Thanks, little giving in Iraq

While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this week by gnawing on turkey legs before eating pumpkin pie, millions of Iraqis continue to suffer from the murderous oppression of, well, just about everybody from our global neighborhood and their militant-idolizing brother.\nAs Americans spend time gathered around buffet-style dining tables to ponder the contributions of American Indians to our forefathers' dreams of Manifest Destiny, millions of Iraqis will spend Thanksgiving Day scrounging for food before dining by candlelight as far away from the entrance as possible, just in case their door gets kicked down in the middle of the night by the black boots of American soldiers. \nThe problem with the current course of the U.S. War on Terrorism, playing out like a bad dream outside the Green Zone of Iraq, is manifold, with too many complicated creases to reduce any proposed exit strategy as "cut and run" or to label the enemy as "evil but not insane," as President Bush said during a Nov. 14 speech at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska.\nCan the United States do no right in Iraq? Yes, of course we can, but who is the judge and what moral scale is our prescription?\nIf we ask the more than 2,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq, well, they of course can't answer.\nIf we ask the 25,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have been killed for nothing more than maintaining a residence between the Tigres and Euphrates rivers, well, they of course can't answer that question either.\nTo whom do we turn for a reflection of our righteousness at a time when the United States is waging an overt global war against terror in the mountains of Afghanistan, the streets of Iraq and the shadows of Italy? \nLet's start with one global perception that presupposes Bush, as commander in chief, and what protesters call "war-mongering cronies" -- for example, Vietnam non-veteran Dick Cheney and otherwise "Secretary of War" Donald Rumsfeld, among others -- are fueling a rabid insurgency hell-bent on mass-murdering Americans and burning American interests into the ground.\nIraq then becomes a convenient front for fighting a war against proper nouns that will no doubt last into the 22nd century and beyond, despite billions of dollars spent, thousands of American soldiers dead and tens of thousands of volunteers maimed.\n"Victory in Iraq is key to prevailing in the war on terrorism and laying the foundation of peace for children and grandchildren," the White House press secretary said in a Saturday statement.\nAnother global perception might presuppose Bush did in fact ask the U.N. Security Council, Congress and the American people to wage war on an otherwise sovereign country presided over by a tyrannical and insane leader, despite the fact the war on terrorism was never won in Afghanistan.\nBush himself, after all, told Alaskan military personnel and their families the "Islamic radicals," "militant jihadists" and "Islamo-fascists" are killing Americans to establish a "radical Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain."\nYet another global perception might presuppose Bush is indeed a right-doer in the 21st century struggle of humanity to win the hearts and minds of oppressed and impoverished people worldwide because, after all, the would-be evil-doers need a reality check by any means necessary to secure the paranoid-futuristic fears of America.\n"In Iraq, we have brought down a murderous regime. We have stood by the Iraqi people through two elections, and we will stand by them until they have established a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself," Bush said during an Oct. 15 national radio address. "When we do, Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror and a partner for peace and moderation in the Muslim world. And because America stood firm in this important fight, our children and grandchildren will be safer and more secure."\nAnd still another global perception might accuse Bush of leading our democratic empire into a tilt-a-whirl, self-fulfilling national prophecy that is inviting the same terror in Iraq and abroad our soldiers are supposedly defending.\nUnlike American militiamen who utilized guerrilla tactics to dust the British empire back to its motherland and unlike American cavalrymen who engaged in terror-like behaviors to eliminate the American Indian threat to colonization, President Bush said during his speech in Alaska that our American all-volunteer military did not ask for this "global struggle" -- a war against humanity, he said.\nA final global perception might presuppose the "every-person Iraqi" is not better off than before the fall of Saddam, although Thanksgiving week in Iraq during years to come might involve dinner-table discussions of how America offered butter and guns to the Iraqi people in exchange for knowledge needed for survival -- like how to survive suicide bombers or how to spot a stealth bomber.\nThe Iraqi people can now write the holiday into their constitution and the Iraqi people can now vote to include the holiday in their calendar because Bush has said over and over again America is not going to cut, run or establish a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. \nIn the meantime, millions of Iraqis will spend our Thanksgiving week praying for clean water, all-day electrical power and no more bombed-out buildings in a country not occupied by American soldiers.