The deadline is looming in Iraq for the democratic elections that we have been promising since we invaded. Most of New England is focused on the Patriots going to the SuperBowl. We are Patriot fans and a home to revolutionaries who fight the imperialists. Some doctors, like Waichi my downstairs neighbor, are off to Sri Lanka to do what they can to try to stop people from dying in the wake of the tsunami. Yes I realize that tsunamis probably don’t have wakes. A boat has a wake. A tsunami is like the wake of an earthquake. Pardon the mixed metaphor I am too lazy to fix it.

I heard on CNN that they are going to change the amount of money that they give to the families of US Military that die in combat from $12,000 to $100,000. Anyone who hears about this money exchanged has to be amazed that the $12,000 was anything but an insult from the government to begin with. “I’m sorry Mrs. Jones to have to tell you that your husband and the father of your two year old son was killed by a suicide bomber last week. Here is a check for $12,000” Cut away to a politician wiping his hands back and forth together relieved that the slate is now clean between him and this happy to serve American military family. Now with the price at $100,000 the picture changes all so much.

I imagine this new change is the basis for the plot of a Hollywood movie where a suicidal man decides that the best thing he can do for his wife is to serve in the Iraq war so that he can die and have the $100,000 family benefit. So he goes to Iraq and takes on all the toughest riskiest assignments figuring he most likely will die. In each assignment he doesn’t die but instead does something amazing and heroic like saving children, protecting his fellow troops, convincing a fundamentalist not to commit suicide. Finally he realizes that humanity and life is a good and valuable thing and that his life is worth living. So he returns to his wife and two year old son after his tour of duty with an American flag waving in his hand. I always do wonder why suicidal people don’t take suicidal jobs. Maybe they do?

I am not saying that I am opposed to war or the war in Iraq. I didn’t vote for Bush. I generally get very annoyed when I hear people pushing hard to have the US abandon Iraq before they have instituted a democratic constitution and government. Getting democracy up and running in Iraq was the plan regardless of who was going to get elected. I get the distinct feeling that many anti-Bush people would prefer us to fail in Iraq. The most destructive thing we can do from here is to not follow through on our commitment to institute a functional democracy to replace the Hussein dictatorship. People pushing to pull out the troops because they are dying aren’t working towards this. What makes me most want us to stick around is who the terrorists are targeting other than the American troops. The freedom fighters are targeting people who are trying to run for political office or police and volunteers working to run and protect the polls for a free election. Imagine if whenever someone ran for Mayor of Newton there was some thug who had him killed and for good measure they offed the chief of police and the librarian who takes your ballot at the Mason Rice School. On principle the targeting of people trying to create a fair election is unacceptable behavior and I’m on the side that is against it, whatever side it is. In this case it is the American side.

What prompted this little tirade was that I was listening to NPR on Friday and the host was interviewing the man most responsible for the concepts in the President’s Inaugural speech, Nathan Sharansky. Apparently the Bush inaugural address was written after a few readings of the Russian dissident and Israeli politician’s book – The Case for Democracy. This is probably because in December Bush and Rice spent time with Sharansky in the White House. It is easy enough to throw Sharansky into the neo-con bus but he has some real credentials as a Soviet dissident regarding how history should move forwards to bring democracy to countries that don’t allow freedoms so I thought I might be able to learn something by reading his book. He didn’t write it with the idea that Bush would appropriate it.

The whole situation reminds me of when I was on the train in Italy from Venice to Milan and I was sitting with a group of Iranian men who were happy to talk to a real American. They wanted to make it clear that the biggest problem they have today in Iran is freedom and they can’t figure out how to get it given the current climate. They even hinted that it could be possible that the only answer is for the US to invade since the only other option is to have an Ayatollah who is benevolent and cedes power to the people rather than forcing his rule through the right to override any democratic decisions.