Who could have imagined that in the United States, with its independent judiciary, thousands of men could be rounded up in the night -- many only because of their Muslim religion or foreign nationality -- without recourse to a trial, without even an acknowledgment that they had been arrested? Who could have dared to suggest that there would ever be "desaparecidos" in America? And there it was as well, torture being discussed as a legitimate option to protect a community in peril, and then being used in Guantanamo and Afghanistan, and even obscenely photographed in Iraq -- yes, there they were again, the depressing echoes of my Chile.
But worse perhaps than all of this was the erosion of the moral compass of America, the seeming indifference of the seeming majority to the suffering of others, the casual acceptance of "collateral damage" as an unquestioned consequence of the war on "terrorism," the demonization of an ubiquitous foe who had to be destroyed without second thoughts -- and often without first ones as well; without, in fact, any thoughtfulness at all. That was far more terrifying than the criminal attacks on New York and Washington: To realize that the Chile of strongman Augusto Pinochet was not that far away, not that difficult to imitate, that it was already hovering in the future and ready to materialize if we were not vigilant.
Oh Really?
And what does that mean? No, seriously, Mr. Talking Point Repeater, what does "win" mean? We have no exit strategy, so I don't even know what Bush envisions a "win" being. Not one single one of his reasons for invading have borne fruit, so why are we there in the first place? He had no WMD and we had no evidence that he did in the final analysis. So we had no reason to invade because of any threat from Iraq. He had no ties to al-Qaeda and, in fact, our invasion is what BROUGHT al-Qaeda in there in the first place. So in terms of fighting terrorism the invasion was a disaster from the start and the best we EVER could do is establish the status quo that existed before we entered: a near lack of al-Qaeda presence. Deposing Hussein was a late excuse for invading and, of course, we did that. So...I gues if you limited your claim of "winning" to that one small goal, then we already won and should get out. If we wanted to establish democracy then we sure had better define what we mean. So far they have had an election and no one, even we, seem satisfied with it. The fact that democracy in Iraq is very likely to elect a fundamenalist Shi'a regime may temper our enthusiasm for democracy if we are not careful. Are you prepared for democracy to bring in an ally to Iran? Because that is a likely end point of this "democracy" excuse.
So why are we there in the first place, Mr. Blind Faith in Republican Memes? What is our exit strategy? Since Bush lied repeatedly about the former and has never defined the latter, I don't see how you would recocgnize a "win" if it bit you in the ass. So do you want to define these for me? Or are you as clueless as Bush regarding just why we are in Iraq in the first place?
As for Wussing out, I would love to see you accuse Webb or Murtha to their face that they are wussing out. I bet you wouldn't even have the guts to face them, let alone accuse them.