Thursday, September 16, 2004

Showing Up

I've heard that 80% of life is just showing up.

So some of the controversy about John Kerry's military service is a little hard to understand.

Most of the controversy seems to be whether or not he "deserves" the medals he got, and there are some people who were in Vietnam at around the same time (although not on John Kerry's boat) who seem to have some strong opinions about that.

But he was there, right? He showed up.

Can George Bush say the same?

Terrorism in Iraq

The idea that there are terrorists in Iraq seems to have come as a great shock to the Bush Administration.

And the Bush Administration is now THE authority on terrorism. They know best how to protect us from terrorists.

And yet the idea that there might be terrorists in Iraq seems to have come as a surprise.

Let's see, we'll invade a mid-east country that is predominantly Muslim, and they'll greet us with flowers and happily do whatever we say to build a western-style democracy. Attacks on American soldiers? Attacks on the government installed by the United States? Anti-American terrorism by Muslims in the mid-east? Who would have thought such a thing? Who could have guessed?

Even weirder is that there are reports that the Israelis PLEADED with the Bush Administration to seal the Iraqi border after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, saying that there were foreign activists pouring into the country. But we couldn't be bothered. After all, what harm could a few foreigners do?

Well, now we're beginning to find out. And the Iraqis are beginning to hate us for it.

President Bush keeps talking about the number of innocents that Hussein killed during his years in power. How many have we killed during our months in power?

Do we get to leave when we have killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein?