by James Glaser
August 1, 2005

On Sunday, I heard a Minister talk about evil in the world, terrorist attacking our Godly country, and that how we are now defending ourselves from those terrorists, with our Troops fighting in Iraq. He asked that we all pray to the Almighty to protect those brave men and women in uniform.

On Saturday I got an e-mail, from a woman whose son is now serving in Iraq, and she wanted to know why I wanted to protect the people of Iraq, after what they did to us on 9/11.

President Bush keeps telling America that his war in Iraq is somehow connected to the 9/11 attacks on America. Every time he speaks, he includes the 9/11 terrorists, in the same thought with what we as a nation are doing in Iraq.

During the buildup to war in Iraq, the Bush administration did everything they could to plant a connection between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the attack on America. Now, after this war has been going on for 2 ½ years, costing thousands of lives on both side, we know the truth.

Nothing the Bush administration was telling us about Iraq was true. Not the aluminum tubes for making atomic bombs, (wrong size, wrong material) nor the "yellow cake" from Niger, (forged documents) not the mobile biological weapons trailers, (weather balloon mobile trailers) not even the Weapons of Mass Destruction, (there were none).

The talk of "mushroom-shaped clouds over American cities, was just that...Talk. The talk of Saddam working with bin Laden was just talk too, and we found that bin Laden did not like or trust Saddam, and had no contact with him.

No one from Iraq attacked our country, but many Americans still believe that they did, thanks to the lies of the Bush administration. The truth is that people from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen attacked us.

It is a shame that the woman who e-mailed me has no idea of why her son is fighting in Iraq...It may cost him his life. I do pray for our troops like that Minister requested, but I also pray for the Iraqi people.

Many Americans seem to forget that there are millions of totally innocent people in Iraq, millions and millions of children and infants. Americans have this mind set that Muslims are our enemy, no matter where they live, and if Muslims attacked us, then the Iraqi Muslims must be guilty

After America was attacked, our country wanted revenge and there was a lot of talk about God being on our side. Well, we didn't attack Saudi Arabia, nor did we attack Egypt or Yemen. We picked the two most pitiful countries we could. True both Afghanistan and Iraq are Muslim countries, but neither could have attacked us, even if they wanted to.

Yes, Osama was in Afghanistan and we knew that because for years we gave him money to fight the Soviets. The man was a hero to all of Afghanistan and when we wanted them to give him up, they couldn't. How do you give up a national hero? So we attacked, but we told the whole world, and Osama that we were going to, and he just moved, and we still don't have him. Of course we did manage to kill thousands and thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

We went on to attack Iraq, another Muslim country that was in pitiful shape. We had beat Iraq a decade ago and had kept an embargo on the country ever since. Iraq's military had no spare parts, we had been bombing them for ten years. They had no navy, air force, and their country was in ruins.

Many Americans still think that because Afghanistan and Iraq are Muslim countries they must have had something to do with 9/11, so we are justified in attacking them, but they are wrong.

We have had our revenge for 9/11 and then some. Tens and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians have been killed and wounded. We have destroyed most of what little these two countries had for infrastructure. For sure we have killed at least 10 innocent civilians for every innocent American who was killed on 9/11, but still that is not enough. We want more. Many of our church leaders want more. And even some of the loving parents of our troops want more.

But, when we look at the facts, we haven't done anything to get Justice for those Americans, who were murdered in New York and Washington. All we have done is heap death and destruction on two of the most abused populations on this globe. The Afghan people have suffered for decades.

Under Soviet rule and after years of fighting them, they had years of oppression under the Taliban. Washington will tell you that we got rid of the Taliban, and Afghanistan has a new government, but that is a lie. Afghanistan is now ruled, like it always has been, by War Lords. They have made the country a narco-state that supplies the world with opium and heroin. Yes, we did set up out own puppet regime in the capital, Kabul, but that is all that government controls and still the people suffer, and the Taliban still is fighting.

In Iraq, the people, who suffered for decades under Saddam are suffering worse than ever before. Tens of thousands killed and many more wounded. These are the innocent people we tell the world we are trying to help. Many Iraqi people have suffered for their whole lives and now we attack their country, and they suffer more.

Apples and oranges. Yes, those who attacked us were Muslims. And those we attacked were Muslims, but that is the only thing they had in common. We attacked who we thought would be pushovers, but we were wrong. The people we attacked know they did not attack us, and they are proving to the world that they are not a people that America can satiate its desire for revenge on.