::: We Owe You An Apology :::

Who? Scott Ritter. He tried his best to tell us there were no weapons of mass distruction
in Iraq, that intel was being hyped for political reasons ... to invade Iraq. We would not
listen. Not only that ... we labeled him a traitor, accused him of not being patriotic, branded
him as treasonous.

But ...

He was right and I want to apologize.

Some tried to resist what we were told because we know how politics works, but 6000
were dead, we were hurting and angry and wanted to attack. So we wore ribbons and
pins and hung flags outside our doors. We formed groups and watched hours of TV to
see what else we could do to help people or ourselves. Just the sound of planes over-
head gave us nightmares. We listened nightly for advice to come home and our lives to
come back and to feel good and feel light laughing again. But, we had anthrax to contend
with, and all sorts of new color codes and new rules and if we were not afraid to fly we
were afraid we might by stripped at the airport as we heard the diligent screeners did to
even some elderly women.

Then we learned the number of dead was decreasing ... Thank God, we said and prayed
for more errors. Numbers dropped because of simple clerical errors and some thought
lost were found ... oh, they were not there that day, and that was wonderful and
we were glad, but we were still mad inside, boiling. As the number of dead dwindled and
we eventually settled at approximately 3000, we still simmered. Someone had to pay.

Even though the worst of the pain and shock were passed, when you tried to speak, we,
the ones who lost only strangers and lived far away from the tragedy just could not listen.
What was it? Were we just plain mad and wanted revenge, wanted someone to pay.

The drumbeat for war went on and we simply could not resist, not even after we attacked
Afghanistan. At least, we thought, "those poor people" can now have a better life. We
patted ourselves on the back. Each anniversary will bring renewed pain and sorrow for
people we never knew and never would know.

They said ...

Saddam is a sponsor of terrorist. He has ties to Al-Qaeda. He has massive amounts of
weapons of mass destruction. He could mount those weapons and we could be awash
in a radioactive mushroom cloud. He could do it in 45 minutes and our families and our
children would be dust.

How could we not? We were afraid. We are still afraid. But the menace we face now is
far more insidious and is in our backyard.

So ... we are sorry Scott and thank you for all your diligent work and attempts to keep
us from making a horrible mistake.. Thanks also to the many others whose names we
don't know who tried to speak of reason and peace and making sure ... but we did not
listen.

And as always in war .... someone paid.

Granny
- posted by JT @ 1:12 AM |