Why Should WE Care?

Do the streets of Philadelphia and Peoria have to look like this before Americans begin to care about what is being done with their money and acquiesence in Iraq?

And still they refuse to be grateful:

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Wednesday blamed American officials who ran Iraq before its own government took nominal control for bringing the country to the present state of chaos.

"Had our friends listened to us, we would not be where we are today," Zebari said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Asked which friends he was referring to, Zebari said:

"The Americans, the Coalition (Provision Authority), the British. OK? Because they didn't listen to us. The did exactly what they wanted to do.... Had they listened to us, we would have been someplace else (by now), really."

No, they don't listen to anybody. Which is what makes the fact that they are setting their sights on hegemony in outer space even more insane:

President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."

The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy.

"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy asserts in its introduction.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said in written comments that an update was needed to "reflect the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security."

Face it: these people are mad with power, and there is no place safe from their predations. As long as we prop them up with our silence or our eager cooperation, they will keep trying to expand their reach, and the innocent and powerless will pay for it in blood.

Riverbend finds the new Lancet study estimates of more than half a million Iraqi dead credible, because there is no one she knows who has not lost a family member because of the war.

Can Americans say the same thing? How many American families in a country of 300 million are affected by the deaths of 2784, or the woundings of 44,779? Is it only the draft that will bring it home to them? Is it only when they and their loved ones face the prospect of being sent to Iraq and losing their lives or a piece of their brains that they will get off their lazy, selfish, ignorant, mean-hearted, easy-out-seeking asses and care about it?

Christ, I wish they would care about something.