The Muslims That Roared

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer
I have said for nearly a decade that we have lost the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but somebody forgot to tell the Pentagon, our politicians, and our generals. When General David Petraeus lost his argument last week with intrepid President Hamid Karzai about assisting Afghan villagers to fight the Taliban in their home territory, it reminded me of that 1960’s British satire about the Cold War, “The Mouse That Roared,” starring Peter Sellers.

The central theme of the movie is that the world’s smallest country could make a lot of money if it declared war on the United States, loses in rather dramatic fashion, and then collects the foreign aid we always send to losers. It’s rumored that the Karzai brothers, one the president, the other the chief drug warlord, have secreted at least $3 billion of U.S. taxpayer money in Swiss banks.

“The Mouse That Roared” is a satiric comedy about the tiny duchy of Grand Fenwick, about to go bankrupt because the United States has stolen its wine market by producing a very cheap imitation of Grand Fenwick’s best wine, the pinot Grand Fenwick. Prime Minister Count Rupert Mountjoy develops the battle plan: declare war on the U.S., lose the war, then accept enough foreign aid money to totally reconstruct the country. A grand army composed of about 20 Grand Fenwickians armed with crossbows and wearing chain mail invade New York’s Central Park, but only after stealing a French ship in order to get across the sea. The invading army has a number of Monty Python incidents, once stealing what they think is a mysterious “Q” bomb.

The movie is filled with absurd plots, examples of dirty politics, and the absolute paranoid climate of the Cold War. The satire is still relevant today, with many scenes that can remind us of the tragedies of both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

This was the first starring movie for Peter Sellers, who happens to play three people in the movie: Her Royal Highness Grand Duchess Gloriana, Prime Minister Mountjoy, and Expedition Commander Tully Buscombe. Critics absolutely raved about his performance in all three roles.
Why Did Osama Bin Laden Attack the United States?
Osama said he attacked the U.S. because we had “infidel” troops occupying Muslim holy lands. But was he thinking of a “roaring mouse” plot when he attacked the Twin Towers? Perhaps Karzai has seen the movie, too. At least it seems that Karzai is in the war for the money. He wants us to stay 15 years, pumping billions into the bottomless Kandahar pit each year. The Pentagon says it costs us $1 million a year to keep one servicemember in Afghanistan. We have about 240,000 civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill for just Afghanistan this year will be $70 billion.

What are we going to win in Afghanistan - if we “win?” What are we going to win in Iraq – if we “win?” Will someone please tell me? Will the wars protect us from further Al Queda attacks? If we keep Iraq and Afghanistan “clean” from Al Queda training sites, will we also have to occupy Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, and all the other “Muslimstans” for national security reasons?

Can you name one religious war that didn’t end badly for both sides? Who “won” the Crusades? The Brits have been defeated a dozen times when religion was involved.

People don’t give up their religions. Religious conservatives in Iran want to bury a female adulterer up to her breasts and then stone her to death. It’s quite messy. Martyrdom is a central tenet of many religions. The Hindu wife throws herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.  If a woman marries below her caste in northern India she is often killed with “honor” by her relatives and family.

The Christian and Muslim religions are imbued, inflamed, empowered, inspired, and lemminged by martyrs, literate and illiterate. The martyrs are enjoying McMansions surrounded by golden streets or basking and grasping at 72 virgins who never lose their virginity through the power of holy spirits.

Where Have All the Old Suicide Bombers Gone?
As of last week enemy martyrs have killed 5,456 of our “volunteers” in Iraq and Afghanistan while severely wounding 38,547. “Severely” usually means a missing limb or four (Read “Spirit Intact: A Soldier Reclaims His Life” in the July 4, New York Times.  It’s about a soldier who lost all four limbs).

We currently have 300,000 troops with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) either getting treatment or receiving disability for life. We may spend over $1 trillion on disability payments alone. Can we defeat a religion and a people who show so little regard for life on earth? How old was the oldest suicide bomber? Can we defeat men who require four witnesses to charge a man with the rape of a woman? Who kill a sister who marries a Shiite instead of a Sunni or Sufi? Who stone adulterers or those who have sex before marriage? Can we defeat men who marry eight-year-old girls and want to immediately consummate the marriage?

What kind of men enforce the sharia laws of the Taliban through the Department of Vice and Virtue while patrolling the streets, banning music, radios, and TV? Mohammad Atta, head of the 9/11 hijackers who flew an airliner loaded with passengers into the side of the World Trade Center, shouted “Allah!” with great religious zeal just before hitting the building. If he were so religious, why did he spend his last few nights on earth at XXX strip clubs getting sloshed with booze - which is forbidden by the Koran? Why are confiscated laptops from pious Taliban and Al Queda members loaded with porn?

