"Girl blog[ger] from Iraq" Riverbend has written a long and thoughtful post on our election next week. Of course, I agree with her 110% on her main point — get Bush the hell out of the White House! — so I am probably considered hopelessly biased.
Here's something else she said, though...
I think many of us realized long ago that American foreign policy really had nothing to do with this Democrat or that Republican.
It sometimes seems, from this part of the world, that democracy in America revolves around the presidential elections — not the major decisions. War and peace in America are in the average American’s hands about as much as they are in mine. Sure, you can vote for this man or that one, but in the end, there’s something bigger, more intricate and quite sinister behind the decisions. Like in that board game Monopoly, you can choose the game pieces- the little shoe, the car, the top hat… but you can’t choose the way the game is played. The faces change but the intentions and the policy remain the same.
I've had a conversation about this last week... that nothing will really change fundamentally if the Democrats re)gain power. We'll still be playing the same international games, backing the wrong leaders, etc. It disturbs me and I don't know what the answer is. The Green Party? River mentions an Iraqi saying "'Lo tetla’a nakhla ib rasseh' (if a palm tree grows out of his head)" — I much suspect this corrolates to the phrase "And monkeys might fly out of my butt."
Still, we've got to start somewhere. We can't keep going this way.
Some people associate the decision to go to war as a ‘strength’. How strong do you need to be to commit thousands of your countrymen and women to death on foreign soil? Especially while you and your loved ones sit safely watching at home. How strong do you need to be to give orders to bomb cities to rubble and use the most advanced military technology available against a country with a weak army and crumbling infrastructure? You don’t need to be strong — you need to be mad.
Exactly.
