Contrast

If you were paying attention, yesterday offered a good picture of what makes this country great.

I spent my morning in front of CNN, watching their live coverage of Discovery’s launch.  When I tuned in, the commentators were busy trying to make a news story of the routine, but there really wasn’t much to report.  In NASA’s parlance, all systems were “nominal”, so the “controversy” of the morning was whether or not a missing eighth-inch-thick piece of foam was capable of killing another seven astronauts.  

Periodically, they’d switch over to cover other things, an interview with Warren Buffett’s grand-daughter about his $37 billion donation to the Gates Foundation, and a few other fluffy stories…and the terrible story of former soldier Steven Green, accused of murdering a young woman’s family, then raping and murdering her.

I’m not going to mince words about the soldiers who’re accused of going off the rez.  Whether or not the accusations are true, the political climate will ensure that none of them will get a fair trial.  

But this morning, reading the story of the young Iraqi woman apparently raped and murdered by Green, I stumbled across a small statement – that thirty troops have been implicated in the various incidents that have come to light in the last few weeks.  

Thirty.

There are 138,000 troops currently serving in Iraq.

Thirty alleged criminals out of a hundred and thirty-eight thousand.  Two hundredths of a percent.

The main stream media would have us believe that all American operations in Iraq are vaguely Haditha-shaped, and they show distorted photographs of the mentally ill Steven Green as proof…I didn’t see a single human interest story yesterday about how the troops marked the 4th…just an absurdly stretched mug shot of Green, put up behind the story that he was honorably discharged in March after being diagnosed with a personality disorder.

But think about it: two hundredths of a percent.  

I don’t mean to minimize the incidents in Haditha and elsewhere, but I would like to point out that the vast majority of our service members serving in Iraq are doing so with honor, courage, and commitment.

Shortly after Discovery achieved orbit, it struck me that ours is a nation of contrasts.  On any given day, you can find rapists and murderers, but also brilliant scientists and engineers working together to put men and women into space.  

On our way home from a party last night, Sihaya credited the freedom we have in this country for giving us such contrasts.  We can choose, she said, to be a murderer or an engineer, to take lives or to save them.  What we do with our choices is less important than the fact that we have them.  The truth is that most people will choose to do something good, if given the opportunity…

I’m proud of my country.  I’m proud that I had a small part in defending her, in carrying out her foreign policies.  I’m proud of the way our leaders conduct themselves in the face of direct threats…and make no mistake, North Korea’s launch of a missile that could reach our Pacific coast yesterday didn’t have to be successful to convey the intended threat…and I’m proud of the way our soldiers and Marines are conducting themselves in nearly impossible circumstances.

There’s a lot to be proud of.