Musings of the Chronologically Challenged™ Fourth Generation

 

Hello Again!
All three of you who missed me, raise your hands! Comments have disappeared again, but please email me at indigoinsights@hotmail.com.

Wanted: Private Secretary

Can’t believe the amount of puter work to do after being on my birthday hiatus. Almost like going on vacation and getting back to your job and wondering if it was worth it when you see the pile-up on your desk you’re faced with when you get back.. But in this case – a definite YES. What a wonderful birthday celebration I had with my family in Greenville. This birthday blast will require its own blog and I’ll get to it ASAP. But first, I need to play some catch-up.

This was in my mail box, attributed to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t know if he said it or not, but whoever said it, it sure is thought-provoking:

The media has been impatient since day one claiming that the war is taking longer than anticipated (by whom?), but it's all a matter of perspective.
-We're going to take Iraq in less time than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.
-It took less time to find evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq, than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
-It took Teddy Kennedy longer to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick, than it took the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard.
-We're going to take Iraq in less time than it took to count the votes in Florida in the year 2000!
Rush Limbaugh

And from Bob of Kinston, NC, this, without a URL, so I’ll have to paste up the whole thing. Hopefully, a browsing war-protester will come across it.

Where were you? WHERE WERE YOU?

Where were you in 1980 when Saddam invaded Iran? Where were you when the chemical weapons filled the Iranian trenches? Where were the protests? Where were the marches on the Iraqi embassies? As well over one MILLION were killed, as weapons of mass destruction were used, where were the protests?

When Saddam invaded Kuwait - where were you? When the systematic rapes began, with women assaulted in front of their children, children raped in front of their fathers - WHERE WERE YOU? Where were the speeches? Where were the celebrities? WHERE WERE YOU?

When Saddam set fire to his own oil fields, when one of the greatest ecological disasters in history was perpetrated by this one single despotic individual - where were you? Where were the environmentalists? WHERE WERE YOU?

When Saddam used chemical weapons - AT LEAST 40 times - on his own people .... where were the protests? When 5,000 died in a single gas attack, women and children falling in the streets from the poisonous and forbidden chemicals .... WHERE WERE YOU? The pictures were shown on television sets across the globe. Saddam gassed his own citizens as the world watched .... but where were the protests? Where was the outcry? Where were the pickets outside the Iraqi embassies? Where was the name calling and flag burning then? WHERE WERE YOU?

As word of the atrocities in Iraq began to leak out, just as it did not so long ago in 1943 from within the Third Reich -- when your own organizations like Amnesty International and The International Red Cross -- began to report on the routine use of torture, the rape rooms built specifically for the sexual torture of girls and women, as the stories leaked out of human beings being fed through plastic shredders, feet first, as they screamed ..... WHERE WERE THE PROTESTS? Did you not believe the pictures? Did you not believe the footage on your screens? Did you not believe the Iraqis themselves, the scarred women and hollow-eyed men, as they told their stories and begged for YOUR help? Where were you then?

Where were you, as Iraqis began to suffer under sanctions, as 5,000 a month starved and Saddam built palaces --- WHERE WERE YOU? Some of you protested your OWN governments -- for instituting a containment policy that you NOW claim is the only answer -- but where were the protests against Saddam? WHERE WERE YOU? When Saddam's net worth was reported a month ago as well over $2 BILLION dollars, as you read of his many, many palaces, and as his people starve, WHERE ARE THE PROTESTS?

When the Persian Gulf War ended, and that first United Nations resolution was violated by Saddam and his regime - where were you then? Where were the protests? What about the second resolution? The third? The seventh? The ninth? The 14th? The 15? The 17TH? WHERE WERE YOU THEN? Those of you claiming that the U.S. and the FORTY PLUS countries acting with her today are violating international law - WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THOSE RESOLUTIONS WERE VIOLATED? Where were the protests and chants and signs and burning flags? As 17 resolutions and 12 years of defiance passed by, as the weapons were built and the inspectors expelled, as the citizens starved and despot grew richer -- WHERE WERE YOU? Where were you every time he sent money to terrorists in Palestine -- an act openly boasted of by Saddam on national television - where were the protests? Where was the outcry?

Perhaps most of all, where were the protests once the actual people of Iraq, the exiles and dissidents and survivors, told their stories – WHERE WERE YOU? As Iraqi women testified before Congress, begging for American help, begging for the end of the Hussein regime – WHERE WERE YOU? Where was Martin Sheen and Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks? Where was Sheryl Crow and Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand? Most of all – WHERE WERE YOU?

Where were you TODAY when Iraq fired scud missiles, the very weapons they swore they did not have, the very weapons YOU promised they did not possess? WHERE WERE YOU? Where were you yesterday when the French announced, contrary to all logic, that they WOULD enter the fray if chemical weapons were used --- those same weapons that are, of course, non-existent. WHERE WERE YOU? As Saddam ordered uniforms of our nations, so that his soldiers could slaughter his own people and blame others ---- WHERE WERE YOU? When the oil wells began to burn - WHERE WERE YOU?

Perhaps the answer is a simple one -- you refuse to support your country, and you always protest AGAINST your own nation. That might explain your perpetual absence, your eternal abandonment of your own stated ideals ..... EXCEPT. Except if that was true, WHERE WERE YOU during military action in Haiti under the previous U.S. administration? Where were you during our presence in Somalia? Where were you when we attacked forces in Bosnia? Where were you as we attacked Afghanistan and Sudan? WHERE WERE YOU? What could POSSIBLY explain your absence then? Where were your protests and your hatred and your venom?

Where were they as we bombed Kosovo for weeks on end, as bombs rained down in the Serbian city of Belgrade .... WHERE WERE THE PROTESTS? When our last President stood before you, and announced a policy of regime change in Serbia, as we began that action WITHOUT UNITED NATIONS APPROVAL --- even as the French predictably protested -- WHERE WERE YOU? As civilians in Kosovo and Serbia died so that we could remove a despot – WHERE WERE YOU? Had SERBIA attacked us at some point? Did Milosevic provide weapons to terrorists? I assume he must have .... because if not, WHERE WERE YOU?

And perhaps most of all, when that last President, acting properly and courageously, announced a policy against Iraq in 1998 almost IDENTICAL to that of the current administration - WHERE WERE YOU? As the bombs fell in Baghdad during Operation Desert Fox --- WHERE WERE YOU?

Time after time after time after time ..... WHERE WERE YOU? Where was your hatred, your bitterness, your self-righteousness ..... where were your signs and marches and rants? WHERE WERE YOU? Where were you when it mattered -- where were you when you could have helped?

Maybe saddest of all --- today, as war begins, a war that would have been quicker and more humane without your mindless displays of partisanship, a war that very well might have been avoided BUT FOR your actions --- WHERE ARE YOU? As your sons and daughter, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, march into battle today -- whether that action is right or wrong – WHERE ARE YOU when they need you? When will the burning flags turn into banners of pride in those who, right or wrong, are doing their very best to keep you safe? Where are the signs of love and pride for those who may give their lives for your country?

WHERE WERE YOU THEN? WHERE ARE YOU NOW?







posted by HCL at 8:52 PM