It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
Reporting Violence and Death

In the ultimate depressing sign of the times, many newspapers have stopped reporting deaths of American soldiers in Iraq on their front pages. It just happens too often for it to remain front page news, apparently.

Well, we won't criticize them for that. After all, we don't report every soldier that dies either. We would have trouble keeping up if we tried.

Let's take a look at the big picture, then. The trend in violence in Iraq is not improving, as Bush and his elite aides claim. Heck, the level of violence in Iraq isn't even remaining the same. Nope, the violence in Iraq is getting worse - much worse.

Consider this, troop supporters:

Right after the "end of the war", when Bush declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq, the Pentagon reluctantly admitted that there were an average of 13 attacks per day against American soldiers.

Now, months later, the Pentagon tells us that there are an average of 33 attacks per day against American soldiers. That's getting close to a 300% increase in the anti-American violence in Iraq.

American soldiers are not just being killed every day, they're being terrorized and maimed as well. The suicide rate among American soldiers in Iraq is higher than in any other recent war, folks.

No matter what the Republican propaganda would tell you, George W. Bush is not supporting our troops. The best way for us all to support our troops, if that's really what we want, is to support one of the Democratic candidates who is seeking to remove Bush from the White House in 2004. We can't afford another 4 years of this kind of war.

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 3:02 PM. # (permalink)  




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