A Surprising Question

Someone just asked me, a while ago - whether or not I supported the current war. It suddenly dawned on me that nobody ever asked me if I supported the War in Iraq.

Wow. I wonder if I'm hanging around with the right crowd? Honestly - the people I was hanging around with - their support was implicit. And at the same time, I divided my time almost equally to people whose opposition was implicit.

The ones I had over for dinner were actually busy trying to help people out on either side - busy trying to find the facts.

The most surprising element of this question was that the person who asked me the question is likely conversant in Arabic. I could tell by the prosody and placement of the question. Such skill must pay well these days.

Or not. At any rate, I don't know if the question is even relevant anymore. Things are winding down in-theater. I suppose I am against any war, and especially wars of convenience. But I always support the troops. They're the ones that are dying while we're just sitting here like fat cats. The truth be told, the Iraq war moved a whole world of hurt over there to Iraq.

The real war is against Al Qaeda. I'm for that war. But there will be no surrender ceremony at Yorktown Peninsula - Osama Bin Laden will not hand us his sword. So. You know? Not sure how to answer that one. I suppose I would have had an easier answer three years ago, or maybe even seven years ago. But when someone spends 600 billion dollars of your money every year, for six years straight - you kind of get punch drunk about it all. Did we bring democracy to this country? Sure.

Why not? Will it last? Depends on the level of corruption it can sustain. Right now corruption is off the charts - there is map to the hierarchy of bribery installed into the Iraqi constitution itself. If you can believe it.

Still, the whole purple finger thing is pretty cool. I am not sure it was worth 2 trillion dollars.