"Everyday of my presidency, I think of this war."

Monday, June 05, 2006

"Every day of my presidency, I think of this war."

While eating lunch today at Camp Shield's chow hall, I saw a clip of President Bush sticking his finger in the air and proclaiming, rather defiantly, "Every day of my presidency, I think of this war." Well, I would hope so, Mr. President, since you are the commander in chief and started the damn thing in the first place. That is akin to my company commander saying, "Every day of my command, I think of my company!" Well, no shit; it's your job. Most people have to deal with the messes they make; it's called life. You don't get a pat on the back and applauded for trying to fix the very problem you caused. It's expected. That is what really irks me; it seems that our Executive Branch feels like they should be commended for doing things that they are supposed to do in the first place. I don't expect praise for simply being on time to the motor pool every morning, and our president shouldn't expect praise for thinking about the very military that he heads. He should think about the war everyday, especially when soldiers are being injured and killed everyday of his presidency. It should be his number one issue, and he should not waste time with divisive, petty social issues with such a large outcry for answers in Iraq . . . which leads me to my next complaint.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060603/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

WASHINGTON -
President Bush on Saturday backed a resolution to amend the Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman even though the idea has little chance of being passed in the Senate.

"Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his Saturday radio address. "Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening this good influence on society."

Now, my problem with this is two fold. On one hand, I just totally, completely, 100% disagree with a ban (Consititutional or not) on gay marriage. The absolute weakest argument (yet the most prominent) I have heard in support of a ban states that gay marriage undermines the sanctity of marriage. First, let's look at the definitions of 'undermine' and 'sanctity':
Undermine: To weaken, injure, or impair, often by degrees or imperceptibly
Sanctity: The quality or condition of being considered sacred; inviolability.

So, we are to believe that, by allowing gays and lesbians to get married, marriage will cease to be considered a sacred, loving, everlasting commitment of two loving adults. While I know that there are many on the 700 Club-watching Right who will look down upon marriages of gays as unholy, I just can't see how anyone would consider their own marriage undermined by gay marriage. I have said it before, and I will say it again: If anyone's marriage other than your own, whether it be homosexual or heterosexual, affects your views on your own marriage, then something is wrong with the sanctity of your marriage, not theirs. Apparently, the high divorce rate, millions of philandering spouses, swingers clubs, and domestic abuse that exists in the United States doesn't undermine the sanctity of marriage, why would two caring adults who happen to be gay do so? Spare me the Bible thumping answers, please; the Bible says the ultimate sin is blasphemy, not homosexuality. It also says that all sin is equal, so that means the heterosexual adulterer is no better than the faithful homosexual. If you are right, and gays truly are going to Hell, why make it a Hell on Earth for them? Let them have their fun, and then you can taunt them in the afterlife you intolerant assholes.

The second problem I have with this is the sheer timing of it. A viewer said it best when he emailed CNN this gem regarding "Is this the right time for the President to back a ban on gay marriage?"

Michael in Superior, Wisconsin: "Of course now is the time for President Bush to back the ban on gay marriages. Iraq is secure, so are our borders, the government is prepared for hurricane season, no rogue nations are trying to develop nuclear weapons, gas prices are stable, personal income far outpaces inflation, and we're enjoying a time of peace and prosperity. Obviously, there's nothing else he needs to concentrate on right now."

No one could have summed it up better. Sarcasm aside, the man brings up many issues that should be at the top of the agenda for the 2006 Senate before anyone even discusses the big, bad lesbian couple down the street. With all these issues unresolved, and the 2006 mid-term elections coming up in November, sadly, I can only look at this as a patently obvious attempt to rally the radical Right's social conservative base in a last ditch bid to avoid losing both houses of Congress. What is truly sad is that it just may work. WWIII could be just around the corner and for many simpleton conservatives the top two issues will still be gay marriage and abortion. I have never been more cynical about our government than I am right now. Sir Winston Churchill was so right when he said, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

I love it when people who are not in Iraq, have never been to Iraq, will never be in Iraq and are not and will never be in the military tell me what Iraq is like. How presumptuous can you get? A man on a message board informed me that Iraq really isn't in that bad of shape, the streets aren't nearly as dangerous as the big, bad media makes them out to be, and the media and Democrats are in a joint conspiracy to make myself and the rest of the military look bad because they're chicken shits and liars. Really? That must be why all these brave journalists are riding around the most dangerous streets in Baghdad while he sits at his computer 6,000 miles away tell me he has everything figured out. The argument that "the media is only reporting the negative news" is bullshit. The media reports what happens: car bombs, kidnappings, torture, assassinations, corruption, murders, IEDs, etc, etc, etc. We hear the intel report every morning and I can tell you that not everything gets reported. I have personally seen children caught in crossfire on their way to school, the aftermaths of car bombs, chaos is in the streets as Iraqi security personnel are gunned down, IED explosions, etc, etc, etc. Members of the Iraqi Highway Patrol HQ station have been kidnapped, tortured with holes drilled in their heads, and dumped in public places on more than one occasion. That is just one squad at one station. It happens a lot. Where does guy get off telling me what it's really like here? Do they think the media makes this stuff up? I suppose the media could report that I spent about two hours today playing with our little friend Ali and his two buddies, Achmed and Hidar, but is that really a story? We've given school supplies to children here, but is that really saying anything about the security of this country? It takes a lot of balls to tell a soldier that travels through Baghdad five days a week what Iraq is really like, but never underestimate the hubris of a goose-stepping, party line voting, robot.

This leads me to something I have wanted to do for a while, not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, but because it will make me feel better.

A Public Apology to Senator John Kerry.

Mr. Kerry, I want to express my sorrow for not only how I voted in 2004, but how I and half the country vilified your character, questioned your war service, dismissed your ideas, and called names instead of truly considering your reasons for voting the way you did. I say this not only because I am in Iraq. I believe that I would have been here whether you were elected or not, but I see how terrible decision making has put us behind the eight ball on so many fronts and would appreciate a fresh start with a fresh approach and fresh ideas from a fresh administration. I know that as a man who witnessed terrors much worse than anything I've seen in Iraq, you would be hesitant to dismiss the wishes of senior Generals. You know what war is like for the soldier and that perspective surely would have influenced your decision making moreso than the current administration.

Your domestic policies would have more closely resembled my preferences. You would not waste time pandering to a social group with far too much political capital as it is by backing a hate-filled Constitutional ban on gay marriage that precludes law-abiding gay citizens from pursuing life, liberty, and happiness. Your plan for universal health insurance would have at least opened up some much needed dialogue on the state of our medical care. The US spends more money as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product on health care than any other country in the world [Source: The Economist], yet we are the only one in the top ten who does not offer health care to all of our citizens. Something is definitely broken and you had the balls to say it. A band-aid won't do; we need major surgery. Our country's policy on stem cell research would not be formed by malcontents like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson if you were in office. You wouldn't sidestep questions about Iraq by creating controversy over abortion or the above mentioned gay marriage. You wouldn't ask to make tax cuts permanent even as you continued to allow the largest deficit in our nation's history grow ever larger. I'm sure you may have vetoed a spending bill by now, something the current administration has not done in six years. So, I am here to tell you that I regret my vote, but, more importantly, I regret how I portrayed you in my many discussions about the election in 2004. I was wrong. Perhaps, you wouldn't have been perfect, but you wouldn't have to be to outperform our current commander in chief.

Sincerely,
Justin C. Cliburn