From the today's
Times:
Fighting On Is the Only Option, Americans Say
Americans across the country expressed anguish about the devastating attack on a United States military base in Iraq on Tuesday. But it was the question of where the nation should go from here that produced the biggest sigh from Dallas Spear, an oil and gas industry worker from Denver.
"I would never have gone there from the beginning, but that's beside the point now," Mr. Spear said, his jaw clenched. "We upset the apple cart and now there's pretty much no choice. We have to proceed."
Mr. Spear's sentiment was echoed in interviews in shopping malls, offices, sidewalks and homes on a day when the news from Iraq was bleak. With 14 American service members killed and dozens injured, it was apparently the worst one-day death toll for American forces since United States forces defeated Saddam Hussein's regime in spring 2003.
Many people said they were dispirited or angry, but many expressed equal unhappiness about seeing a lack of options.
Whether one supported or opposed the invasion has become irrelevant, many said - there is only the road ahead now, with few signs to guide the way.
One soldier who has been to Iraq and is soon to go back said he believes the war itself has changed, and that guerrilla attacks like the one in the northern Iraq city of Mosul on Tuesday have constricted the view on the ground about how to proceed.
"When we went to war there was a clear-cut enemy," said Specialist Richard P. Basilio, 27, of Philadelphia, who leaves for Iraq after the holidays for a 12- to 18-month deployment as an Army computer technician. It will be his third tour to the Middle East and his second to Iraq. "Now the rules have totally changed. You don't know what's going on," he added. "You just have no idea who's your friend and who's your enemy."
Mr. Basilio's mother, Janet Bellows of Daytona Beach, Fla., said the bombing in Mosul, combined with the prospect of her son's departure, have left her "absolutely devastated."
"It's like watching your son playing in traffic, and there's nothing you can do," Ms. Bellows said. "You can't reach him."
You get the sense from reading this piece that mainstream America is starting to feel helpless.
Every day they see images of our soldiers fighting and dying in a war which, whether they supported it or not, they really don't understand. There's a sort of disbelief that things could have really gotten this far out of hand.
It seems like, after 9/11, everyone was at a loss to know how to respond the crappy situation we'd found ourselves in, and we were all looking for answers.
I guess Bush was in the same position as everyone else. But, as he said in the debate, he had to do something.
And you get the sense that maybe, he wasn't as far out of the mood of mainstream America as Democrats would like to believe.
And perhaps he's still not.
He had to do something, and I think most Americans are looked back at this war saying something to that effect and that's why they voted to reelect him.
The place where they diverge is in their sense of certainty.
Bush, because he made the decision, sticks to his guns, and will to the very bitter end. But the people have the luxury of ambivilance, and I question whether they will ever find a way out of that ambivilence again.
Yesterday was such a sad moment for America because it brought home just how horrible this situation is, and also how chaotic and inexplicible it is. Its almost as if those pictures that the cable channels threw up on our screens yesterday spoke more about how we feel about the war than how we feel about the actual event.
Why do we have to keep fighting?
What will it get us? No one knows.
But we know we have to. &
MoralQuestionsBlog.com