I love it when the administration gets on its hobby horse and starts telling the American public that they’re a bunch of Benedict Arnolds for opposing (or even questioning), the administration’s Iraq policy. Even the very suggestion that America should withdraw its troops from Iraq “validates the strategy of the terrorists,” according to Cheney. Evidently, Cheney gives greater weight to the terrorists going “nanny nanny boo boo” to our governmental ideals (the ability to have a debate on whether a war is justified - shocking!) and its possible side-effects than he does to the possibility of America becoming a communist-like regime where freedom of speech and of the press is only tolerated to the extent that it pats the current administration on its ass and says “Good job, boys!”
It is our government’s responsibility not only to protect the bodily integrity of its citizens, but to protect the constitutional freedoms and liberties that are the essential building blocks of a just society. The denigration of these building blocks are not only an affront to the great men and women who founded this nation, but to the memory of every individual whose life has been lost in serving this nation or at the hands of terrorists. A life lost on behalf of America means little if we allow the presence of terrorism to close our eyes, ears, and mouth. We endure because we see, because we discuss, because we listen. Ignorance is the heart of terrorism and we lose the war on terror when we allow it to pervade our government and citizenry. Precaution in an age of terror is a social good (please - take my liquids before I board that 747!), but our government’s insistence that its methods are not to be openly questioned is a sign that they no longer deserve us as citizens and that we, as citizens, deserve much better than them.
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