gloomyHere's a sample:
Certainly, over the last three years I've had to acquire the discipline of overriding my emotional attachment to my country, and remember my sense of human values that transcend frontiers and ethnicity. And with a sense of duty to history, I needed to just get on with reporting the story. My value of human life and rights don't fluctuate depending on which country I'm in. I don't see one individual as more deserving of fair treatment than another. . . .
Now, I realize I'm in Kentucky, a state with many military connections, and there are many of you here who may have served, or have family members who serve, and let me take this moment to say that I have the utmost respect and sympathy for the American soldiers overseas right now, particularly in Iraq. They have been sent on a most difficult mission, to quell a population that will not be quelled, in a land awash with weapons. The American military is being used to find a solution to what is essentially a political problem, an equation that rarely adds up well. As if that were not enough, our soldiers have been sent with insufficient resources to protect themselves. In my mind, that is all inexcusable.
Read all of Home from Iraq here.
On the one hand, I despair that the concerns Bingham notes are now real concerns if you live in the U.S.A. today (a despair that's been getting deeper every day as I watch what's happening in this country from inside my relatively safe enclave in New England).
Yet, I am humbled, hopeful, and, oddly, strangely relieved by this speech and the fact that by publishing this, the Louisiville Courier-Journal has showed more grit and balls than almost every American media outlet reporting on Iraq.
It should be noted that Bingham for a short period of time was held hostage for a period of time in Iraq by insurgents.
The sad thing is, I just know Bingham is goingt to be villified for this.
