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A Long Year

This has been a really long, sad, violent, depressing year. The death toll in Iraq rises daily, with many more Iraqis killed than US and "coalition" forces, but of course that fact is little mentioned in the US mainstream media. How, by getting rid of a brutal, ruthless dictator you end up with a nation of guerillas attacking you daily should be the first question asked the next time the government plans one of these "liberations".

Despite what most news accounts say and what the general public perceives, Iraq - and it seems Baghdad in particular, is not secure at all. Poor Tucker Carlson's reports of seeing no coalition forces on a drive from Kuwait to Baghdad should tell the whole story. Once again, you have to read all the news, and between the lines, and then apply your own common sense to the events to understand what is happening. We have civilians working for these news agencies (in this case CNN) that are armed to the teeth and can commandeer gas stations (and who knows what else) at will - and probably shoot to kill without impunity anyone that they deem worthy. How are you winning hearts and minds with these actions?

As Steve Gilliard has noted on his blog, how in the world are you going to be able to hold elections with the current security situation? You can't - you can't do anything. The Young Republicans are holed up in the Green Zone without a clue. The UN is gone, the Red Cross is gone. We have captured Saddam - so what? Why couldn't we keep inspecting, keep throwing money at the Iraqi National Congress (as bad as it is, a few million a year is better than thousands dead, and billions spent), keep trying to influence world opinion for his removal? We could have - easily - but there are a bunch of people in Washington who don't know what they are doing, and they made a huge mistake. I am tired of saying it, thinking about it, living with it. I am afraid I will be explaining this to my kids for the next decade.

Back in March I sent an open letter to the President begging him not to start this war. Now - you can't even get to the web page where you can email the White House without going through a bunch of forms and stating your preferences to the emperor. These kinds of things are sickening. This administration has politicized democracy like never before, all the while claiming they have not.

Homeland Security, Office of Workforce Security - are we safer? Better employed? I feel like I am twelve years old again and we are living through the Cold War. I turn to reading Orwell's 1984 for insight into current events. But we're not - we are living in the world of realization of decades of bad US foreign policy and American hegemony. This country, our government, needs to change. We need to be a better global citizen, we need to identify, understand and deal with our "enemies" before they become that. We need to stop arming the lesser evils, picking the wrong side, and messing around with the internal affairs of other nations. I am not blaming the victim here, but it is not as if we didn't have a hand (or maybe two hands and a foot) in all the things that are perceived now as a threat to our nation. Bin Laden was trained by the CIA. Saddam Hussein was green lighted by US Ambassador April Glaspie before invading Kuwait. The Baathists came to power with our help. We make them, and then we have to break them. It is wrong - and there has to be a better way.

One of the great quotes in the run up to the war was that the war wasn't about oil before the invasion, but as soon as the action started it would be. Well, the war was always about oil, and the fact the the oil ministry was the only building protected as Baghdad was looted is not lost on Iraqis. And so now here we are, December 27, 2003, another coordinated attack in Iraq, this time in Karbala, with at least eleven dead. Code Orange throughout the "Home Land". A growing pariah to the world and world peace.

Happy New Year, America. Here's to a better one.

Comments

Posted by: Karen at December 27, 2003 05:47 PM

Posted by: RC at December 27, 2003 11:05 PM