Thursday June 5, 2008...Angry and Ashamed

I'm angry and ashamed.

I watched the program on Frontline: “Bush's War”. I didn't see it when it first aired, but did watch it on the internet. Putting all the facts out there together with the interviews of the people involved was very informative. It's hard to believe that 3 people, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld could run roughshod over all the other responsible people in Washington and bring this unnecessary war into being. These 3, along with their coordinated yes-men, distorted the facts to support the conclusion that they had already reached and took it upon themselves to ignore the rest of the world in order to bring Saddam down. They had no plan for the ultimate occupation and insurrection that would follow. They were so focused on this one plan to bring Saddam down, that they ignored the facts and distorted the truth because they thought they already knew the answer.

There is no doubt that Saddam was an evil man, but our leaders did an evil thing too. Their actions killed and maimed thousands of our own boys and thousands of civilians who might have been otherwise spared. They never admitted their mistake and never felt remorse for their actions. They should have. Maybe they will, someday. But that won't bring happiness to the thousands of families deeply affected by this tragedy.

What happened to our system of checks and balances? Why couldn't the truth be discovered before we took such extreme actions? I hate to say it, but the French were right in what they said and did. We were wrong. And we reelected the same group, how dumb can a nation be?

I'm ashamed that we, as a nation, invaded another sovereign nation peremptorily, without just cause. I thought people like Hitler or Tojo did things like that, not us. I guess we're no different.