The President made a cameo appearance in the Green Zone. No one outside the inner circle could know because nothing is secure in Iraq--not even the Green Zone.
Our military, “energized” by the President’s visit, promptly embarked on a fresh campaign to stamp out the insurgency. No need to tour the neighborhoods of the Iraqi upper class--they’ve mostly cleared out. And the middle class is leaving
Iraq in ever-growing numbers. Soon it will be only the religious militias and the poor. A recipe for ethnic cleansing, if ever there were one.
Some of our Iraqi allies get the picture. They’ve been asking: If you Americans leave, will you take us with you? And, once again, I conjure the image of Vietnam, 1975, with the fools who supported us frantically trying to hold on to the skids of our helicopters…
At the morgue in Baghdad, they stack the coffins up vertically--there are too many for the bodies to rest the old-fashioned way. As in Nazi Germany, the dead are dumped from trucks like firewood. As in Nazi Germany, the victims were science experiments: eyes drilled out, torsos burned. And they do this to kids too.
I loathe these practices. And I curse the people who commit these crimes against humanity. But I don’t think they’re different or worse than our Marines allegedly taping the hands of children before executing them. And maybe the coldest crimes of all are the bureaucratic “investigations” of our atrocities, investigations that reveal no signs of wrongdoing despite clear photographic evidence to the contrary.
I look at our child, happily splashing in a pool under the same sky that looks down on Iraqi children being tortured and killed, and I wonder, on an hourly basis some days, how this can be. But I have come to understand that there is nothing the U.S. can do to stop this killing. We started it, we encouraged it, and now it’s out of control. We have a perfect batting record: .000. In such a moment, it is not wise to believe that we will get anything right here in the future.
Karl Rove, the male Ann Coulter, says that Democrats who want to “cut and run” are cowards and, in essence, traitors. Well, as a wiser man said, if this be treason, make the most of it.
So, to this week’s question: If there were a button that said: “I’M A PATRIOT. I’D CUT & RUN,” would you wear it? If not, what sentiment would you broadcast from your lapel?
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