Five years: time to get out
Today is the fifth anniversary of the infamous Congressional resolution that was used by the Bush Administration as authorization to invade Iraq and commence our unending national nightmare. A dozen former Army captains who served in the war write in today's Washington Post that it is time to cut our losses and get out of Iraq. Not a slow, staged withdrawal, which they say will not prevent a civil war and result only in more American losses, but a load-the-planes-and-trucks now withdrawal. I agree. As I've said before, if we stay five more years the only difference we will see is the deaths of more American troops and more Iraqi civilians. Nothing else about the outcome will change.
On another war front, as it were, it was heartening to read in the Baltimore Sun today that the 75-member, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church is being sued in U.S. District Court, Baltimore, by the father of a slain Marine at whose funeral the "God hates fags" church picketed.
This is believed to be the first lawsuit by a family against the church, which has drawn much ill-will across the nation by picketing soldier funerals to advance its anti-gay agenda. They carry signs that say a soldier's death was punishment from God to a nation that tolerates homosexuality. They are not "anti-war protesters" in any sense, a mistaken belief that seems to have taken hold in parts of the public.
Westboro Baptist Church members have picketed in central Pennsylvania, both at military funerals and at churches which are gay-friendly, such as St. Stephen's Episcopal Cathedral in Harrisburg. In other words, against anyone who doesn't share their belief that gays and lesbians are condemned spawn of Satan. They make Ann Coulter look like Mother Teresa. I'm frankly surprised, given the hatred the group arouses, that none of them have been seriously harmed or killed by an unhinged member of the public.
The judge in the Baltimore case ruled that some of what the group said at the Marine funeral or on its website was protected speech under the First Amendment, but that other things they said were not. So part of the suit is going forward. Much of the income of this "church" comes from suing critics, so I guess they can't protest too much.