121/31/2006
The remembering will go on for lifetimes
long after the acrimony and partisan politics have faded. The legacy of service in Iraq will be a similar pain for many
of the same reasons as VietNam. Only now the answers to the questions of why are more transparent, obvious and politically
rancid.
Who are our most precious citizens now 30 years later when it comes to talking about military service and what it means
to be an American soldier?
Real veterans, not the pretend kind. Among them veterans who have banded together and taken a stand; who've spoken out
and continue speaking - who in fact refuse to be silenced; and whose respect this current casual leadership has lost completely.
When precious national blood is sacrificed and reason demands justification, shallow partisan politics seriously wound
the fabric of all families in America.
The time to speak out has never been more critical.
Voices ... we are gaining more voices daily ... and it's our time to tell the leadership, regardless of which party, that
this tragedy must stop as soon as possible. If we keep it up, we will inspire and draw ever-increasing numbers of voices that
will shout with a volume that will make the 2006 election results seem like mere whispers.
Not one more soldier nor Iraqi need die to preserve the lies, but we've learned again and again that it's the lies that
kill.
The right side is my side. Disgree and you aren't on the right side, you're on the wrong side.
The notion that I'm right and you are wrong and nothing good will happen until you admit you're wrong and I am right is
a winning tactic for debates ... I suppose ... where a referee says, "Yup, that guy with that argument is the smartest."
But if you come to my house and break all my dishes including the ones I had that contained poisonous snakes, the plague
and an assortment of vipers dangerous to my house, my neighbor's house and your house, I hardly think your check will help
solve our mutual problem.
I may ask you to stay the hell out of my house but I certainly will not tell you to ignore the neighborhood and your responsibility
to see that the plague you set loose goes no further.
These kinds of analogies can go on and on but until everyone picks up a shovel and bucket of water, the conflagration
continues.
Limiting yourself to the Bush Turd in Iraq doesn't go too far in any wider venue where you and I remain global citizens
and not isolationists.
Unless of course we ought to be isolationists and that's probably a whole nuther argument.
Like it or not, there is no further justifiable point in staying because of the now pointless and useless mantra that
if we leave chaos will result.
That argument has become the cheapest, most demeaning and diminishing turd regarding the value of every human life in
the Middle East. A Presidency, a Party and it's intellectually foppish projects for new centuries - not to mention the parade
of presidential wannabes in both parties who attempt to don some sort of wise-statesman cap and gown - have worn this particular
fabric so transparently thin as to offer the American electorate nothing but pure intellectual insult.
We need the courage to pull out and let the chips fall where they may. We as a nation are now in Iraq like drunk wife-beatters
too stupid to know that the best thing is to stop trying to make it right and get the hell out.
The whole damn pottery barn is full of nothing but bloody shards and we - as demanded by the tavern-talking Dumbass-in-Chief
- have brought it all on ourselves.
© Arthur Ruger 2007
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