Journal entry
Thursday 20 March, 2003
Paris
Well, its war then.
I rise to the news that the US bombing of Iraq has begun.
The ignorant bastards in Washington (with the help of the media and the American people) have now condemned Americans and others to years of violence and terrorism. Americans who support this authoritarian action and regime think that this will be over quickly. They are wrong.
Democrats who goose-stepped in line and betrayed principal on an alter of re-election hope should be ashamed. It was their job to ask hard questions. They failed miserably. I can see a future Democratic candidate who voted for the war one day campaign, when the war is going badly of course, against the president and his party for getting us into the war and a fatigued public and ignorant partisans will buy it. The press will go after (too late) those who made bold promises and try to cover up their (the press) own culpability.
What all sides have in common is hypocrisy and that hypocrisy will now have a cost in lives. Christ, does the public or press or politicians not study any history at all? Have they read ‘A Peace to End All Peace’ or Semitic Religiosity in chapter 3 of T. E. Lawrence’s ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’? Hubris and ignorance have a cost.
The facts are these, thousands of Ottoman soldiers could not find and kill Lawrence and his band of insurgents in the Hajaz during WW I. If we (the US) do not get this stabilized in the first 180 days we will not get it at all and will be like the Ottoman Turks.
An insurgency WILL take place, foreigners maybe, locals, for sure. They will be like mosquitoes that bite, disappear and bite again. We will lose soldiers everyday and kill thousands of innocent civilians. We will torture people in interrogations like the French in Algeria and in the end all we will have to show for the blood and treasure spent is a civil war. Then we will leave.
I stood on the Pont des Art and watched as the boats passed. I have a heavy heart.
A Frenchman standing a few paces away asked,"Américain"?
"Oui", I replied. "American".
"Désolé", he said as he offered me a drink from his plastic glass.
I looked at the sky hanging above ILE DE LA CITÉ. It showed no evidence of the storm that was coming.