WHY THOSE WHO LOVE AMERICA ARE FEELING BROKENHEARTED
Andrew Greeley, agreel@aol.com

Chicago Sun-Times, IL
Oct 24 2007

I am ashamed for America. Note carefully that I do not say I am ashamed
of America. Despite all its inherent flaws and all its tragic mistakes,
the United States stands, however incompletely and with whatever
imperfections, for the highest standards of freedom and democracy
that the world has yet known.

I am ashamed for America because all the evil done in the nation’s
name in recent years is turning off the light on the mountaintop.

1. The president urges Congress in effect to accept the Turkish
protest against the attribution of Armenian genocide because it might
interfere with Turkish logistic cooperation in the ill-starred and
foolish Iraq war. That’s like silencing all congressional action on
the Holocaust because we need Germany on our side. If Turks expect to
become part of Europe and the West, they must acknowledge what their
ancestors did. They could pass a resolution of their own accusing us
of genocide against Native Americans if it would make them happy. How
humiliating that the president wants us to ignore what happened to
the Armenians so we can be victorious in the "global war on terror"
(the current replacement for "weapons of mass destruction"). That’s
called appeasement, and it was appeasement when President Bill Clinton
did the same thing.

2. The government kidnaps, tortures and murders the way the Gestapo
did in Nazi Germany. The president blithely dismisses these charges.

The United States, he says, does not torture. But that deception
is based on a memo from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defining
torture, which the White House won’t let anyone else look at.

3. The government pays large salaries to 148,000 "individual
contractors" in Iraq — more than the total American military there.

A third of these are toting guns. They are mercenaries — often,
it would seem, with very quick trigger fingers. Ironically, the most
recent victims were two Armenian Christian women. These contractors
are a kind of American Foreign Legion, like the notorious French and
Spanish foreign legions. They may well be very brave people who do
very tough jobs. They also compensate for Mr. Rumsfeld’s criminal
underestimate of the number of troops required. If, however, the
country is going to have a Legion Etranger, it should make sure
that it works under tight control. An unrestrained security force
quickly becomes a mafia. Humphrey Bogart, where are you when we really
need you?

4. At a remarkably frank meeting of middle-range officers (majors and
colonels) at Fort Leavenworth, the soldiers debated not whether there
should have been a war in Iraq, but who was to blame for losing it.

Was it the senior officers or the joint chiefs or the civilian
leaders? The war is not even over yet, and already the officers who
fought it and will have to fight its continuation have already given
up hope. Too bad for them, because the president has made up his mind
that we are still going to win the war and the Democratic presidential
candidates speak about a 10-year presence in Iraq.

Whatever the political leadership is or will be in 2009, no candidate
seems capable of saying, "We’re getting out now!" And the rest of
the world laughs at us because both parties are led by fools.

Anyone who cares about the United States and its legacies has to be
brokenhearted at what has been done to our beloved country by the
crazy people who are running it — people who have become so skilled
at deception they don’t even realize anymore that they are deceiving.

Just like the Democrats don’t realize they are again stealing defeat
out of the jaws of victory.