ACHTUNG AMERICA
We now learn that a Pentagon study reveals that but for a bit of armor a number of dead American soldiers, killed at the hands of the Iraqi "enemy", would still be alive. Apparently, the requisite armor, which is reputed to cost two-hundred and sixty dollars per man, is readily available. But the Department of Defense has been loathe to ante-up. And, now that the cat is out of the bag (ie, that such armor could be saving American lives), good old Don Rumsfeldt, and his Pentagon cronies, are stonewalling the subject. And they are rationalizing their silence by saying that any public discussion of the issue will give aid to the enemy.
And the merry-go-round of "Republispeak", which endeavors to convince America that falsehoods are truths, proceeds apace.
More importantly is the need for the aforementioned armor to be quickly distributed to all of the American fighting troops in Iraq. That they do not already have it is unconscionable. And the caterwauling about giving aid to the enemy is the worst kind of utter nonsense. But it is typical of the way this administration counters objections and criticisms. If they don't like what they hear they rattle on about disloyalty and treason. And, unlike virtually any previous administration (save, perhaps, Richard Nixon's), it never occurs to these folks that dissent, difference of opinion, and downright disagreement are the very cartilage of our democracy.
From time to time (and we fervently hope it is just our imagination) we hear the sounds of caissons rolling ominously on our streets; of goose stepping troops encroaching upon our privacy, and of conservative leaders insisting that to preserve democracy we have to sacrifice some of it. These are frightening sounds evocative of an era we thought long passed. But as we see the continuation of the idiocy in Iraq, as we remain subjected to the rantings of Bush World, as more American troops succumb to these troubled ideas, and as more of our time honored civil liberties are relinquished to the politics of fear, we suspect that the sounds of imagined discontent may, all too soon, become all too real.
Garrett500
1/10/2006
And the merry-go-round of "Republispeak", which endeavors to convince America that falsehoods are truths, proceeds apace.
More importantly is the need for the aforementioned armor to be quickly distributed to all of the American fighting troops in Iraq. That they do not already have it is unconscionable. And the caterwauling about giving aid to the enemy is the worst kind of utter nonsense. But it is typical of the way this administration counters objections and criticisms. If they don't like what they hear they rattle on about disloyalty and treason. And, unlike virtually any previous administration (save, perhaps, Richard Nixon's), it never occurs to these folks that dissent, difference of opinion, and downright disagreement are the very cartilage of our democracy.
From time to time (and we fervently hope it is just our imagination) we hear the sounds of caissons rolling ominously on our streets; of goose stepping troops encroaching upon our privacy, and of conservative leaders insisting that to preserve democracy we have to sacrifice some of it. These are frightening sounds evocative of an era we thought long passed. But as we see the continuation of the idiocy in Iraq, as we remain subjected to the rantings of Bush World, as more American troops succumb to these troubled ideas, and as more of our time honored civil liberties are relinquished to the politics of fear, we suspect that the sounds of imagined discontent may, all too soon, become all too real.
Garrett500
1/10/2006
posted by Garrett W at 9:43 AM
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