'Ultimately She Thought It Was a Good Thing' http://desmoinesregister.com/opinion/stories/c5917686/23015331.html
Rob Borsellino, a columnist for the Des Moines Register, relates this telling anecdote:
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Back in the summer, a friend admitted that she was actually taking comfort from the terrible news coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan. She'd hear about explosions, ambushes, the killing of U.N. officials, pro-American Iraqis, innocent children, and she was saddened by the deaths. But ultimately she thought it was a good thing. She'd thought that enough bloodshed and disaster would create a movement in this country, a demand to get our people home and save some lives. Maybe enough death would wake folks up to the fact that we have no business running around the globe killing people.
She felt terrible. As an American--someone who genuinely loves this country--she was horrified at her own reaction, embarrassed.
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Does it really make sense to describe an American who hopes for her country's defeat at the hands of terrorists and tyrants as "someone who genuinely loves this country"? Doesn't patriotism have to mean something? Orson Scott Card http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004435 has some pertinent thoughts in an article we reprint today:
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Am I saying that critics of the war aren't patriotic?
Not at all--I'm a critic of some aspects of the war. What I'm saying is that those who try to paint the bleakest, most anti-American, and most anti-Bush picture of the war, whose purpose is not criticism but deception in order to gain temporary political advantage, those people are indeed not patriotic. They have placed their own or their party's political gain ahead of the national struggle to destroy the power base of the terrorists who attacked Americans abroad and on American soil.
Patriots place their loyalty to their country in time of war ahead of their personal and party ambitions. And they can wrap themselves in the flag and say they "support our troops" all they like-- but it doesn't change the fact that their program is to promote our defeat at the hands of our enemies for their temporary political advantage.
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