Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

You can't start a war over one guy. 

Even if you think that Osama bin laden was responsible for 9/11, AND I DON'T, it was never right to start a war over him. And even if he was responsible for 9/11, it was never right to start a war. And that's because everyone's life has the same value, and you can't assume that killing hundreds of thousands of people is something you're entitled to do in order to get the one guy you want. 

Do you understand that you have no right to raise your hands, as if they're scales, and bobble them up and down, and say, "Yeah, I think it's worth if we have to kill a few hundred thousand Afghans in order to get Osama bin laden..."  It's not a question you are entitled to ask or answer, and that's because you are not God. And I'm not even sure that God has got the right to ask it or answer it, but I guarantee that you, and I, and George W. Bush, and Donald Trump don't have the right to ask it or answer it. Those lives don't belong to you or me or Bush or Trump. They belong to the people who are living them.  

Now, I admit that most Americans are completely oblivious to this very obvious fact of morality.  And it's because they are products of government schools. They have been brainwashed their whole lives to believe in "American exceptionalism." 

Think about what happened in 2001. Bush announced that Osama bin laden was responsible for 9/11. No evidence was provided. So, he demanded from the Taliban government that they hand him over.  They refused, but not in a "fuck you" sort of way. They were respectful. They pointed out that Afghanistan did not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. But, they said they would consider it if Bush showed them the evidence against bin laden. Bush refused. In other words, he gave them the "fuck you" response. And I understand it. It's an efficient way to make a point. Then, to avoid a war, they offered to turn bin laden over to a third country for trial. Bush rejected that too, but think about it: If bin laden were in jail in another country, he would be just as neutralized and just as much prevented from planning future attacks than if he was in a U.S. jail. 

So, this wasn't a bad offer at all from the Taliban, and Bush should have taken it. But, even that idiot must have known that there was no convictable evidence against bin laden for 9/11.  And that's why he didn't take it. But, here's the real point I want to make: WHEN BUSH ANNOUNCED THAT WE WERE GOING TO CROSS TWO OCEANS TO START A WAR WITH AFGHANISTAN,  NO ONE IN THE MEDIA CONDEMNED HIM FOR IT. And to say that that war has been an unmitigated disaster is the understatement of the century. Here it is, still raging after 18 years, with hundreds of thousands of Afghans dead and over 2000 Americans dead, and here we are, the United States, the world's only superpower, the world's 800 pound gorilla, and we're practically on our hands and knees, begging the Taliban to talk to us, negotiate with us, so that we can get the heck out of there. We could not beat the Viet Cong in Vietnam, and we can't beat the Taliban in Afghanistan, and yet, we are gearing up now for war with Iran. And maybe that is why Trump wants to negotiate with the Taliban: to end that war, so that he can devote his time and attention to another one- with Iran.

But Donald: if we couldn't beat the Taliban, how do you expect to beat Iran? The Taliban is like Stone Age fighters compared to Iran. The Taliban has no Air Force and no Navy. They have no tanks. They're just guys with rifles, PK machine guns, (which are 1960s era Soviet machine guns) World War 2 vintage infantry rifles (perhaps like the cheap piece of crap that Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly used, but didn't) and hand-held ground-to-air weapons to shoot down helicopters. That's it. And yet, we're pleading with them, "No mas, no mas."  

One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty: a war with Iran is going to go very, very badly; not just for them, but for us.