- Turkey puts two hands up, amasses 140,000 troops on its Iraqi border.
- Syria re-invades Lebanon, no one seems to notice. (Thanks, Gramma!)
You know how I feel today? Precisely the way I did right before Thanksgiving, 2000. We were on our way up to New Jersey for the holiday, and I was absolutely dreading it. I had this sick feeling in my stomach that the election was slowly being stolen from us right in plain sight --it was only a matter of time before activists re-intepreted enough chads to reverse the Bush win in Florida, throwing the election to Gore. Losing the election wasn't what bothered me, it was the feeling of the election being stolen and the Constitution being overthrown. As we drove we'd tune into the news at the top of the hour, and the headline would be the experiment in self-government known as America dwindling down with the vote count hour by hour, and us powerless to intervene or even object.
What made it worse was knowing that our apolitical but conventionally Democratic family would tease us as if this were a boilerplate political loss. I have never before felt literally sick over a matter of mere politics.
Until this week. We seem to be on the cusp of breakthrough in Iraq militarily, and yet the political momentum to cut and run seems unstoppable, and I have once again the feeling of the thing I love most this side of eternity (the souls of my loved ones being eternal) being overthrown...and utterly unnecessarily. For lack of an ounce of patience. Or courage. Or prudence. Or the ability to see beyond partisanship. Who the hell wants to be President of the US in the age of our decline? Who wants to preside over the inevitable great war that will follow this struggle in a few years?
Everyone apparently.
I console myself somewhat with the memory that as we were driving to New Jersey in November 2000, we turned on the radio at one point prepared to hear the news that Al Gore was President of the United States. And, lo: a court decision halting the Broward County "recount." I realize it was a Court decision, but it felt like an act of God. That's what I need today...something like a sign from God that the Congress of the United States won't yield the field to Islamic terrorists. They --Congress-- little expect the vultures they will unleash all over the world if they retreat.
I know it won't happen on Bush's watch --not so long as the Congress leaves him the slightest bit of authority. The Administration's attitude at this point seems to be to give in on everything, just try to keep Iraq alive. The military's doing well. The Iraqi citizenry is turning. The Al-Maliki government is letting us down, but with the people rising up, there's reason to be hopeful. My sense is that we're on the cusp of either great victory or great defeat, the choice is ours, and it is sickening to stand helpless and watch as the Congress turns toward defeat. Even the dithering itself simply hastens the day --see the links above.
