WHEN WAR HITS HOME
Would you kill people because Bush told you to?
by James Carroll, The Boston Globe

There is a conundrum here. Horrors unfold in Iraq (and Afghanistan) largely because they remain abstract, and therefore not so horrible, to the American population. Using the trauma of 9/11 and its nearly 3,000 dead as a measure, the United States has caused multiple 9/11's among already beleaguered peoples. What would it take for Americans to feel the full weight of that reality? The American imperial impulse has been set loose, and it has a dynamic of its own. "Insurgents" of various kinds will impede this global military project, and the far corners of Arlington Cemetery will be filled. But only one thing will actually stop Washington's wars. I oppose the restoration of any form of draft, but I long for what it would prompt in America at once -- a broad moral reckoning with the truth of what our nation has become.

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