Who's Counting?

Fourteen months ago I wrote:

Now that the death toll from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has reached one-thousand, maybe the American public will finally begin to sober up . . . and begin to question the competence and policies of those that got them into this mess.

As we continue to “stay the course” the next thousand take their place in line. Who do you think will be the last to die for this mistake? He or she is somewhere out there as we speak. Maybe someone you know.

Well, fourteen months later the next thousand have come home in flag-draped coffins, and another thousand have taken their place in the Bush Mideast meat parade.

Iraqi casualties? Who's counting? As Tommy Franks said, "we don't do body counts."

Fourteen months later we are still asked to "stay the course", even though we now know that "the course" was conceived in lies and deception, charted with fantasy and delusion, and executed with utter ineptitude and incompetence. That this disaster of an administration could still gather a gnat-turd size of support (36% in the polls) is impressive. Hats off to the "base."

In the real world it seems as though a critical mass is finally starting to feel the strain, regardless of what the fair and balanced folks at Fox News or the puppeteers at the Weekly Standard would have you believe. A majority now feels that the country is headed in the wrong direction. Why they didn't feel this way last November remains a mystery, for the little man at the helm of this disaster has been nothing but a walking cardboard cutout his entire life; an empty-headed empty suit with a checkbook. And now, tragically, at his whim, we find ourselves in the most serious foreign policy mess since the Vietnam war.

So here we are, between Iraq and a hard place, like Odysseus between Scylla and Charybdis, and the block-headed commander-in-chief still sticks to his tired, delusional rhetoric—“We will fight the terrorists in Iraq. We will stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory that our brave troops have fought for. The defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice” —and the message is echoed ad nauseum by his acolytes throughout the media. However, unlike the flawed hero of Greek myth, Bush and his arrogant crew, awash in their own hubris, are unable, and unwilling, to resist the lethal song of their own deadly Sirens, and the world suffers.

Perhaps fourteen months from now the three-thousandth flag-draped coffin will be unloaded at some air base in the middle of the night. Contained within will be what's left of someone who died, we hope, for something that he or she believed in. What's tragically ironic is that most of us who supposedly benefit from their sacrifice, a majority now, no longer think that their sacrifice was worth it. For that, the cabal of zealots that occupies the White House deserves nothing but contempt and disdain. We can only hope that the mounting numbers of casualties press heavily against their leaden souls.

But, who's counting?

Apology?

I received an e-mail today. It's an open letter from Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, Ret. I thought I'd respond, point by point, to his "apology", which could just as easily have come from the Heritage Foundation, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page, Fox News or The Project For The New American Century . My responses are in parentheses.

One Marine's Apology

"One marine's apology" posted on March 31st, 2005. This Letter of Apology was written by Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, Ret:

"For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will harbor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day massacre.
(A minor event? The systematic torture of prisoners of war, in violation of the Geneva Conventions? I apologize for all of us "wrong thinking" Americans who find such tactics appalling and, dare I say, "un-American")

I humbly offer my opinion here:

I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo, Gulf War 1, Kuwait, etc.).
(Bosnia, Kosovo, yes; Kuwait and Gulf War I? Try again)

I am sorry that no such call for an apology upon the extremists came after 9/11.
(In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the world was united behind the U.S. Since then our block-headed arrogance and belligerence has left us isolated and scorned throughout much of the civilized world)

I am sorry that all of the murderers on 9/11 were Islamic Arabs.
(To be precise, fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis; not a single one was Iraqi)

I am sorry that most Arabs and Muslims have to live in squalor under savage dictatorships.
(That have been propped up and supported by U.S. financial and military aid for decades, not only in the Middle East but around the globe, from Central America to East Timor)

I am sorry that their leaders squander their wealth.
(The U.S. is the biggest debtor nation in the world. We outspend all the nations on earth, combined, on militarism and defense. It is tragic that our elected leaders continue to squander our enormous wealth, as we sink further and further into debilitating debt)

I am sorry that their governments breed hate for the US in their religious schools, mosques, and government-controlled media.
(I too am sorry that religious zealotry and demagoguery is used by the few to try and control the many. The U.S. is the most fundamentally religious of all the Western nations, and many of our religious leaders, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, continue to preach hate and intolerance. Our religious wackos are no less menacing then theirs)

I am sorry that Yassar Arafat was kicked out of every Arab country and high-jacked the Palestinian "cause."
(I am sorry that the Palestinians were kicked out of their country by the U.N., which has led to the ongoing human tragedy that is the Middle East)

I am sorry that no other Arab country will take in or offer more than a token amount of financial help to those same Palestinians.
(You miss the whole point of the Arab/Israeli conflict; both sides believe that God/Allah has ordained this wasteland as their home. Why should the Arabs capitulate to the Israelis and visa versa? ‘Round and ‘round it goes. Got a solution? I thought not)

I am sorry that the USA has to step in and be the biggest financial supporter of poverty stricken Arabs while the insanely wealthy Arabs blame the USA for all their problems.
(I am sorry for the continuous stupidity of our elected leaders, who kiss the feet of Arab despots just so we can maintain access to their oil. That is why the U.S. has, and wants, to step in)

I am sorry that our own left wing, our media, and our own brainwashed masses do not understand any of this (from the misleading vocal elements of our society like radical professors, CNN and the NY TIMES).
(I am sorry that so many choose to be misinformed; studies have shown that a majority of Americans who watch the right wing Fox News, like our humble apoligist, I'm sure, believe that Iraq was involved in the terror attacks on 9/11. Who’s brainwashed?)

