Another Point of View
The following is a comment on today's Bush/Iraq posting from our friend Robert. While I'm not entirely in agreement with the conclusions, the commentary is thoughtful and heartfelt and it deserves a full posting if its own:
Hmmm, things are [now] going fairly well over in Iraq. 30,000,000 Muslims have been freed from the clutches of a horrific, murderous tyrant. Democracy exists in another place in the Middle East besides Israel. This is something we should end?!
I realize that many reading the words above will think I'm off my meds and am some kind of right-wing war monger. If so, they'd be wrong.
Can we all agree that each person's views of the world are shaped by the experiences they've had to that point in their life? Mine involve being born into a family where my father & his siblings were little kids on the German side during WW2. He was vehemently against Hitler but was powerless to do anything about it. After the war he lived in refugee camps and then at a young age had to move far away from the family, picking potatoes 14 hours a day in order to send a little money back to them.
But what emerged from the tragedy that was Nazi Germany was a vibrant country, a true democracy, and big positive to Europe and the world.
So shall the same emerge in Iraq, given enough time and commitment. If many of you get your wish and the Americans pull out, Iran's tentacles will surely reach into Iraq and turn it into a bloodbath for a time and then a satellite state. In case you're not aware, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is directly funded by Iran. They're the ones who send suicide bombers into Israel to kill innocent civilians.
War is messy. The aftermath of war is often worse. But patience is the only course of action if you want a people to have the same liberty and democracy that you've enjoyed since birth; that you were given for doing absolutely nothing in return. And things that we're given with no expectations in return are almost always taken for granted, aren't they?!
