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Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Silly
Today is supposed to mark the sad death of the 2,000th American to die in the war. That is just silly. The war didn't start in Iraq. Remember the fighting in Afghanistan where nearly 300 Americans died? As a matter of fact if you count everything fairly in this "war on terror", including those who died in the wreckage on 9/11, the true opening of hostilities, we are nearer the 5,500 mark. Spinning the facts misleads silly people into doing silly things. For instance tonight ...in about 45 minutes, actually...there is supposed to be a candlelight vigil in memory of the fallen 2,000 of this war...it's going to be up the street on the water overlooking Knitting Mill Creek and the boats across the way, pretty place.
Last night President Bush spoke at a Republican fundraiser where he mentioned that we have now lost 2,000 Americans. Well...that isn't a lie. We have lost that many. And about 3,500 more. The President just didn't mention all those others. He gave his usual reason for continuing the war, that we owe it to those who have already died. Maybe he's right, but I have a feeling that if we could interview some ghosts, could talk to some of those recent war dead, they'd say, "Oh, hell, no. Forget that lousy part of the world. It isn't worth the life of one more American. Just get the hell home." Our whole Middle Eastern War Machine is thudding deeper and deeper into the gumbo. We aren't any closer to "winning" now than we were back before the incursion into Afghaniston. I say, "Call it a loss and get out. Let them say they won. I don't care. I just want it to be over."
Back when the USA was suffering through the Vietnam debacle, the Democrats were the bad guys. They got us into it and a Republican president got us out. This time the Republicans dragged us into war and the Democrats want to haul us back up out of the mire. Stupidity has nothing to do with party affiliation. Both parties have done their share of getting us into trouble. I say that it's time to simply quit. Stop fighting and go home. Leave the Middle East to it's historic inhabitants with all of their cultural pluses and minuses. If they want to kill each other, that's their problem. If they want to be at peace, wonderful. The main thing is, from my perspective, I don't care a tiny little rat's ass about the Middle East.
You know, and this is a side matter, I suppose, the only positive outcome of this trouble for America, it might be the energy situation. That's not worth anyone's death, either, but at least it's a positive. For many years scientists have warned that we must switch to non-fossil fuels for a number of reasons. This advice has done nothing but put a few hybrid cars on the road. We still depend on coal, oil, and natural gas for almost all of our energy. Now, with gasoline prices way over the roof and headed for the clouds, we will probably see some real effort toward an oil-free economy. Americans won't forever tolerate the outrageous price gouging we experience at this time. We all have know for a long time that we should turn off the oil. Now we have a really good reason to get going toward that sensible goal. When we first entered IraW, some superhawk types said, "Hee,hee cackle, cackle, we'll go in there, take over the oil, and have the cheapest gasoline since the early 1900's." Didn't happen. Went the other way around. They beat us up and they kept the oil, too, and we have nothing to show for this expression of our military might except for a growing pile of corpses.
I'm not going to that silly candle light vigil tonight. Instead I'm once more going to remind myself that when election day rolls around again, I should vote for whoever does the most toward getting us out of this horrible predicament where Americans die so trivially that the president can't even remember over half of the dead.
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