| I get pretty emotional over the war in Iraq. Sometimes my thinking gets knotted up, and I forget things. A couple of days ago, that's exactly what happened, and I left out something important. So here it is: During the lead up to our invasion of Iraq, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell advised President George W. Bush about Iraq, "If you break it, you bought it." We broke it. As it turned out, and as many people including me said before the invasion, Iraq did not present a clear and present danger to the United States. The argument, "Saddam would have resumed research into and production of WMD as soon as international pressure was off, therefore we were justified in overthrowing him," is feeble at best. Instead, the invasion and its aftermath have given the Muslim fundamentalists who hate us a focal point and invaluable recruiting and training tools, as well as research opportunities into new weapons. What's more, life is worse for the average Iraqi. They have less electricity, less reliable water, less medical care, and more of them are getting killed. We broke Iraq. I believe that we have a moral obligation to fix what we broke, an obligation to make things right for those people. Damned if I know how, though. Maybe the international conference going on in Egypt right now will help matters. Maybe. If President Bush would admit that he made a mistake in ordering the invasion of Iraq and we have an obligation to put down the insurrection and stabilize Iraq, I could possibly support his current efforts to fix things, even though I don't believe his strategy is the right one. But he won't admit that the invasion was a mistake. You see, he talks to God. "So what?" you say. "A lot of people talk to God." But, you see, God talks back to President Bush, and he does what God tells him to. There's a medical term for that. But let's not go there now. |