I am sorry the United Nations scammed the poor people of Iraq out of the "food for oil" money so they could get rich while the common folk suffered.
(I am sorry that the U.S. enforced sanctions against the Iraqi people after the end of the Gulf War caused the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children and, I would bet, quite a few common folk)

I am sorry that some Arab governments pay the families of homicide bombers upon their death.
(I am sorry that our government has increasingly out sourced military operations to paid mercenaries. A volunteer soldier will serve, and perhaps die for his country; a mercenary will serve for money)

I am sorry that those same bombers are brainwashed thinking they will receive 72 virgins in "paradise."
(I too am sorry that we choose to rationalize death and destruction by claiming that it is done “honorably”, that "the cause is just", and "noble")

I am sorry that the homicide bombers think pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly and other noncombatant civilians are legitimate targets.
(I am sorry and ashamed that my country has illegally invaded a country and killed countless thousands, many of them pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly and other noncombatant civilians)

I am sorry that our troops die to free more Arabs from the gang rape rooms and the filling of mass graves of dissidents of their own making.
(I too am sorry that our young men and women have to always be the ones to go in and clean up the mess created by their fathers and grandfathers; for years Saddam Hussein was supported and emboldened by the CIA and the U.S. defense establishment. Donald Rumsfeld was photographed shaking his hand in 1983, after he had gassed his own people)

I am sorry that Muslim extremists have killed more Arabs than any other group.
(A relative handful of Muslim extremists can’t hold a candle to the destructive power of the U.S. “shock and awe” campaign)

I am sorry that foreign trained terrorists are trying to seize control of Iraq and return it to a terrorist state.
(There wasn’t a single terrorist attack in Iraq, nor was there any breeding ground for terrorism until the U.S. invasion that has left a power vacuum; George Bush has accomplished what bin Laden could only dream of)

I am sorry we don't drop a few dozen Daisy Cutters on Fallujah.
(Yeah, kill a few thousand more of those dirty Iraqis who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. But, who’s counting? As General Tommy Franks, of U.S. Central Command has said, “We don’t do body counts”)

I am sorry every time terrorists hide they find a convenient "Holy Site."
(Every time? Where’s bin Laden? Mullah Omar? Ayman Al-Zawahiri? Is the Pakistani border a holy site?)

I am sorry they didn't apologize for driving a jet into the World Trade Center that collapsed and severely damaged Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church - one of our Holy Sites.
(Again, I wish you would point to a single Iraqi who was involved in the attacks, let alone a link between the attackers and the Iraqi government)

I am sorry they didn't apologize for flight 93 and 175, the USS Cole, the embassy bombings, the murders and beheadings of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, etc....etc!
(Has the U.S. ever apologized for over half a century of meddling in Middle Eastern affairs? For propping up tyrants and despots, such as the Shah of Iran, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, or the rotten House of Saud? All things being equal, I would say that the people of the Middle East have as much of a gripe with us as we claim to have with them)

We hang out our dirty laundry for the entire world to see. We move on. That's one of the reasons we are hated so much. We don't hide this stuff like all those Arab countries that are now demanding an apology. Deep down inside, when most Americans saw this reported in the news, we were like - so what? We lost hundreds and made fun of a few prisoners. Sure, it was wrong, sure, it dramatically hurts our cause, but until captured we were trying to kill these same prisoners.

(Most Americans have no idea what is really going on in Iraq, and if left to the liars in this administration, will never know. I always find it so strangely ironic that those that are constantly beating their chests and fanning the flames of war, all in the name of protecting our “freedoms” and “way of life”, are usually the first to point a self-righteous finger at those of us who think differently, questioning our patriotism. I am constantly reminded of Samuel Johnson’s observation that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. We have become a nation of scoundrels)

Now we're supposed to wring our hands because a few were humiliated? Our compassion is tempered with the vivid memories of our own people killed, mutilated and burnt amongst a joyous crowd of celebrating Fallujans.

If you want an apology from this American, you're going to have a long wait! You have a better chance of finding those seventy-two virgins.

(Perhaps as much of a chance as you have of sitting at the right hand of the heavenly father. But then again, we’ll never know, will we?)