"Ein sinnloser Krieg geht ins zehnte Jahr" / "A Senseless War Begins Its 10th Year"
Michael Moore schlüpft in die Rolle Obamas und hält anlässlich des neunten Jahrestags des Beginns des Afghanistankriegs eine Rede an die Nation (englisch) / Address to the nation from President Barack Obama (as reported by Michael Moore)
October 7th, 2010 4:58 PM
A Senseless War Begins Its 10th Year ...an address to the nation from
President Barack Obama (as reported by Michael Moore)
By Michael Moore *
My Fellow Americans:
Nine years ago today we invaded the nation of Afghanistan. I’d just
turned 40. I had a Discman and an Oldsmobile and had gotten really into
LiveJournal. That was a long time ago. It was so long ago, does anybody
remember why we're even there? I think everyone wanted to capture Osama
bin Laden and bring him to justice. But he got away sometime in the
first month or so. He left. We stayed. Looking back now, that makes no
sense.
Needing to find a new reason for the mission, we decided to overthrow
the religious extremists who were running Afghanistan. Which we did.
Sorta. Unlike Osama, they never left. Why not? Well, they were Afghans,
it was their country. And, strangely enough, a lot of other Afghans
supported them. To this day, the Taliban only have 25,000 armed
fighters. Do you really think an army that tiny could control and
suppress a nation of 28 million against their will? What's wrong with
this picture? WTF is really going on here?
The truth is, I can't get an answer. My generals can't quite tell me
what our mission is. If we went in there to rout out al-Qaeda, well,
they're gone too. The CIA tells me there are under 100 of them left in
the whole country!
My generals have also admitted the following to me:
-
There is no way we can defeat the Taliban. They enjoy too much popular
support in the rural areas, the majority of the country.
- Even though we've been there nine years, the truth is the Taliban,
not us, not the Afghan government, control the country. After nine
years, we’ve only completely run the Taliban out of 3% of Afghanistan.
3%!! (Just for reference, it took us only ELEVEN MONTHS after D-Day to
entirely defeat the Nazis across all of Europe.)
- Our troops and their commanders are still trying to learn the
language, the culture, the customs of Afghanistan. The fact is, our
troops are simply not trusted by the average people (especially after
they've killed numerous civilians, either through recklessness or for
sport).
- The Afghan government we installed is corrupt beyond belief. The
public does not trust them. President Karzai is on anti-depressants and
our advisors tell us he is erratic and loopy on many days. His brother
has a friendly relationship with the Taliban and is believed to be a
major poppy (heroin) dealer. Heroin poppies are the #1 contributor to
the Afghan economy.
The war in Afghanistan is a mess. The insurgency grows -- and why
wouldn't it: foreign troops have invaded and occupied their country! The
people responsible for 9/11 are no longer there. So why are we? Why are
we offering up the lives of our sons and daughters every single day --
for no reason anyone can define.
In fact, the only reason I can see is that this war is putting billions
of profits into the pockets of defense contractors. Is that a reason to
stay, so Halliburton can post a larger profit this quarter?
It is time for me to bring our troops home -- right now. Not one more
American needs to die. Their deaths do not make us safer and they do not
bring democracy to Afghanistan.
It is not our mission to defeat the Taliban. That is the job of the
Afghan people -- if that is what they choose to do. There are many
groups and leaders of countries in this world who are despicable. We are
not going to invade 30 countries and remove their regimes. That is not
our job.
I am not going to stay in Afghanistan just because we're already there
and we haven't "won" yet. There is nothing to win. No one from Genghis
Khan to Leonid Brezhnev has been able to win there. So the troops are
coming home.
I refuse to participate in scaring the American people with a phony "War
on Terror." Are there terrorists? Yes. Will they strike again? Sadly,
yes. But these terrorist acts are few and far between and should not
dictate how we live our daily lives or make us ignore our constitutional
rights. They should never distract us from what our real priorities are
in making our country safe and secure: Everyone with a good job,
families able to own a home and send their kids to college, universal
health care that's coordinated by your elected representative government
-- not by greedy, profit-hungry insurance companies. THAT would be true
homeland security.
And what about Osama bin Laden? Nine years and we can't find a 6'5" Arab
man who apparently is on dialysis? Even after offering $25 million to
anyone who will tell us where he is? You don't think someone would have
taken us up on that by now?
Here's what I know: Osama bin Laden is a multi-millionaire -- and if
there's one thing I've learned about the rich is that they don't live in
caves for 9 years. Bin Laden is either dead or hiding out in a place
where his money protects him. Or maybe he just went home.
Just like we should do. Now. My condolences to the families of all who
died in this war. Most of them signed up after 9/11 and wanted to do
their duty because we were attacked. But we were not attacked by a
country. We were attacked by a few religious extremists. And you don't
defeat a few thugs by shipping halfway around the world thousands of
armored vehicles and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. That is just
sheer idiocy.
And it ends tonight.
God be with you.
I'm not a Muslim.
(End of speech, as transcribed by Michael Moore)
* Quelle: www.michaelmoore.com
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