Soapbox

Good News

A recent letter to the Dispatch asked why the paper doesn’t report more good news from Iraq.
Um…gee, maybe because there isn’t much?

Of course there are occasional bright spots, and there’s no reason the U.S. public shouldn’t hear about them. However, a new coat of paint on a school here and there doesn’t balance out the raw sewage in the streets, running gun battles and car bombings all over the country, which is the daily reality in much of Iraq.

I don’t say this to disparage U.S. troops there, who I respect and admire, and who would no doubt rather be playing soccer with Iraqi kids than firing mortars into crowded streets, as happened yesterday. Better yet, they’d probably rather be home, playing soccer with their own kids!

The truth of Iraq is that things are very bad, and unlikely to get much better, as a classified National Intelligence Estimate informed President Bush in July. I’m sure the president is really wishing the report wasn’t leaked, because now we know that Bush and Cheney are apparently the only ones who still believe there can be a good outcome in that failed war.
There are areas, even entire cities in Iraq now where the strongest army on earth cannot go, and the size of these areas is growing as the Iraqi resistance becomes better organized. Does this sound like a liberated country, on the verge of democracy? Even the best case scenario painted by the President’s staff does not come close to the beucolic vision of happy Arabs all over the middle east casting democratic, pro-western votes that the President continues to mouth in his stump speeches.

When the Bush administration tries to distract the American electorate with endless chatter about Swift Boat veterans and what defense spending bills john Kerry voted against, they are hoping voters will forget the core fact of this entire election:
George Bush chose to start a war in Iraq, though Iraq was not sponsoring international terrorism.

The only terrorists we are fighting in Iraq today are those of our own making. They don’t want us to remember this, but we must, because it shows the convoluted thnking of this administration. The 9/11 commission, the Secretary of State, the administration’s own terrorism chief and even the president have all admitted that Iraq did not sponsor nor harbor known terrorists prior to the war. George Bush, the man who is claiming to be the only one strong enough to keep us safe from terrorists, created the enemy he is so anxious to protect us from. As for the actual, original terrorists, al Qaeda, Bush said, “I don’t really care where Osama bin Laden is…he is not a priority”

Not a priority? Let me get this straight: the terrorists weren’t in Iraq…and the guy who IS a terrorist isn’t a priority? What kind of insanity is that? If there aren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we seem to be making the situation worse with every day we stay there…why are our sons dieing in Iraq?

Why should we be impressed by George Bush’s vow to see us through the disaster of his own making?
And how do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a lie?