It happens once or twice a year in most towns and usually makes the front page of the local section:
Mailbox damaged by M80 firecracker. Kids suspected. Sometimes the culprits are caught, sometimes they aren't, but life goes on and nobody really cares except the mailbox owner. Besides, didn't we all try that at one time or another? Ha ha ha...crazy kids.
But what if you woke up and saw this headline: Vandals destroy 20 mailboxes in county within 24 hour period. That'd wipe the smirk off your face real quick, wouldn't it?
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How about, Police seeking clues related to 40 homemade explosives found within 200-mile area. What if 40 became 50? 55? 60 explosives? It'd be front-page, above-the-fold news for days, even weeks.
How about, BLACK WEDNESDAY!! 65 explosions shatter windows, destroy vehicles, stop traffic and kill 20? Now you're talking major crisis. Now you're talking headlines in the national media, non-stop chatter on cable news, networks interrupting their soap operas. The terror alert would go to `Red.' Homeland Security would move in.
And then the unthinkable happens. 65 more explosions the next day. And the next. And the next. And the next. In your state. Your county. Your town. Your neighborhood.
The headlines would scream, in 99-point type, TERROR GRIPS STATE!! Citizens flee! A Panicked Nation Mourns! We'd be apoplectic. It would be so devastating that President Bush would make a prime time speech encouraging Americans to go shopping. Yes...it'd be that bad.
Well, the likelihood of 65 daily attacks happening in this country is remote if not zero, and we should thank our lucky stars for that.
In Iraq, they're not so lucky...
"American commanders say the number of attacks against American and Iraqi forces has held steady over the last year, averaging about 65 a day. But the Americans concede the growing sophistication of insurgent attacks and the insurgents' ability to replenish their ranks as fast as they are killed. ... At the same time, the Americans acknowledge that they are no closer to understanding the inner workings of the insurgency or stemming the flow of foreign fighters, who are believed to be conducting a vast majority of suicide attacks."
As a patriotic American who---unlike the knuckledragger wing of the Republican party---also understands that we share this planet with others, I want to say something to the people of Iraq that the President and his goons won't: I am heartbreakingly sorry for what we have done to you.
Every day when you wake up, you know that there will be an average of 65 violent incidents that will destroy more life and property. You---or your loved ones---might be the next casualties we read about on our computer or on TV in the placid safety of our homes. We may shake our heads once or twice and say, "Oh, isn't that terrible"...but then we'll change the channel to `Wheel of Fortune' and the day's body count will become just another statistic. You, on the other hand, will have 65 more attacks to contend with tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
And I am sorry.
Over the past 2½ years, the people in my country have acted like idiots, scared of their own shadow, willing to buy into a pack of lies that said your country was on the verge of attacking ours. Our people tend to be fat...lazy...intellectually uncurious. But it's not entirely their fault---in many ways it's simply a reflection of our leaders, many of whom have no idea what war is like or what might be learned from other cultures and nationalities. They're arrogant. Arrogant and clumsy. And yet somehow we rewarded them with four more years to get even more drunk on power and greed and clumsiness. And for that I'm sorry.
You are rid of a tyrannical dictator, to be sure. But you still have raw sewage running through your streets and just a few hours of electricity per day and we've killed tens of thousands of your people---civilians, including children---with no plans for rebuilding your country and making it great again. And I'm so sorry for that...because in my mind's eye I can envision a thriving, vibrant, wealthy Iraq. And I know that our bungling may have prevented that from ever being realized in your lifetime. Instead, you get 65 attacks a day.
When I was a little kid I was helping my dad stain a piece of wood for a deck. I was brushing it on too quickly and a splash of varnish hit him square in the eye. As he ran in pain to the sink to rinse his eye with water, all I could do was stand there---shocked to the point of nausea and paralysis---saying, over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." That's how I feel right now.
My country invaded your country with no idea what it was doing. Our leaders will never admit a mistake and will never say they're sorry. But I will.
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