Quagmire? It's a Damned Vortex!

Great Goddess of the Earth and Sky! To think that the country of my birth, the holder of the Flame of Liberty, the Icon of Freedom and Democracy would be involved in the type of abuses that have occured in Abu Ghraib prison...is beyond belief. I am almost speechless. These pictures are an abomination, an affront to every freedom-loving American.

Yet I do not blame the men and women in the pictures. They will be punished, albeit severely, for their actions. However, they were not the instigators of this mad act. They were merely the tools used to perpetrate this crap. If you get hit by another man's car, do you attack the car? NO, you go after the one in control. The car was just the means to an end.

I enlisted in the Navy in 1984. There was no war, I was pretty safe in assuming I would see no danger. I have no frame of reference to judge battlefield decisions or to explain the stress of facing violent death 24/7 in Baghdad. But I am familiar with the military command structure and how it deals with unpleasant tasks. These soldiers would not have indulged in these actions if the command had forbidden it. Basically, the fault lies solely with the command structure, not the soldiers charged. Although they should pay for their actions, I would prefer to see them relieved of duty and given a general discharge or a Section 14, pay a fine and be given an oppotunity to redeem themselves.
Instead, these men and women are going to spend some considerable time behnd bars and end up becoming the poster kids for Bush's failures. They rot in jail and Bush/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz walk away with their hands clean.

This is not how the military is supposed to work and all the soldiers know this. They will see their comrades go up the river to protect Bush & Co. and they will get pissed off. As if they didn't have good enough reasons before, they will have their bellies full now. George W. Bush should take this piece of insight very seriously. Changing the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people isn't his biggest problem in this election cycle. It's the hearts and minds of those GI's who work and bleed in Iraq. They will not sit long on their anger and neither will their families.

Anger and disgust is just now starting to swell here in the States. The Right-Wing Wonks are trying to play this off as nothing more than a 'frat hazing'
Hannity has been no better, but then consider the source. I don't give Ann Coulter much attention, she deserves only contempt. The rest of the Screamers on the Right have been towing the Bush line all through this travesty. To expect any common decency from them is both foolish and naive.

America will remain asleep to these events for only so long. The outrage we have always suspected will come is but a few turns of the clock away. Bush has few options right now. He can face the music and take the responsibilityfor these events or blame the grunts in the pictures, blame the Iraqis, and/or blame the Clinton administration. (Doesn't it always come to that?)

Bush is a coward. Nothing is his fault. The men and women in his administration are the perfect example of diligent government employees and never do anything underhanded and dishonest. His lieutenants are above reproach, they are the hallmark of honor and respect. They....I'm sorry.... even with sarcasm dripping from my keyboard, the words still make me gag...

Half-hearted apologies and empty promises are not going to bring ua out of this vortex. The Ship of State is swirling around like a turd in the flush. It didn't have to be this way. It could have been a lot different. But then, 776 men and women didn't have to die either. Bush feels no guilt for what sacrifices the young people of the military have made. He is as separate from that emotion as two galaxies in space. In order to feel guilt, one must have a heart, a soul and George W. Bush has neither. He has only ice in his veins, only dollar signs in his eyes instead of tears. I fear the worst of humanity is in one of the greatest positions in the world.

The next few weeks will determine the direction our country will take in the next four, the next forty years. The good will that we have fought long and hard for in the past one hundred years is being spent like a welfare check in a liquor store. Good will isn't a gift, it's a paycheck given us when we do the job the world community demands of us. We are the symbol of truth, justice and the American Way. When we falter, the fabric of democracy in the free world unravels and all of the little dictators and despots on this planet dig their roots in a little deeper.

Blogger is going off line soon, so gotta make this quick...

Keep the faith, truth will win out, if only a little bruised.

this is Shamanaqua, out

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