i have known for years that we are destroying iraq. first it was war, then sanctions, then war again. but the little details can be missed. today, i learned how much worse it has recently gotten for iraqi gays. it seems that a radical shia group has been going around and sewing up gay men's asses and then giving them a liquid which induces shit, which then leads to a slow, agonizing death. as far as i know, this fact went unmentioned during last week's day of silence at my high school, nor have reruns of will and grace or ellen been cut into to tell the viewers of this practice. remember that under saddam, iraq was a relatively secular society where religious extremists were put under wraps. these atrocities against iraqi homosexuals are a post u.s. occupation fact, and hence, we are, to a large extent, responsible for them. we have opened a can of worms, and it seems that it is too late for the worms to return to the can.

as for the issue of gay rights, it now appears to be thoroughly westernized. we celebrate gay marriage and ignore the brutalizations of homosexuals in countries that we have destroyed. it becomes a part of the system, although a contested part. how many are on tv? is this or that celebrity gay? it becomes detached from anti-militarism, separated from anti-racism, removed from issues of life and death. and make no mistake, being gay is still very much an issue of life and death throughout the world, for many of the forces that we support make it so. so, the next time we give ourselves a pat on the back for our comparative cultural tolerance, perhaps we can recall that the forces of murderous homophobia we have unleashed in iraq (and indirectly fund in saudi arabia, egypt, and many other countries) are far more brutal than the relatively secular, and therefore, sexually tolerant society once sustained by saddam.

we just killed over a hundred civilians in afghanistan. now, as far as i'm concerned, they are all civilians, since they live in afghanistan, and we don't, but that's for another day. as it stands, we just blew up a bunch of houses with bombs, supposedly for the purpose of pursuing the "bad guys." obama expressed regret over the killings, but does this absolve him? if a guy kills someone on the street, and then feels bad about it at trial, is he then automatically found not guilty by the jury? hey, this is his war now. he has supported it from the beginning, and has said that we need more troops there. well, this is what troops do...they kill. so obama's words, in the face of his support of the war, are nothing more than a cruel, hypocritical joke. for funding and supporting this war, he should be in the dock with all the murderers of the previous regime.

wars don't become better when waged by democrats, even when the guy doing the waging has an african father. i'm sorry to remind you of that, my gutless, "celebrate diversity" liberal friends, but them's the facts.