’s fine, but I took it as a cue to make my way around the Casino. I stopped at the first bar I saw and ordered a martini. I figured at this point, what the hell, I’m in a casino, in a suit, and half-lit, I might as well have some fun. I headed over to the slots, and dropped fifty bucks before hitting a $250.00 jackpot. This made me feel even more pumped, and I decided to try my luck at blackjack. At the 21 table, I ran into Hopper, who led me over to where Keaton was sitting. I was wondering where Katt was, when a security guard approached Keaton and asked him for his key. I asked Keaton what that was all about.
“Oh, Katt wasn’t feeling well, so she went back up to the room. I still had the key, so she sent the security guard to find me.”
I wondered how Keaton could stand to let a beauty like Katt out of his sight for even a second, especially in the company of so many Marines. I didn’t dwell on it for long however, it was none of my business anyways. We hung out for a while, and I gulped down two more Martinis before I decided it was time to turn in. I bade Hopper and Keaton goodnight, and headed up to my room. Each step became harder and harder to take, and when I actually reached it, the hallway was full-on spinning. It took four tries to work the electronic lock on my door, and after success, I made my way past the couple making out in the first bed, and passed out on my own bed in a fully-clothed heap.