It seems Your Humble Blogger will need a new tag line.
Just when Your Humble Blogger was starting to feel the slightest bit chipper, there comes a new round of awful news. For those not paying attention, well, good luck to you.
To me, I suppose, the news points out the ludicrousness of mentally framing a war as good guys versus bad guys. Already this war has admittedly descended into the US-led coalition against half a dozen ragtag resistance units mostly unconnected with the Baathists. In fact, the good guys have (more or less) taken Baathists off the bad guy list, and we can’t really put the Sadr forces onto it, as the puppet government will need their imprimatur. There are still ‘bad guys’ to fight in Iraq, but it seems that most of the fighting now is not against them.
And now the good guys are exposed as harboring criminal torturers. Not only is this morally repugnant beyond my belief, but it clearly works against our own interests. Works powerfully against our own interests. So powerfully that I am forced to give up my own hope, that we will be able to show our good-guy-ness in deeds. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t see any way to it, any way that we can turn this to the better. Clearly, even a new and sincere attempt (after this disgusting Administration is cleared out, and with it the war profiteers it works for) by the US to rebuild Iraq will be faced with hostility, violence, and sabotage.
I think we did have a chance to redeem the invasion by building a paradise in Iraq. I think we could have taken a bad situation and used American wealth, American enterprise, American knowhow, and American manpower to make the world a better place. We didn’t. We used American guns, and American warplanes, and, it seems, foreign mercenaries, to destroy the possibility of good faith.
Where, then do we go from here? I don’t know. I don’t know.
There is, of course still hope. There are many people who are not only much better informed than I am but smarter. Some of them have plans that seem hopeless to me, but then I have been wrong before. I see nothing in them, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing in them.
I must also say this. Those soldiers and their mercenary colleagues have shamed America and shamed me. The commanders and the companies that hired them and allowed them to do what they did shamed America and shamed me. And George W. Bush, President of the United States, who bears personal responsibility for the conduct of those commanders and who approved the use of those companies, has shamed America and shamed me. I apologize now, to the world, for my part in allowing him to take office. I could have done more. I will do more to prevent his administration from continuing in office, and to prevent another like it from taking office.
,
-Vardibidian.
Would now be an appropriate time for the image of the weeping eagle?
I can only say I share the outrage expressed in Vardibidian’s post.
Once we went into Iraq, we _should_ have rebuilt Iraq. Vardibian’s vision was just and possible; his hopes were not unreasonable.
I would like to begin a discussion of where to go from here — the gist of which would be for people of good will in the U.S. to make sure that this Administration’s plans for the long-term occupation of Iraq in order to control Iraq’s economic resources (the real purpose behind both the invasion and occupation) are scuttled. Since we cannot rebuild Iraq, we _must_ leave Iraq, and really leave it. I’m too angry as I think about all of this to write more now with any coherence, so I’ll leave it at that.
I am horrified at the abuse and torture that some US forces have engaged in. I think it is also inevitable that some such behavior would take place in a war zone, alongside looting, rape, and murder. War is ugly, and the greatest disservice our government has done is to hide this war’s ugliness, just as they have worked to hide its costs in lives and money. By doing so, our government prolongs this war, makes future wars more likely, and disrespects the sacrifices made by our soldiers, their families, and their communities.
V, you are right when you write the phrase “harboring criminal torturers.” The abuse and torture is abhorrent. But the larger sin, the one that makes our continued occupation of Iraq untenable, is that we harbored those who engaged in such behavior. We suspend children from school for wearing the wrong clothes, but we fail to deal strongly and quickly with those engaged in abuse and torture. The only conclusion that can be drawn (by us, by Iraqis, and by other US soldiers) is that abuse and torture is not just an inevitable part of war, but an accepted part. For shame, indeed.