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As RussCon started this week, Bush started his war against Iraq. I try to keep the RussCon Report focused on gaming normally, but this is an extraordinary time. The last time a RussCon felt so strange was after the 9/11 WTC attacks. For me this one was far worse since this time we are the ones inflicting the damage. We're supposed to be a beacon of freedom, justice, peace, respect for law, and other fine values. Instead, our government is ignoring the UN to show Saddam that the UN can not be ignored. Our government is violating the democracy of the UN Security Council to bring democracy to Iraq. Our government wants to stop Saddam's suppression of dissension by suppressing dissension in the US. Our government is attacking Iraq with overwhelming force to show Saddam that might does not make right. Our government is terrorizing civilians to show that we will not tolerate terrorism against civilians. Our government started a pre-emptive war to prevent military aggression. Our government repeatedly lies to justify punishing Saddam for lying. Our government ignores the unprecedented worldwide outcry against the war in order to show Saddam that he cannot ignore world opinion. Our government claims this war on Iraq (who had nothing to do with 9/11) will save us from further terrorism, even as Al-Qaeda reaps a recruitment bonanza from the war.

After 9/11 the world united behind the US in unprecedented sympathy and support. Bush has squandered away all that goodwill. Now we're torturing Afghan prisoners (and contracting out to Jordan for torture services) while the White House requested no funding from congress to help rebuild Afghanistan; we're explicitly dropping bombs that we say we hope will kill Saddam and his family; we're inflicting massive "shock and awe" bombardment on Baghdad; we're refusing to rule out the use of nukes. Over my lifetime I have been pissed off at plenty of politicians for plenty of things, but never before have I been this disgusted, saddened, disturbed, and stunned. Combine our foreign aggression and disregard of international law and world opinion with the domestic reduction of civil liberties and the media complicity which repeats the administration's claims even when they are demonstrably false, and I really begin to wonder if this is what Germans in the 1930s started to nervously feel like. If you doubt some of my statements or think I'm being paranoid, please read my blog for more info.

Even in the unlikely event Iraq is improved by this war which takes out Saddam (and we don't replace him with someone just as bad, as we historically always do), the behavior that justified this war is reprehensible. Lying to the UN and the US people, bullying and alienating our allies, demonizing protesters and dissenters... this is not the America I want to live in. If a war is actually justifiable and noble, they shouldn't have to resort to such tactics. Write letters to media and politicians. Protest. Speak to your friends. Show the world that this is not being done in your name.