Saturday, February 10, 2007
self determination
“If there is a sin superior to every other it is that of willful and offensive war...he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of Hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”
-- Thomas Paine, the American Crisis, Number V, 1778
Hitler demanded self determination for Austrians as he took over the country. The shrub makes similar demands for Iraqis, Iranians and citizens of other countries. How is it that our country travels Hitler’s road? Can we murder and bully our way as we have been accustomed to freely? What must they think when their “liberators” storm into their home and abuse or kill their families? How should we expect them to react when their self-anointed reformers impose “democracy,” and other “progress” on them? The majority of Americans and most Iraqi’s want a timetable for Americans to leave Iraq. The two publics agree, but the “leaders” ignore us and continue making the situation worse.
We invaded Iraq because it was a direct threat to us, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in nine-eleven, or got uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or needed to be liberated, or they needed to have a democracy, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. America has become a country that recommends everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
From Iraq to the negligence of the hurricane Katrina crisis, it should be obvious that the party that assisted Bush should be punished at the polls. Yet most seem to believe that only the Foley scandal has tipped public opinion definitively away from Bush's Republicans. What further evidence is needed that the tradition of democracy in America is in decline?
-- Thomas Paine, the American Crisis, Number V, 1778
Hitler demanded self determination for Austrians as he took over the country. The shrub makes similar demands for Iraqis, Iranians and citizens of other countries. How is it that our country travels Hitler’s road? Can we murder and bully our way as we have been accustomed to freely? What must they think when their “liberators” storm into their home and abuse or kill their families? How should we expect them to react when their self-anointed reformers impose “democracy,” and other “progress” on them? The majority of Americans and most Iraqi’s want a timetable for Americans to leave Iraq. The two publics agree, but the “leaders” ignore us and continue making the situation worse.
We invaded Iraq because it was a direct threat to us, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in nine-eleven, or got uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or needed to be liberated, or they needed to have a democracy, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. America has become a country that recommends everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
From Iraq to the negligence of the hurricane Katrina crisis, it should be obvious that the party that assisted Bush should be punished at the polls. Yet most seem to believe that only the Foley scandal has tipped public opinion definitively away from Bush's Republicans. What further evidence is needed that the tradition of democracy in America is in decline?
