letter [amy]

This letter is from April of 2003

I just found it this weekend, it's kind of spooky how dated it sounds, it was only about four years ago. In a way, there's a tiny (like microscopic tiny) bit of comfort to have a bit of hard evidence that the story has changed over the past four years. No one talks about WMDs any more. And no one has said much about Saddam Hussein's "support for terrorism" in a really long time either, even while he was alive. (If you don't count what he did to his own people, but I get the feeling that's not what the President was talking about in the letter.)

I don't have an opinion about what we ought to do about Iraq anymore. I don't know enough about the situation there to know what needs to be done to get life back to "normal" for the average Iraqi citizen. It seems like there are a lot of people who are informed who believe that we simply don't have enough people to accomplish lasting stability. And was that goal ever our power, as an foreign occupying force? And does sending more troops only mean more casualties, without significant change? On the other hand, we created this mess, a dicatorship has been replaced with a collapse of infrastructure and violence. Those who are able to are fleeing the country. Suicide bombings where there were none before the arrival of the U.S. We are responsible for this state of affairs, but what's the "right" thing to do at this point?

Four years later, this letter seems more hollow than ever. It's really depressing. I don't know what ought to happen, but things need to change.



Though one part of that letter is still relevant... I hope everyone comes home safe too.