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Forget this game of teeter-totter...this maybe, maybe not...this standing before the cameras with upturned palms, weighing the advantages of President Bush`s troop "surge." Forget the plastic comity that comes with hearing George Bush out one more time. Forget feigning deep deliberations in order to provide cover for Bush`s bruised ego and the nation`s tattered reputation. It`s too late for all that. We`re the nation with the secret torture planes and plenty of duct tape for the heads of prisoners who read the Qur`an. We`re the nation that went shopping while our governemt sent soldiers to Iraq for the second, third and fourth time. We`re the nation that demanded wartime tax cuts, saddling our own grandchildren with mountains of debt.
There is nothing to hide behind anymore so we may as well cut through the BS and call a spade a spade. The invasion of Iraq and the pitiful lack of leadership that followed are mistakes as grave as any we ever made. From the pathetic sideshow of renaming French fries to the indefensible substitution of Saddam for Osama to the cries of treason leveled at objections of conscience, we can stoop no lower. We`ve sacrificed our loved ones, our Constitution, our freedoms, our good name. We`ve run out of money, out of time, out of excuses. There`s no more to give.
Somewhere in Iraq there is an American soldier who still has the chance to live if we demand he be given that opportunity. Somewhere in Iraq there is a small child still lucky enough to have both his arms. Somewhere in Iraq there is a home not yet leveled and a merchant still scratching out a living. Somewhere in the United States there is a sickly grandfather still hoping to see his grandson, a new baby still waiting to meet her father, a preteen missing his baseball coach. These are the human stories, the ones that never show up on a politician`s flip chart.
So often we`re lulled into complacency, accepting submissiveness as a strength of true patriotism or inaction as a sign of civility. The enormous personal responsibility that comes with supporting a war requires dead honesty when that decision turns to disaster. That time has come. There can be no more wiggle room granted to politicians, no more catchy phrases developed by consultants, no more lies adopted as truths. We must demand our troops come home and accept no polished rhetoric designed to kindle the opposite conclusion.
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