Just Thinking About Stuff

* The following is just emotive writing. Skip past it if you want real analysis or substantive dialog.

This weeks events in Lebanon coupled with the semi-democratic events in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Lybia have reaffirmed the gamble that America took going into Iraq. I'm am glad that our brave men and women haven't died in vain.

I don't exactly share the degree of recent triumphalism that has been displayed by my fellow supporters of the war. This is for no other reason than personal. Part of me has an overwhelming sense of guilt that I have been able to go about my daily life with ease as 120,000 of my countrymen have been sweating it out in the desert, dodging car bombs, IEDs and mortars only to have our press beaming those images around the world to further their agenda. On January 30th, I was beaming when 8 million Iraqis demonstrated that we really were doing a good thing there and that all the preparatory work that our troops had done for that moment was vindicated.

However, I guess that is what this is all about: being able to go about our civilized lives with relative ease. Ian reminded me yesterday that thousands of people were doing just that before 9:00 on September 11th. A few hours later, the world would never be the same. At the time I remember wondering if we would have the guts to pull it off; the recent election made me quite nervous, however Bush won big and our mission was reaffirmed.

I'm also hesitant to wax victorious as I know that there is a lot of work left to do. I'm confident that we will ultimately win the war, but not entirely sure it is going to come without another bloody lip or two. I'm not afraid of it, I just want to make sure I keep my perspective and acknowledge the reality that another 9/11 is still very real. I guess as our fearless leader says, "Stay the course...Stay the course."

I'll resume my attempts at substantive posting with haste..

(Ian, sorry for linking so much to you lately, but you've been en fuego)