macrealist's Journal: You've lost my trust.

Change is a slow, natural progression that is often noticeable, but seldom seen. I don't know when I got my first wrinkles or my first gray hairs, but now I notice them. Every year, summer turns to fall, yet when that happens is hard to pinpoint. Rarely, a single event will create immense change. As an American, September 11, 2001 suddenly and forever changed me. With two children and a wife dependent on me (and too old and out of shape to be useful), I resisted the urge to join the military to fight the newly discovered enemies of the country. My hatred, fear, sadness, and patriotism were at all time highs. I decided to do what I could as a fat, out-of-shape, engineer. I left my well paying job at a still successful company (even after the burst) as a engineering manager, to join a defense contractor as a software engineer. I put my heart and soul into my work, and worked with many of my coworkers overtime, all the time, believing I was doing the best I could to protect my family, my children, and my country.

The war in Afghanistan went well. But the links to Iraq seem to be growing every day. Operation Iraqi Freedom started, I watched on TV every night. Fear of the WMDs, fear of the terrorists, fear, fear, fear.

Now, things have changed. Can't put my finger on when it changed, but it has. No WMDs. No credible connections between 9/11 and Iraq found. My enthusiasm, and patriotism, diminished. My hatred and fear, redirected; my sadness, widened. My trust of my president, gone. The chance of me ever voting for a Republican again, zero.

To our allies, I apologize. We were ignorant and leaderless. We cowboyed up, and I supported it. We were wrong.

To the people of Iraq. My heart cries for you. I don't know if your life is better now than it was a few years ago, but I do know that know you are now being suppressed by my country. A life of one of our professional soldiers is treated a more worthy than the lives of hundreds of your children. We let you down after the first Gulf war by not supporting your push for freedom. We killed your sons and friends and neighbors thinking that we were protecting ourselves, and now we occupy your country because we are lead by a selfish, self serving, ignorant, short sided, stubborn, man.

To the soldiers in Iraq. Thank you. You have made the ultimate sacrifice. Were I man enough to stand along side you, I would. You are protecting our nation, and ensuring that we are safe. You are an important part of rebuilding Iraq. You are unwanted policemen, giving your lives to make Iraq better, and some day you may be properly appreciated. More than anything, I want you home, but I know that we need to clean up the mess in Iraq, and you are the ones that are doing it. Thank you.

To Pres. W. Bush, VP Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, and Ridge. You've broken by trust, by heart, my soul. Someday God may forgive you all, and that is what you should be praying for, not re-election. Leading us after 9/11 is not a badge of your success, to be worn as proof of worthiness. This country and its people are great. Any fool could have rallied the country and brought the fight to the terrorist. We had the support of the whole world, and only a fool could have turned that into a coalition of the willing.

Now, when I look in the mirror in the morning I see gray hair. I see wrinkles. And I see a Democrat.