It's the new cool thing to hate America. Everybody's doing it, hop on board. Hell, even I'm doing it.
But you can bet your ass not one f*cking person over there is concerned about "oil". I never signed up and went, well, f*ck! Now I gotta get some goddamn oil! No. I went cause I knew I could do something. Everybody goes because they know they can do something and enough people go, guess what? Shit gets done.
You guys are all thinking so damn large, but the truth of the matter is, you're giving people more credit than they deserve. They're standing on the streets, day in and day out, trying to do something. They're looking at civilians. They're looking at kids. Teachers. Store owners. While kids are being raised to hate America like we're motherf*cking Satan himself. It's like to religion over there. It's difficult to weigh in on this but whatever, keep going.
It's like this, when you're not in it, you can look at it from above in your giant microscope of concocted conspiracy. You can, really, because it's so small and objective and you can analyze it and observe. Come up with "reasons" why we're there.
Ask anyone who's come back from Afghanistan and they'll tell you the exact same thing I'm telling you. They'll say they went over to "defend our country". Yeah, because that's what we're taught to believe. But the truth of the matter is, we go over there so we can build the schools. So that we can decontaminate their water and food supplies. So that we can educate. Heal. Prevent. Disarm. We hold the line. I used to have to walk 14 miles twice a day (That's 12 hours a day) to deliver supplies to a CMH that dealt with Iraqi civilians. And yes, that was with an infantry unit.We did not go over to "blow shit up" or "get oil" or "Get Osama" or any other thing. We went over there to do what we could.
Some days, that meant fighting. A lot. Fighting people who think we're doing shit we aren't doing. Fighting people who are spreading false ideology through fear tactics and civilian casualties. Believe me. I understand exactly what happens. It isn't pretty. It isn't scenic. This war, though - it's between people. It's just between people. Some days that means it's between you and getting a kid across the street, or it's between you and a terrorist with his hand on the button, or a kid with a bomb who thinks what he's doing is meaningful. Or it's between you and your will to survive when you forget what the f*ck is going on, or why this land is so god damned important.
Most days, it means helping in whatever way we could.
That's why people go over there, and anybody who says any different is just a f*cking asshole. I used to know a guy who gave his justification as "I went over to shoot some f*cking terrorists". 2 days later, he was dead. That justification does not hold up. Anywhere. Yes, people are f*cking pissed about what happened in 9/11. A lot of people probably joined up for that reason alone, but this war has been going on a damned long time and 9/11 is the icing on the cake, in all honesty.
For the record, Al-Qaeda is typically only used in its Arabic sense, but in its Urdu sense, one of the meanings is "Habit". As in, habitat. Culturally it's difficult to explain, but I could see how you might get "toilet" out of that. It's one of the basic precepts of living. It's a misinterpretation. The word Al-Qaeda actually comes from Qa'idat al-Jihad, which means The center of holy war. Toilet in Arabic is hamman.
Rest assured, no one is going around asking to use "The Al-Qaeda" in their family homes. Even if Al-Qaeda meant "To shit a thousand bricks of fire", it wouldn't be used as a colloquialism anywhere. It's been immortalized, so it means what it means.
To me, war is the most damaging thing a Human being can go through. There is nothing that can replicate it in normal existence. So yeah, some people are pretty god damned happy that UBL is dead. If I still gave a shit, I'd be happy too.
