Post #8: Transcript of an Email Exchange

I made minor spell check corrections and a formatting tweak here or there but this is the crux of it.

“What realities hit home that may have strengthened or changed your perspective?”

I didn’t have much of a perspective going in. I really didn’t know anything about the Middle East and at the time I thought the reasons why we invaded Iraq were complete bull. I still do but I’ve come around to see that our conflict with the world of Islam is inevitable and necessary. If I could do it again I’d gladly go, I just wish our reasons for going were honest.

I think most Marines kind of knew the foundation of our reason for being there was shaky at best, cracked at worst. I believe this led to a lot of mental strain. It’s one thing to get your legs blown off, it’s another thing to get your legs blown off for a reason.

So I went in neutral and I came out absolutely hating radical Islam. So that changed. I didn’t really know it existed to the extent it did. 911 was in 2001 and I went to Iraq in 2004 so the attack was almost an abstract thing at that point. Not to mention that Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 911.

I think I was so focused on surviving, doing my job, and not being a pussy that I didn’t have much time to process much. Everything is hitting me in bursts years later.

“Ultimately it would be interesting to see if you believe this conflict with the jihadists in the middle east can actually be won/resolved and how.”

I think we can draw parallels with Imperial Japan. Both are/were religiously based. Both had fanatics willing to kill themselves to kill a few of us.

We beat the Imperial Japanese with nukes. That’s not really an option with the Jihadists but if we’re going to beat them we need to do something big. We need to do so much damage to them so quickly that it shocks them into submission. I do believe it’s possible but it’s going to need a global effort with a William Tecumseh Sherman approach.

Shit..maybe it’s impossible.

“I’ve heard from active military officers in Iraq and Afghanistan that our refusal to recognize the socioreligious roots of our enemy cripples our ability to fight them.”

This is true. We treat them like they’re like us. They’re not like us. Watch the documentary Restrepo. There’s an incident with a cow that basically encapsulates the AFG and Iraq wars.

“How much of the motivation that you have seen is truly religious and how much of it is political or some other motivator?”

The hard core of the Sunni insurgency is a cocktail of religion and evolutionary-biological urges. It’s simultaneously 100% religious and 100% selfishly about resource control, control over women (just a resource to them), and establishing a pecking order in which radical Jihadists compete for control over everything.

That is simply my opinion. I hope this response was satisfactory.