Bothered and Bewildered

On Wednesday I woke to the almost full, front page photograph of the helicopter rescue of a wounded US soldier in Iraq.. Every bit as powerful as the legendary photo of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, the image more realistically captures the heat and dust, the I've-got-your-back ethic that pervades our forces in Iraq.

The same day, the image of the body of another soldier who had been ambushed and captured (and who not incidentally lived only miles from my home) was pulled from the Euphrates with gun wounds to his face and clear evidence of torture to his body.

These images are the harsh and painful truth of what is happening to our troops in Iraq.

The following day as if in some kind of alternative reality, the Democrats allowed an enormous bill continuing to fund the war to pass, billlions just to get us through the summer, with the generals promising escalating violence.

And then our president had a press conference which presented yet a third reality, one which more or less denied either of those tortured scenarios, one in which he takes out the old rationale of fighting terrorism so our children are safe in their own beds while he continues to support in-house terrorism over at the Justice Department.

As far as I can tell it's our children fighting this war, and our prosecutors making it safe at home, and unless someone puts a pin in our collective somnolent bubbles, there won't be any of them left.

What is happening to us? We are watching the country, already hijacked by Bush and Co solidify their support with members of our own side. The idea that we would "blame" the Democrats if the bill didn't pass...no we "blame" them that it DID!

It's really time for those of us who don't have children fighting to rally together to show some muscle in Washington; it shouldn't have to be only when there's a draft that we wake up. We need to wake up NOW. The war drones on with no apparent positive results and many, many negatives. As we put our feet up and pop a cold one this Memorial Day weekend, let's try to envision a different way forward, one that forces our leaders to take stock and make the bold changes we elected them for.

We have stirred the pot and it is boiling over. Let's just get it off the stove all together.

Have we been bewitched?