It was encouraging to see the American people take to the streets this weekend to loudly denounce the Iraq war and the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration.
Until the people make it clear by their actions that the status-quo is no longer acceptable; nothing will change. Mass demonstrations and civil disobedience is what helped bring the outcry against the Vietnam war to critical mass and that's what will be needed now if there is any hope of effecting change.
Debate is under most circumstances reasonable. But not when it comes to the astoundingly deplorable policies of this administration. Not anymore. There can be no reasonable debate as to whether or not the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the subsequent carnage it caused was warranted. There also can be no reasonable debate on whether the Bush administration’s assault on the Constitution and our civil liberties is warranted.
To do so would be to suggest that there are plausible and defensible positions to take in support of this administration's policies thus according them theoretical legitimacy. That's just not credible, and delusion whether intentional or not isn’t an appropriate state-of-mind for an individual and it’s certainly not a sound foundation for making decisions as to the future of this country.
One does not have a debate whether the criminal who lied his way into a home and held up a family at gunpoint was justified. One does not debate whether a child abuser was justified. Some things are egregious enough assaults on human decency that they don't warrant "debate".
George Bush and Dick Cheney's immoral, unnecessary and unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq and the subsequent bloodbath that followed, was the biggest foreign policy disaster in US history and an assault on human decency. That's not open for reasonable debate. This administration's illegal and unjustified support of torture, illegal imprisonment and warrant less wiretapping are among the most blatant executive branch assaults on our freedom and civil liberties we have ever seen and an assault on human decency. That's not open for reasonable debate.
Many on the right suggest that debate on these issues is a sensible procedural path to take. That’s just not appropriate anymore.
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