Group Hugs by Suicide Bombers Are Dangerous
What kind of men induce male and female teenagers to train as suicide bombers? If these men really believed in their religion wouldn’t they be the first to volunteer to blow up enemies and infidels? The Afghans are beginning to use IEDs and suicide bomb vests that were perfected by the Iraqis. Over 50 percent of suicide bombers actually blow themselves up through mistakes in handling the explosives. Some have committed mass suicide prior to “missions” by giving each other “goodby” hugs. Those explosive vests with pressure detonators can be tricky to handle.

We have been at war for approximately nine years in Afghanistan, although we have never been very serious about it. The Northern Alliance and our Special Forces knocked off the Taliban in about three months following 9/11, driving them completely out of Afghanistan by December 7, 2001. That was our opportunity to declare victory and go home.

There was very little left to blow up anyway. It’s hard to nation-build when there isn’t a nation.

Now that we have been defeated for the last nine years, it will make no difference whether we leave in five minutes or five years. Afghanistan has never been totally defeated, not by Alexander The Great, England, Russia, or any other leader or country. General Petraeus The Pretty Good ain’t no match for Alexander The Great yet.

Six more of our troops were killed in Afghanistan last Sunday morning.
Does This Sound Like a Win in Iraq?
A few politicians are saying we have “won” something in Iraq because of the Petraeus surge.
Let’s look at the facts. We are supposed to be out of there by December 2011. The Iraqis had an election last March but still have not figured out how to translate an election into governing. Political party members say it will take a minimum of another five months to form a government. That takes us to January 1, 2011, or only one year to prevent a civil war before all of our forces are gone. Good luck.

There’s plenty of evidence a civil war is already captivating Baghdad. In the northern city of Mosul alone there have been over 250 assassinations of politicians, tribal chiefs, police officers and chiefs, important civil servants in government offices, clerics, and members of the Sunni religion, the minority in Iraq.  Even Iraqi Army generals have been killed in ambushes.

On a recent Sunday, a large group of men in Iraqi Army uniforms attacked the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad. In a coordinated effort the group first blew up the generator supplying power to the bank and then had three suicide bombers blow themselves up at the entrances. The attackers, thought by Iraqi commanders to be members of Al Queda, reached the top floor and burned a lot of records. According to “government”  spokesmen, no money was stolen from the bank. I bet not. Records destroyed. Swiss bank accounts at the ready. A perfect bank job.

Iraq, reputed to be the third most corrupt country in the world, just ahead of Somalia and Afghanistan, does have a very busy Commission of Public Integrity. The Commission reported that there were 7,797 cases of waste, fraud, and abuse that cost the U.S. (and Iraqi government!) $718 million in just 2009. The Commission had no figures for the years prior to that.

Both Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, leader of the Shiites, and Ayad Allawi, leader of the Iraqiya Party and principal challenger to Maliki for power, have been subjected to assassination attempts on a regular basis.

In just one day a suicide bomber killed 33 and wounded 108 in Baghdad and 40 others died in bomb explosions and various shootings. We have to remember that we have 13 times the population of Iraq, so that day’s killings and injuries would come close to the 2,800 lost in the World Trade Center bombings. Death is still a constant even though some are claiming a win in Iraq. Supposedly we will have no more than 50,000 troops in Iraq at the end of August 2010. Already Iraqi security forces simply let Al Queda members out of jail if they have attacked Americans. That’s not a good sign.
Joe Biden Has the Right Idea
We have spent billions developing spy satellites that can read license plates and house numbers from outer space. There is a story that one satellite can spot a golf ball on the 18th green. That means we can spot a terrorist planting a bomb in a road or building in the daytime. If the guy wants to connect bomb wires in total darkness, let him.

We even have civilian outfits such as DigitalGlobe putting satellites 423 miles into space that can identify a specific image on earth as small as 19 and ½ inches. That’s a terrorist sitting on a park bench. The GeoEye-1 orbits the earth 15 times a day and passes over every spot on earth every three days. These satellites are essentially telescopes that can easily swivel to cover immense territories.

We have a new Air Force satellite that tracks 1,000 active satellites and 20,000 pieces of space junk at one time.  Why don’t we use this miracle stuff to track our enemies instead of turning every battle in Iraq and Afghanistan into the daily battle at the Tombstone OK Corral?
In 1945, Army General Lucian B. Truscott and part of the military brain trust that brought us victory in World War II, spoke at the dedication of an American military cemetery in Italy.
Although there were many dignitaries present, Truscott turned his back on the living crowd and spoke directly to the dead soldiers in the ground.  He had sent many soldiers to their deaths by his orders, so he apologized for the errors that had put them in their graves.

Our generals have a great deal to apologize for after a decade of two wars. Whenever I see my fellow Marines on patrol on a trail of rocks in Afghanistan mountains 14,000 feet high or marching in the desert with no cover in sight in Iraq, I think of generals always fighting the last war. In one day in the battle of the Somme in World War I the British had 19,240 killed, 35,492 wounded, 2,152 missing, and 585 captured.  On June 6, 1944 at the invasion of Europe in World War II we lost 9,000 men killed and wounded.

Maybe wars have gotten “better,” but generals should still apologize to the graves directly.
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