This was definitely a weird dream. I guess I was thinking about the 50 British Citizens that were killed and I was - well the dream was this.
The President, Tony Blair and a few other European leaders were standing on a platform flanked by an Iraqi flag. They had set this day to be a world-wide moment of silence for the innocents who have died in Iraq. Not a "we're for the war" or "we're against the war" thing but a simple moment of silence that was actually authorized by the various leaders of this whole thing.
President Bush and Blair were going to give speeches about the Iraqi dead. They would offer their prayers from a stage in Iraq. Standing, or in wheelchairs, next to them or in the audience were the crippled, the widows, the orphans and a few top clerics. This was going to be televised world-wide. And the newly trained Iraqi forces were there for security.
President Bush: "We've come here today to pay tribute to and to remember the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens that have been killed and wounded during this war. I've asked for this day - for this moment - so that you know that we truly stand beside you and understand the horror of these last years. My friend, Tony Blair will also speak to you.
But this is really your day. And this is your moment of silence... I know that we have killed innocents as well but that is war. We never purposely... Well, this is about the insurgents who have been blowing themselves up both here and around the world. This about them, not us."
Of course, even in my dream it was hard to control the President's speech but at 12:00 Iraqi time, the President and the others on stage and in the audience and around the world bowed their heads...
And then I woke up.
"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. "
"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome." - Both quotes by George Orwell
"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said Mr. Sloboda. "It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the U.S. nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed." -
They note that 25,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the war. Here is a link to the story on CNN.
11 comments:
Next time you find yourself dreaming about him, somehow wake up! I don't want someone as nice as you to suffer from nightmares...
what utter nonsense. yeah we should be apologizing. y'all wouldn't be bitching and moaning if a dem was in the white house diddling the help...
So, it seems that to "ANONYMOUS," "diddling the help" is just as bad as slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent women and children. "Republicanthink" never ceases to astonish me.
diddling the help while things like the antecedents to 9/11 were festering are indeed worse than the unitended but, yes unfortunately unavoidable, human casualties in Iraq. If you haven't heard the "rebulicanthink" on this, they are certainly better off now than under Sadaam. Where was all the hand wringing while he slaughtered many more of his own "subjects"? We are indeed liberating this country and the only lives I regret that are lost are those of our soldiers who fight bravely and proudly for the country that far too many of our own citizens forsake and take for granted. Shame on you, not them. And why does indentifying oneself somehow legitmize one's comments here? No purpose to me posting my name or alias at all.
Yup--we sure are liberating them. Liberating them from this mortal coil, more like. Maybe you forgot, but we didn't go to war to "liberate" Iraq. We wemt to war to prevent Sadam from using his WsMD, or giving them to Osama. Easy to forget that, isn't it? Seems that the sanctions--which didn't kill innocent civilians--had already done away with his WsMD. Oh, well. War's more fun than stuffy old sanctions, anyway.
"...and the only lives I regret that are lost are those of our soldiers who fight bravely and proudly for the country that far too many of our own citizens forsake and take for granted."
The point, and maybe it was not clear in my post was that many innocent civilians in Iraq - have been killed by suicide bombers. Wouldn't it be a politically wise thing to acknowledge that loss of life by the United States, England, etc... (forget about even from a moral point of view) with a moment of silence as was held for British Citizens?
Is that idea democratic or republican? Is that such a shameful idea?
Anonymous: One last addendum: who, in fact, was responsible for putting Mr. Hussein in the driver's seat in the first place? Clinton? No (although, believe it or not, I really do have more than a few bones to pick with Bubba, none of them having to do with a ravenous appetite for a ceratin intern). The estimable Mr. Rumsfeld seemed rather fond of the man not all that long ago, and Reagan and G.H.W. Bush had no big issue with Saddam either, until Hussein became a bit more of a "nusiance" than he was considered worth. When a thug is no longer "our" thug, then he's a planetary pariah. Both parties have played this card shamelessly, but the G.O.P. seems to shuffle s these cards with a touch more glee, no?
Each day we loose more Iraqi civilians and members of the US military and the response is that we are prevailing. And Iraq is now the terrorist capital of the Middle East. I am waiting for Bush to start using Orwell Double Speak.
I believe that getting out of Iraq will be worse than Vietnam.
I've found Michael Yon's blog to be a good independent source of on-the-spot reporting on this issue. I'd recommend to anyone here to take a half-hour or so to read through his archives from the beginning of this year up to his most current post. You'll find it very enlightening.
I think it will help put Prof. Sloboda's statements in perspective.
Read it and see what you think. I'll bet many of you will bookmark Yon's blog once you read a few posts.
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/
w/r/t to Iraq being a terrorist capital in the middle east - good! Whether that was/is an intended result or as most cynics here would prefer to believe an uninteneded byproduct of our "unjust" actions - its better than having these hideous monsters focused on domestic targets alone. Let them reak havoc there where we can hopefully contain and destroy them.
Its a shame that there is such a large number of Americans who sympathize with our enemies rather than our own people and men and women in uniform. The dems lost the last election fair and square (and in '00 too I'll mention) and its time to put their petulant frustration aside and start pulling for this country's well being as opposed to picking it apart.
Anonymous: I'm not sure how you define the infiltration of terrorist cells in Iraq as a possible means of "containment", unless you susbscribe to the Coulter Doctrine (put simply: bomb the living daylights out of the entire region; anyone left standing gets "converted" to Christianity. Way to go, Ann). Iraq was a secular state before we worked our magic there (of course, the "s" word is a dirty one in Bushland, so perhaps in this one respect, consistency rules), so the place is a bit safer for jihad, but not too much else right now.
Of course, when you have a White House where one half of the cast of characters espouses the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, while the other half prefers pulling tasty quotes from Nietzsche and Ayn Rand, it's a wonder "dubya" hasn't had a breakdown by now...or perhaps he has, which would explain a few other things. As for the Dems losing "fair and square", that remains to be seen (both times), although you don't have to argue about their campaign ineptitude to me - I know. ;-)
At any rate, you've obviously made up your mind about all the above, so there's little use in trading talking points here. But, please, can the "Why do so many Americans hate America" schtick. It's old, it's disingenuous, it undercuts whatever serious argument you might have to bring to the table, and it has a nasty tendency of backfiring.
One last thing: Is that really you, Ann, lancing us poor, defenseless libs for jollies under your Invisibility Cloak?
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