Your tax dollars at work

The Other War: Iraq vets bear witness (from The Nation)

A college friend sent me this article by e'mail. It's hard reading, but necessary reading for any US citizen who chooses not to be wilfully, deliberately ignorant of what our military is doing in our name and with our tax money, both to our troops and to the civilians who have the bad fortune to live in a country that Dick Cheney and the rest of the Project for the New American Century were determined to invade and conquer at a hefty profit to themselves, on one pretext or another, no matter what the facts.

Of course, I can hear the protestations from the Bush supporters now. Why, it's the Vast Liberal Media Conspiracy! (Booga booga booga!) They refuse to report the Great Good News that we just know is really happening in Iraq! The Media hates America! Terr-ists! Terr-ists! Yada yada!

The Vast Liberal Media Conspiracy, in this case, is rather oddly composed of combat veterans who have served their country under fire, and seen the reality of the Iraq occupation first hand at point-blank range. Rather unlike the draft-avoiding Republican types who continue to yammer for more war, perpetual war, ever-expanding war... so long as it's fought by somebody else, in somebody else's hometown, while they sit safe at home on the couch watching Fox News, chomping on potato chips and belching out gaseous jokes about "sand niggers" and blustering that the US should "nuke" any country that gives it any lip.

It's hard for this one-time self-described conservative to imagine that the situations described in the article can in, the long run, be anything other than the biggest aid to recruitment that the Islamist jihadis could possibly have. Consider the following question carefully. If a foreign army were occupying the US, and the events described in the Nation article were happening to your neighbors and friends and relatives in Dallas, or Kansas City, or Detroit, whose side would you be on?

And does that make you a "patriot", or a "terrorist"? Or just a normal human being?