Tragic anniversary

First of all, apologies to my regular readers for what seems like an interminable absence from this site. The creative project that's been so all-consuming for me (115 hours over the past 7 days!) has left little time for any intelligent commentary on what, I'm sad to say, is the still unchanged duplicity, hypocrisy, and incompetence of our elected officials in Washington.

In that sense, come to think of it, the near-total distraction of work has probably kept my rational mind from exploding.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't weigh in, at least briefly, on the official passing of the PNAC's egregious folly in Iraq into its fourth inexcusable year. Above all, this is a tragic anniversary, the remembrance of that precise moment when our President's cowboy swagger and defiant ignorance started the U.S. on a terrible path from which there now appears to be no escape. This is an anniversary that will forever be borne as a stain on our national character, for it is our nation as a whole that empowered the Bush Administration to commit these horrific, precedent-setting acts of international terror in our good name - and to refer to this as "progress," "justice," and "spreadin' democracy and freedom" without effective challenge, correction, or consequence.

If this tragic anniversary motivates us to do anything, it should forcefully remind us of the shameful things our country has come to represent around the globe, thanks to the witless and belligerent and unforgivable stewardship of Bush and Company these last three years:

In the name of rejecting attacks on innocent civilian targets by fanatical foreign forces, we've invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat to America, over fabricated charges.

In the name of avenging the deaths of 3000 U.S. citizens, we've killed tens of thousands of Afghani and Iraqi non-combatants.

In the name of containing and eliminating weapons of mass destruction, we've used chemical (phosphorus bombs) and nuclear (depleted uranium shells) weapons against enemies we ourselves have created.

In the name of fighting acts of random terrorism, we've physically destroyed a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, while allowing the masterminds of that attack to escape unpunished.

In the name of upholding fundamental human rights, we've engaged in torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, suspension of habeas corpus, and the murder of unarmed prisoners.

In the name of revering peace, we've started an unnecessary - and endless - war.

Even now, instead of hunkering down and working to find solutions to the Iraqi situation, the President and his minions are flitting from city to city around the U.S., delivering the same worn and tired litany of spin and lies and misdirections about the nobility of our "cause," and how it's all been "worth it" for the good of the world. Instead of admitting to his mistakes, his deceptions, his utter ineptness, Mr. Bush continues to insist that "staying the course" was and is the right thing to do.

Instead of simply and responsibly doing his goddamn job, the worst Chief Executive in America's history is on the road selling a PR campaign, designed to do nothing other than raise his dismal poll numbers.

So we should all mark this tragic anniversary, and accurately remember all the things our unjustified invasion of Iraq represents, about our leaders, about our global policies, about our very soul as a nation. And we should vow, on this date, as a people, to never allow such a terrible betrayal of all things American to happen again.