Of course, the more interesting read are the comments from folks around the world in response to the article. This one really made me take pause:
Posted By: Erik DaRedd (7/17/2007 at 9:35:36 AM)
Comment: The US is a great country, but it drives me crazy as an American to see how many people are blinded by the action of our president. Most of the people that comment on how Iraq is so free have never been there before. As one who has been to Iraq pre-war and someone that has been there post war. I must admit as bad as Saddam was, the people of the country are in worse shape now. Things are so screwed up over there that it isn't funny. When we leave it going to be mass chaos, if we stay there is going to mass chaos. As American we have to get off this idea that our way is the right way, because we all know that's not a fact with all the poverty, and injustice that goes on here. We cannot think we can do whatever we want and not answer for it, but when someone else does the same, we want to condemn them. I was a soldier, and I have done thinks in the past in the name of freedom that would blow a lot of peoples mind, does that make it right? Believe me the only thing free about freedom is the word free. People wake and let's start calling it what it is, if it is wrong for someone else, it is wrong for us also.
To which I responded:
Erik, thank you for your service to the US and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I am another American who is sick & tired of the hypocrisy of the Bush regime ("you can't do it, but we can"), and I am beyond sick & tired of being called un-American because I choose to exercise my FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT to free speech.
What I hear is, "How dare you as Americans speak out against your president and this war!"
In response I say, "How dare my president LIE to me about the reasons for this war that has cost us the lives of 3,618 military men & women, thousands of casualties, and tens of thousands of civilian lives!"
I am an American, and after 9/11, I was a proud American, but given the lies, greed, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, death, and destruction enacted upon the world by Bush, Cheney, and the GOP, I no longer feel proud. I just feel sad.
I am sad for us because we have a generation that will one day soon be called to lead, but the members of that generation are more interested in what the other "Axis of Evil" (Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears) is doing on a daily basis than what their current American president & his administration are doing on a daily basis that continues to tarnish the US's image around the world and creates murderous hostility toward us as Americans.
And I feel sad because Erik and tens of thousands of other American military men & women had to commit horrible acts against other human beings all in the name of freedom -- or Bush & Co's version of "freedom."
Can I support our troops and want to bring them home, out of harm's way, and at the same time call my American president a liar & a murderer, abso-fricking-lutely!
It is my right as an American to do so!
And can I as an American support the idea that President Putin (regardless of whether or not I support his methods) is finally checking the hypocrisy of the Bush regime? Abso-fricking-lutely! FINALLY, someone is calling bullshit on Bush's bullshit!
"Patriotism means loyalty to country always and loyalty to government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain
So, here we are... I love that a newspaper's editorial board is now calling into question Bush's "mental stability."
Will someone just say that the emporer is butt-ass nekkid already?!?!
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