I'm currently attending school in southern Illinois. Tonight, I went out with a friend for a few beers. We chose a local bar, usually somewhat empty and calm; but of course tonight it was completely full, the parking lot outside all together taken.
In any case, we got ourselves a pitcher of beer and found a stooled table - messy and surrounded by the chairs, with two spots open and the rest occupied by strangers having a chat.
My friend and I hadn't much to talk about at this point, so gradually I started to listen in on the conversation next to me. It was being carried, for the most part, by this largely built, clean and head-shaven caucasian man, probably in his early 30s, with two women, not too much but slightly younger, opposite both me and him.
Before I'd really keyed in on what was being said, I'd noticed their rapt faces and their occasional agreements, the way he was getting more and more excited as he elaborated on something. Soon after this, my friend, who spent some time in various ugly parts of Iraq with the Army, mentioned that this guy next to me had obviously spent some time in the military, this he figured from a few of the phrases and words he'd overheard himself.
My friend is somewhat notorious for getting himself into personal trouble by picking the wrong times, places, and people to discuss his war experiences, so I decided to be the first to ask this guy what he was talking about before my friend could take it upon himself and things could possibly become unappealing.
He was glad to share, and this was his utterly sincere theory:
In order for the United States to be able to effectively settle the turmoil within and around Iraq, we, as a nation, must vacate 200 miles of our eastern coast. Once we've done this, we invite all terrorists and evil doers of the sort to root themselves in this vacant land; they will have two years to do so, in which they should arm and fortify their numbers and the land. After two years have passed, the United States will attack these 200 miles of our eastern coast, surely decimating all the terrorists that have moved there. This, of course, will be possible because they will have weakened themselves with the typical factionary violence and are also readily found - our east coast is ours, and wiping them out there will be no problem. Major cities such as New York are given a curt fuck-you, this is for a bigger cause. With such a large number of terrorists amassed in such a familiar place, the war on terror will take a victorious leap forward.
Anyway, I know this is ridiculous and just something to be chuckled over, but being 20 years old I suppose it's still one of the still few times that my jaw has pretty much dropped on its own. So unsure of where to start in refuting this, and so quickly convinced that it wasn't worth a try, I actually felt sort of cheery and told him it was something we'd just have to "agree to disagree" on, which he was obliged to do - the integrity of his plan left intact.
So perhaps the troubles of Iraq should be treated in the same fashion as a substance intervention? Please, post your private and cherished solutions to the conflict.
― p densmore (pbnmyj), Sunday, 14 January 2007 11:53 (eighteen years ago)
That's incredible. I don't know how I would have responded to that. Maybe I would have laughed and been like haha, yeah, totally man, and allowed him to say it was kind of a joke. But it sounds like he wouldn't have done that. There is a tenuous connection with some bizarre theories floated by people who actually consider themselves world experts about these things, where they say the war in Iraq is magnetically attracting all those who hate the United States, which plays right into the US' hands - as if American soliders are just popping terrorists one by one as they come over some ridge, en route from Terrorstan. You could call it the "roach motel" theory of warfare. I guess the advantage of this dude's plan is that American soldiers wouldn't have to go all the way over to Iraq, and could take a break from fighting for two years.
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Sunday, 14 January 2007 22:17 (eighteen years ago)