In Our Graven Image
By SEAN HANNON

February 5, 2006

Dear Editor,

The war whose mission was declared accomplished by the President is now being dubbed “the Long War” by Rumsfeld. This new phrase does not refer to the three years spent already but to the anticipated decades to come.  The Long War. What a solemn, inspiring and noble phrase, denoting the virtues of American tenacity and resolve. The new catechism is that we will be spreading democracy in the middle east at the point of a gun, one terrorized bedroom at a time, for the foreseeable future and beyond. When the current generation of soldiers has retired (if they are ever allowed to), they won’t have their grandchildren sitting at their amputated knees listening to war stories by the fire, because their grandchildren will be out there fighting the same war, following the same insane marching orders, and wondering what the hell they are doing out there.

There is a vision to which we must adhere, and to stay the course, we must keep the mantra going: we are bringing democracy to the region... it will spread like a garden...a garden of Eden.... stay the course... democracy on the march... stay the course...

The sad reality is that we ARE bringing democracy to the region. That is, democracy as we currently know it and practice it.  Elections with demonstrable ballot fraud are allowed to go unchallenged; parties in power are using their authority not to bring the country together, but to obliterate the opposition; rights of women are being diminished not strengthened; the corruption of officials on the take, with billions of dollars flowing unaccounted for, is pandemic; political hacks with no expertise are being elevated to critical government positions; constitutional laws are being rewritten without an informed consensus of the population...