Ooops I read Jamieson again
Dang it! I wanted to crow about how I found the penultimate reason to disregard Robert L. Jamieson, resident liberal whiner for the Seattle P-I, but I see that I already did that. Well, found another reason on a different subject - everyone's favorite quagmire, Iraq.
In Body bags tell us we're in a war we cannot win, Jamieson demands to know why U.S. soldiers are dying in Iraq. He asks what the cause is, and laments the deaths of U.S. personnel and Iraqi civilians.
At least I think he means Iraqi civilians. He must mean Iraqi civilians, because he never mentions who exactly is killing coalition soldiers. He mentions Al Qaida, and American conservatives, and Rep. Jim McDermott, and John Kenneth Galbraith, and the British and the Spanish.
But he never mentions who is fighting coalition forces.
What boggles my mind is hearing Iraqis say "yes I want these damn Americans out as soon as they can pack up their Humvees", and say "we must fight and kill these damn Americans", and see them believe that these are not mutually contradictory desires. If you truly want coalition forces out of your country, then stop giving them a reason to stay. Form a government, build an effective police force (which would require you to acknowledge the crime wave putting to lie that your fellow countrymen are not saints and good-deed-doers) and army, and handle your own damn lives. By doing so you would prove that you don't need the Americans! Smackdown and self-government all rolled into one!
But of course, the Iraqi doesn't. Or, more accurately, the small number of Iraqis who would rather destroy than build, who fight anyone not related by blood regardless of the reason, won't listen.
Or do listen, and don't care. Because they have nothing to live for.
A nothing of their own making.
There, is that dramatic enough? Seriously, Jamieson didn't so much cross a line as that he rendered himself useless in his obliviousness. I expect better of the columnists I spend my time reading. Mr. Jamieson is just not worth it anymore.