Next Stop, Funny Farm

Some near and dear say that I must get over Iraq. They indicate that I’m beginning to sound like an opponent of the Mexican War still smarting over it in the eighteen eighties.

So what if Iraq was a violation of international law, if it is costing $4.3 billion per week, that we continue to lose lives and suffer casualties, that our Army and Marines are overstretched as a result, that recruitment is suffering, that we have to retire the USS John F. Kennedy; that weapons systems must be cancelled or deferred.

I’m accused of not being able to read the paper. Isn’t it clear that freedom is indeed on the march? The Syrians are scurrying to get out of Lebanon. Mubarak really is a two party man after all. Peace is at hand between the Israelis and Palestinians. (I gave Bush an unambiguous compliment on this on Presidents’ Day.) Women will be driving cars in Saudi Arabia in just months.

Even the French have thrown in the towel; Jacques and George are raising the dickens with Assad over pulling out of Beirut. The tyrannical regimes in the Arab world are collapsing like houses of cards. George Bush is the most important president since Franklin Roosevelt. The neocons were right all along. Why can’t I get on the right side of history?

I can’t. Bush took this nation to war under false pretenses. The attack on a sovereign power that posed no threat to us and that is bleeding us dry physically and fiscally is a cancer that must be resolved – and it can’t be in the short or medium terms. The war on terror is neglected because of it, and our homeland is more vulnerable due to it.

Red herrings are everywhere: Social Security is in crisis; private accounts are what are needed; freedom is at hand in Egypt; and so on. Each one is drawn across the trail, but nothing stanches the flood of money or blood in Iraq.

Am I wrong? Tell me. I need to hear it.

Bill