So an "inevitable" milestone has been reached. Who, by the end of the first year of the second Iraq war could not have predicted we would lose more American lives in the war than in the attacks, even though that war really had no sound cause in those attacks? But now that the grim number has arrived nearly on the exploited milestone of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, what understanding have we demonstrated about those lost lives? Have we at least honored these innocent lives by assuring that lives will not be so easily wasted by those who hate us?
No life is more precious than one which can be given up to save the lives of others.
The lives our fighting men and women have willingly offered in the belief that it was their duty to help and in hope that they would somehow make this awful butchery henceforth impossible are such precious lives. The very least thing we owe them is to use our intelligence and our effort in every sphere of influence beside the battlefield to make sure that their sacrifice does buy some kind of peace, does diminish the heartless hatreds and wounded pride that drove the al-Qaida attackers. Quite simply, Bush and his policies have done the opposite. As precious as those lives wasted by murderous jihadis on September 11 were, Bush is wasting even more precious lives. Who will step up for our defense when we can't be sure it is necessary or correct to fight a war? Who will step up for our defense if they have seen combat will make things worse instead of better? It is from that wasting of lives, as well as of wealth, that we will come to feel our weakness. The war stalls on two fronts: we did not execute or supply a war effort that could have kept peace or forestalled insurgency and we have sapped the will of Americans to support the now completely discredited intentions claimed for the war.
hat tip to Sister, since I have not been able to get at my huffpo feed this week.
6 comments:
You might want to watch this. The commentary about this on the blog is also interesting.
http://susiemadrak.com/2006/09/11/23/08/commentary/
Umm, IF this is a "war of attricion" then methinks the muslims will win.
..ättrition".. oops
The "American experiment" at global domination is watched closely by those in Beijing.
yes, its an intersting situation to them I am sure. We conquered more with our dough than with our doughboys in the 20th century and that is already clear to the chinese: they can and do outbid us for oil imports now.
But gentle as economic hegemony may seem, it is not guaranteed either to be the result of the "invisible hand" nor to be benign. I have a particularly intelligent in-law who has made a goodly pile of money just servicing cars because he foresaw exactly when a locale was about to have a boom and just where the traffic was going to be. He pointed out that the Chinese have already more or less said they can bring us low if only 1/4 of their nation achieves our per capita buying power. Now this guy is pretty conservative but by no means dumb about economics and economic growth and he claims domination is definitely their plan.
and all it takes is a little policy:China subsidizes industrial production, the US subsidizes Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics so its no secret who is going to end up with a pot full of currency and who gets a pot full of debt.
[and the other 3/4?...those are the people they can aford to lose in a war, if it comes to that, which seems unnecessary at this point]
For instance, Davo, we have a Chinese internet in our future
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