Breaking Point (an epiphany)

[kskiska]

Sunday, December 14, 2003
By Jim Sollisch

This is the seventh time I've started and restarted this essay. It's about the war in Iraq, and it's the last thing I want to write about. Like most Americans, I want to believe that the war was/is necessary even though every reason given for it has turned out to be untrue. I want to believe that we are liberators, not occupiers. Good guys, not bad guys. I want to believe there is a way out of this that makes the world a better place than it was before.

And so, like most Americans, I keep quiet. I read the headlines but not the stories. I resist understanding the difference between Shiites and Sunnis. I can spell Tikrit and Mosul, but I refuse to remember which city is sympathetic to Saddam and which is not. I am the new antiwar protester. I carry angst, not placards. I march down the aisles of Wal-Mart, not down the streets of America. I am Hamlet, deciding whether to be or not to be, deciding nothing.

I read that our occupying army is now using the techniques of the Israeli army -- burning down houses, encasing whole villages in razor wire, detaining the families of suspected insurgents. And, finally, I am too ashamed to keep quiet.

This is what one of our colonels in Iraq said, as quoted in the New York Times: "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them." That colonel is our representative in Iraq. He is the ambassador of our values. He speaks for you and me. If he is the ugly American, so are we.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61279-2003Dec12.html

[Francis]

1. Great article n/t

[RainDog]

2. I am SO happy to read this

This man is speaking for so many in this country, and as he notes, it is past time to take to the streets for every decent American, because it is obvious that this is the only way we can and will stop this Bush war fiasco which is, honestly, destroying our crediblity around the world, and damaging our country with each day these people are allowed to continue their failed policies.

for those of us who have been paying attention for years, it is a welcome relief that the decency of the American people has, hopefully, been roused from its slumber.

[DFLforever]

3. Cuts across labels of left, right and moderate, doesn't it?

begins to sound like the ultimate criticism of the Vietnam War.

[BeFree]

4. Truth is..

It's about the oil.

Americans are good guys. Its just that we've got bad leaders. Just like that Colonel who thinks all we gotta do is scare them into submission, our leaders believe that also.

Glad to see folks getting the correct idea that we were sold a bill of lies when the leaders decided to invade Iraq. Hope is that this writer now can see how important it is to replace our leaders. The sooner the better.

[Martin Eden]

5. Israeli tactics

Unfortunately, Mr. Sollisch is correct when he compares our occupation of Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio. Heavy-handed military solutions only diminish the chances for peace.

Nevertheless, we are still turning the Israel for lessons -- hiring their professional assassins to train American murder squads that will assassinate Iraqi insurgents fingered by Saddam's former killers.

Charley Reese lays it out pretty well in this column:
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/reese9.html

Seymour Hersh, with his usual thoroughness, has documented Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's latest scheme for Iraq. It is, in short, to set up death squads, trained by Israelis and using Israelis as consultants in Iraq.

The Israeli role is supposed to be hush-hush, but not only Hersh, in his New Yorker article, but also a British reporter in the Guardian have confirmed the Israeli role. That will win a lot of hearts and minds in the Arab world. About the only government they hate worse than ours is Israel's.

The idea is to hire some of the worst of the worst – members of Saddam's old secret police – to infiltrate the resistance and finger key players for the American murder squads. Thus, we climb in bed with the very people our boy president likes to moralize about – those dreaded evildoers. Only now they will be evildoers on our payroll instead of Saddam's. Only now, instead of bringing democratic values to Iraq, we will show the Iraqis we are just as good at murder as Saddam.
<snip>

[UpInArms]

6. thanks for the post

the article was good news - someone not associated with the "liberal" viewpoint has decided to be honest - and I am so weary of the "liberal" viewpoint being painted as "not correct".

It is the only correct answer.

Stop this war and stop it right now - not in two years not in 20 - now - before more damage is done and more innocent lives are ruined.

The Charlie Reese article was good as well.

Wish he had a larger audience.