Whenever I think that I have difficulties in my daily life, I am reminded by reality of how relatively simple the daily decisions I have to make are, by articles like
this one in which one of our soldiers in Iraq talks about his doubts about our actions in Iraq. The last paragraph in particular strikes me:
QUOTE
I enlisted in the Army Reserve following September 11, 2001, one of the hardest and best decisions I have made in my life. I love the United States, the Army and my unit. Out of this deep love, I ask that we as Americans take a long look in the mirror. We must ask ourselves who we are and what we stand for. We as a nation must face the monster we have created in Iraq, sooner rather than later. We must find a way out of the mess in Iraq with minimal loss of American and Iraqi life. We owe it to the soldiers on the ground and the embattled Iraqi people.
Most important is that he speaks of "minimal loss of American and Iraqi life". Even many of us here are not thinking much of Iraqi lives - their daily lives. I know many are thinking this war is the lesser of two evils, but is it?
How many more than the 100,000 thousand Iraqi lives, conservatively estimated recently, have been loss since that estimation? How many will be loss before the Iraqis start to compare our rule to that of Saddam Hussein?
I can only pray that soldiers like SPC Murphy will truly be able to minimize that loss as much as possible in the face of the constant temptation to take vengeance for the death of a fellow soldier, rather than to keep in sight the larger goal of establishing a better system of government in Iraq. Far more important, I pray that there will be a change in thinking or leadership in this country before the aforementioned change in heart of the Iraqi people really does manifest itself as a greater security threat to us in the USA than the country was before we invaded.
We still need to bring these troops home. Our "Defense Department" is being used for truly offensive purposes. The reelection of the current administration changes none of that.
[ December 03, 2004, 10:39 PM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]