falluja

some thoughts...muslim fundamentalism... a recent article said that it is:"...a reaction that came out of an Islam misshapen by modern political developments, many of them emanating from Western influences, outright invasion by British, French, and Italian colonialists, and finally theU.S.-Soviet clash that helped create the mujahadeen jihad in Afghanistan." absolutely! it reminds me... what scared me most when i saw video footage or read of the battle for faluja was that what our soldiers in iraq are facing is a real islamic resistance. in one scene it was not saddam loyalists that were fighting the occuping US forces, it was mujahideen. secular baathists don't yell "takbir" when a US soldier hurls a grenade to clear a hideout. those hiding out don't respond with "allahuakbar" before they die, unless they view themselves as mujahideen. While many in america speak of "quagmire" vietnam style, i see more"jihad" afghanistan style. it scared me because... i don't know where i stand.... a part of me wanted the mujahideen in that hideout to.....???? i don't like these thoughts.. i see that soldier hurling the grenade doing the job he is told to do. i see that soldier giving an interview saying how much he would like to succeed in helping the iraqis build a free society. i see that soldier speak about how he would much rather be helping build a school or something. i believe him. he is like my neighbors. he is the people i work with. i know that not all of our young men there are arrogant violent bastards. many are from the working class of our society, who enlist to better themselves, and/or defend our nation. they deserve my support. i want to give it to them. it is very easy for the non-american muslims to simply replace an old enemy with a new one. an old hatred of godless, islam cleansing, communist russians, expanding an empire. replaced with a new hatred of ignorant, islam cleansing, corporate americans, expanding another empire... i can't do that. i see the nuance... i can picture my nana hazrat (my mother's uncle, who is a major religious scholar in india). he is not a wahhabi, he is a hanafi, qadiri sufi. he went to baghdad often. i can picture him giving khutbas about how americans are violating the sanctity of the mosques of imam-e-azam abu hanifa, or ghaus-e-azam abdul qadir jilani. i can feel his followers develop a hatred of our occupying soldiers, some probably willing to join or support a jihad against us, fodder for some militants organizing an effort to recruit them... ignorant american journalists, ignorant policy wonks, ignorant generals... i don't care about a damn insurgent "sunni triangle", it's mainstream sunni world-wide waging a war against us that i fear... and i fear it becoming too late. i know how the last jihad against an empire went. it was no good for the occupiers or the inhabitants. muslim youth world wide were radicalized. ok... now i know where i stand!! i am left with only one conclusion: we need to pull out of iraq! immediately! i don't care what the iraqis do with their own land. they can kill each other in a civil war or establish a republic. i want to be able to say i don't give a damn....