2007 Articles Index
America Can Be Better
First: Thanks, Alex! Alex works in Rep. Lungren's office and spent a generous amount of time on the phone with me helping me navigate searches on thomas.loc.gov and discussing how to download text from the full text of the Congressional Record. Over time, I'll use that info here.
Rep. Lungren summed up very articulately one of the representations that I find most frustrating in all so-called discussions of our presence in Iraq. I'll get his exact words tonight or tomorrow, but the essence of it is that to claim that our troops or our goals are responsible for the sorry state of Iraq is to miss the simple fact that all the chaos stems from the actions of fanatics (religious or otherwise). If they simply stop butchering people and let a reasonable nation be formed, we would bring our troops home so fast it would make the most dovish head spin.
Where is the indignation over the butchery that these monsters have been delivering daily? Where is the outcry? Who speaks of these horrors and places the blame squarely where it belongs: in the hands of those who commit them?
Does it infuriate these thugs that our troops are there? Of course. It infuriates bank robbers when the cops show up, too.
I'll have more to say after I review the Congressional Record. I'll be able to reflect more calmly and try to synthesize the remarks from both sides of the issue.
I heard things from supporters of the current pointless nonbinding resolution that, frankly, sounded pretty reasonable. They didn't suggest any particular approach to the problem or inspire me, so they didn't stick.
That's why it's good to have a written record. I'm with Richard Mitchell on this one: The main benefit of writing your thoughts is not that someone else can come along later and find a record of what you said, although that is exceedingly handy in may ways. The main benefit is that you can come back and figure out if what you said made sense.
