A Death in the Family: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com: "If America can spontaneously produce young men like Mark, and occasions like this one, it has a real homeland security instead of a bureaucratic one. To borrow some words of George Orwell's when he first saw revolutionary Barcelona, 'I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.'"
Well, don't just sit here reading this: follow the link!
5 comments:
Normally, I can't bear to open the magazine or its website, but this piece (via a link at Hewitt) was very good. I wonder how and why Vanity Fair decided to publish it.
And what must it be like to be president and talk to families of fallen soldiers day after day when the families have all kinds of sentiments about the war and our CIC.
Perhaps there is a change taking place in depictions of events. The process of the surge is producing more tangible results, and the forecast is for better days to come. This could change, of course, and this is surely no time for complacency. Yet, Bush will more or less proceed through the end of his term with this. If things continue to improve, I suspect that we will see more stories about "heroes" and fewer about "victims". I also suspect that we will see a reappraisal of Bush in some, but not all, quarters. I think a year from now he will be viewed much more positively than he is now. I could be all wrong about that, as events really control the day. Currently, we get little news from Iraq, and that is the best indicator that things are going better.
This was quite a moving piece of writing and interesting in how the war touches so many people in such deep and unexpected ways.
If things continue to improve, I suspect that we will see more stories about "heroes" and fewer about "victims"...
I agree, Barry.
The process of the surge is producing more tangible results, and the forecast is for better days to come.
There are two combat casualties reported for the month of October so far. Knock on wood, but I think the war is in the final stages. Most of the civilian casualties seem to be south of Baghdad in the old "triangle of death" region, and that area will probably be cleared by the end of the month, with increasing security to follow. The power of the Iraqi government now has to extend to the Shiite south, and that region will likely be the setting of the last battles.
What a kid--thanks for the pointer. Somber and very real, like the Ken Burns WWII series this past week.
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