Assumptions

Larry Hicks sent me an article entitled "Ugly Americans in Iraq" that I want to share with you here. It's the mostly email history of a U.S. soldier, who served in Iraq during 2003 and 2004, as told to journalist Nir Rosen. The soldier wishes to remain anonymous. Here's an exerpt:

All the way up to my third deployment I was an avid reader of a lot of foolish writing on the war,” he said. “I believed in the mission because I had to—after all, what soldier wants to die for an unworthy cause? I wanted to believe in the propaganda and I willfully avoided things that harshly rubbed against my hope that we were sacrificing for a good cause. When you put your life on the line every night, you don’t have the luxury to be skeptical or even critical. In certain ways, I feel embarrassed about my belief that this was once a noble mission, but I have the honesty to admit that I was wrong. I deployed to this war with many great assumptions about our national leadership: I assumed that the WMD intelligence case wasn’t a cherry-picked house of cards, I assumed we had a plan for the aftermath of the invasion, I assumed our leaders had a greater understanding of the character of Iraq outside the mouths of Ahmed Chalabi and Kana Makiya. I assumed, I assumed, I assumed.

I wonder how many Americans could say that? "We assumed, we assumed, we assumed". The manipulation of public opinion by the administration has been truly evil.