Any questions (no questions)?

I was recently sent a link to this article on the war in Iraq. The author makes some intelligent, reasonable arguments, and I don't necessarily disagree with any of his specific points. But the overall position of the paper seems to be that if you are not totally on board with the war on terrorism then you are part of the problem.

And our politicians have never seen a difficult issue they can't run away from. Thank God we didn't have a lot of these guys around when we were fighting the Germans and the Japanese. At the first sign of pain we would have negotiated away Hawaii and given Hitler time to develop his own A-bomb.

In fact, the sentiment I hear most frequently from responsible politicians in Washington is that the Bush Administration has gotten us into a bad situation and now we're stuck. Pulling out of Iraq too soon would only make things worse. But are we doing everything we can to make the best of a bad situation?

It isn't pretty for the troops. The enemy knows we are losing our resolve. This encourages them to be even more aggressive and to do even more to disrupt things. And the guys on the ground in Iraq try not to get killed while all the deep thinkers back in the States decide where we go from here.

In truth it is the current administration which has repeatedly failed our troops, by sending them into harm's way with inadequate training, shabby armor, and sporadic air support. As I recently pointed out, we've already spent over $300 billion on the war in Iraq. I wonder where all that money is going?

The one clear message you can take out of all of this is that our country is no longer ready or willing to fight a long war anywhere or for any reason. Instead of determined survivors, we have now evolved into a nation of fearful watchers who can't even be relied upon to support each other.

It's really frightening to me that so many Americans have been brainwashed into believing that questioning our goverment's policies is unpatriotic. If you disagree with how the war is being prosecuted, then you don't support our troops. If you question the motives of our leaders, then you hate freedom.

I keep coming back to an essay by Paul Graham entitled What You Can't Say.

I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.

Most struggles, whatever they're really about, will be cast as struggles between competing ideas. The English Reformation was at bottom a struggle for wealth and power, but it ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the souls of Englishmen from the corrupting influence of Rome. It's easier to get people to fight for an idea. And whichever side wins, their ideas will also be considered to have triumphed, as if God wanted to signal his agreement by selecting that side as the victor.

It seems obvious to me there are certain questions that the Bush Administration doesn't want to answer, so they endeavor to make those questions taboo.

Al Gore cautions that our own democracy may be threatened by the increasing corporatization of American media. The press is partly to blame, but ultimately the responsibility rests on each of us.

Be patriotic. Support our troops. Keep asking questions.