Frankendesign

The following is my email to NPR's Morning Edition.

Regarding Deroy Murdock's commentary that the Bush administration has nothing to apologize for: when he said that opponents of the war have been silent on the discovery of mass graves, so has everyone else. The rhetoric and the headlines continue to be that America is safer and a threat to America has been eliminated. Saddam's inhumanity to Iraq's citizens has only been a tertiary concern and a minor selling point for the invasion of Iraq. Therefore the anti-war movement has been and is focused on the more obvious and flawed arguments of the Bush administration.

What the Bush administration can't do is convince the world that its mission in Iraq is for anything other than selfish American interests. Iraq's 'immediate threat' to America grows increasingly questionable, whether it exists through a connection to terrorism or the possession of WMD. Meanwhile we invade the country, secure the oil ministry and leave the schools, hospitals, and museums to fend for themselves -- much like the Administration is doing in our own country.

The Bush administration would have possibly even convinced me that an invasion of Iraq was necessary had they taken up the cause of several exile groups representing many segments of the repressed opposition to Saddam to bring war crime and crimes against humanity charges against the regime in building a United Nations coalition to remove Saddam through a rational, legal, and peaceful process.

The proof of Saddam's war crimes was and is evident enough to indict him and his henchmen on international charges, unlike the proof that he was an immediate threat to America. Yet our administration chose a unilateral bullying approach with the backing of an emotional American public scared into submission by the administration's propaganda.

I, as an anti-war activist, was not against a removal of Saddam Hussein. I would have preferred that we never supported his efforts to gain and retain power in the first place. But I was and still am against this country's neglect of a crumbling public education system and under funded veterans programs, all the while affordable health care is still an oxymoron. Our administration would rather wage a foreign war whereas its cost and economic impact as well as its most profound justifications were misrepresented. This, if nothing else, is what the Bush administration should apologize for.