God Bless Me, The Hell With You

I went out to dinner last night. Japanese with my brother, his wife, her sister, my ex-wife, and a friend of Jim's - Juan. Great food. I was wearing the title of this blog as a button. I also wore a peace symbol button with the words - "It is still a good idea." Surprisingly, all shared my sentiments on this war - a terrible, misguided mistake.

House Approves National Day of Prayer. I was reminded of Mark Twain's The War Prayer.

Twain apparently dictated "The War Prayer" around 1904-05; it was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. Actually, the fighting between American and the Filipinos lasted 16 years (1899-1914).

I had mentioned that war in talking to my brother and Pat last night - the last imperialistic war we had. A quick decisive victory against the corrupt and decadent Spanish to free the people and bring them the benefits of American democracy and capitalism. In the end, we lost many, many times the men we lost during the war in the following years to prevent the Filipinos from kicking us out

Maybe Tom Friedman is right, I am just cynical. But I don't know what to call him for his declaration in his "No problem with a war for oil" column that it "would be quite legitimate" if, after bombing and conquering the country, the US helped "Iraqis build a more progressive, democratizing Arab state." Naive dreamer, unworldly idealist, jingo chauvinist, liberal apologist?