Taking procrasination to whole new levels at work today, I decided to google my name (yeah I know, lame, but come on we all have done it!). Nothing new came up from the last time I googled my name but I decided to take the time to re-read some of the articles I wrote for my college paper.
Though only 6 years ago, I was a lot angrier and reactionary than I am now. One piece that caught my eye was an opinion column I wrote on January 13, 2003 when I found out my brother was being shipped out to the Iraq war. Look below the fold to find out how prescient I and a whole bunch of other people really were.
Bush's antics hitting too close to home
Posted: 1/16/03
Last Saturday night, my mom and I were going through some old pictures of my family.
Amid the messed up hairstyles, loud '80s clothing and even some naked baby pictures, were pictures of my older brother as a toddler.
Paul was a weird-looking kid. His head looked like it weighed more than his body, his eyes were this weird ever-changing hazel color and my mom was still cutting his hair.
He looked like a mess, but in all of the pictures he was sporting a goofy grin that comes from not knowing you look like a mess.
On Jan. 6, my brother celebrated his 22nd birthday.
A lot has changed in these years. His body finally grew into his head, his eyes finally settled on brown, he discovered the wonders of a fade done by a professional and he isn't quite as goofy.
But then, why should he be? Three days after his birthday, Paul found out that he would be one of the first 50 people on his Air Force base to be sent to Iraq.
Paul is resigned to the fact.
I'm far from pleased.
My older brother, the kid who used to whisper to me while we were supposed to be taking our naps, the boy I used to kick if he touched me in the car, the teenager who used to bitch like crazy whenever he had to drive me somewhere, is going to be sent to Iraq to fight a stupid war perpetuated by stupid people.
"Well your brother knew what he was getting into when he joined up," some people might say.
To them I would say, "Not really."
If I'm the pessimist in the family, then my brother is the optimist.
He sees the best in anyone, even when they're at their worst.
Before he signed on the dotted line, Paul may have been naïve enough to think that, if he were ever shipped out, it would be for a noble cause.
However, he's smart enough to realize that the upcoming war against Iraq isn't that.
Just last week in Time Magazine, there was an article that questioned if Iraq should be the target of an emerging war, or if the U.S. and "Dubya" should be more concerned with North Korea, who has denied access to U.N. weapons inspectors and have admitted to trying to become another country with nuclear capability.
Why don't we just vote in a President who is smart enough not to call three of the nations hostile to the U.S. the "Axis of Evil?"
Come on - Saddam Hussein has been in power since 1979; is it really imperative that we rush to send in troops when Mohammed el-Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that U.N. weapons inspectors would need "a few months" to finish their work in Iraq.
So, if we invade, endanger the lives of American and British soldiers, kill thousands of Iraqis and CNN finds out that Iraq was never close to being a realistic nuclear threat, what are we going to say? "Oooops! Our bad."
In Monday's edition of the comic strip "Boondocks," militant Huey tells his more laid-back counterpart Caesar that scientists should clone 100,000 copies of W. Bush and Donald Rumsfield.
When asked why, he replies "So that they can fight their own damn war."
Huey, I'd have to agree.
Guess I wasn't so prescient after all. Still waiting for that "Oooops! Our Bad." I imagine, much like slavery and the WWII internment camps, an apology is going to take a while.