Very amusing commentary on the Iraq issue. A for effort:
          Inspections Error Page

I saw this in an Army poster and thought it was an interesting quote:

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
         - George Orwell

Well supposedly by Orwell. Trouble is, when I try to verify the quote I can't find it. According to alt.books.george-orwell (who we all know have way more free time to look into these things than I do) the quote is something he might have said, but doesn't show up in print. I have also seen the following:

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm"

attributed to a BBC broadcast April 4, 1942, though that's harder to verify. It is most likely a whisper-down-the-internet variant of a line from Orwell’s essay on Rudyard Kipling (1942):

"[Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilised, are there to guard and feed them."

Not quite as inspiring a recruitment tool: An Army of One Less Civilised. It's a shame people feel the need to attribute quotes to people that didn't create them, as if this generation isn't capable of intelligent thought.

I'm really not looking forward to the Iraq "teach in" tomorrow at the mawr. Nothing like a day full of Pavlovian pacifists hugging each other and swapping biased intellectual feel good non-solutions to give me a homicidal twitch. I used to try discussing the issue on campus but I discovered that people only like to have open, rational dialogues with people who already agree with them. Any more I just smile and try no to think about how I'll be up to my ass in sand while they're still back here sipping tea and wondering if they'll be back from the peace march in time to watch the season finale of American Idol.

"War is bad!" Yeah no shit, Einsten. Can we get back to trying to solve the problem or did you want to read more pages from the Big Book of Obvious, Tangential Crap?

Okay maybe I'm a little bitter, but that's because I understand that freedom is always purchased with blood (Jefferson would say "the blood of patriots" but I think that puts too glorious a spin on a tragic waste). I don't think tyrannical governments who starve children are going to be thwarted by a parade of anti-globalization puppets or an interpretive dance. Hey I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that, but until then I'll defer to history.

Just to clarify: I am anti-war. Most military people I've known are anti-war, which really shouldn't be surprising since we have the unenviable job of going where the bullets are. However I am also anti-Saddam. What I don't see from any of the anti-war groups is an alternative that saves Iraq's 23 million citizens from daily torture, fear, starvation and oppression. This isn't just about WMD or threats to the US. It's about giving freedom to millions of people when no one else can. Maybe I'm still too idealistic, but I think that's worth dying for even when they aren't Americans. That's why I serve. That's why I volunteered to do this.

I look at Gabe and I don't want to leave him. I worry about not being around to see him grow up and of maybe not being around at all. So why not just sit back? I've done my 10 years turning wrenches for the Navy Reserve. Just relax and let someone else take the burden, right?

Then what?

What do I say to Gabe when the casualty reports come in with the names of the people who took my place? What do I say when the next terrorist attack leaves a city in dust? What do I say to myself when it's Gabe's name scrolling across a CNN list? What about the Iraqi father who just wants his son to grow up without fear? I don't see Bush or Saddam when I think about Iraq. I see children like Gabe and fathers like me.

So no, I don't want to go to war. But I will not accept any so-called solution to the Iraq issue that does not free the Iraqi people. A military invasion, for all its horrific certainty, can at least promise that. I have yet to hear an alternative plan that even tries.

It's a sad day when war is the best option.