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Friday, October 07, 2005

Discussion Thread for Friday, September 7, 2005 Opinion:
"I don't know if I have the moral authority to send troops into combat anymore," a senior American general recently told United Press International. He knows what his power means -- that on his word hundreds or thousands of young men would step into danger. "I'm no longer sure I can look (a soldier or a Marine) in the eye and say: 'This is something worth dying for.'" He doesn't mean Iraq. There are plenty of bad people here to fight, and plenty of innocents worth protecting. His moral crisis was that he had been to Washington, D.C. He had been asked politically loaded questions from both sides of aisle about the war, each questioner seeking ammunition to use for their own political ends. He was dismayed. And he's not the only one. "Everything that happens in Iraq is viewed in Washington through a prism of whether it is good for George W. Bush or bad," said a civilian U.S. official, who spoke to UPI on the condition he not be named. Successful election? "Proof" the invasion was the right thing to do. Car bombs in Baghdad? "Proof" this was wrong from the start. There is a growing disconnect between Washington and those fighting the Iraq war -- between the people sweating in the desert, saddled with making the policy work, and the people in suits and air conditioning, hoping to be proven right in the end, on whichever side they sit.
Via First Draft.

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