Secrets of Home Renovation

One of the few fun days in the whole process of home renovation – the two others are the first day and the last day - is the day you go through your old stuff, trying to figure out what to put back in the drawer and what to put in the box with the picture of Hubert Humphrey. Not always an easy choice.

At the bottom of a stack of papers I came across two editorials I had saved from the front the L. A. Times, dated April 13th, 2003. Written less than a month after the invasion of Iraq, one of these editorials offered, in what turns out to be a very prescient argument, a number of powerful reasons why achieving democracy in Iraq was unlikely at best. Across the page the other op ed passionately argued the opposite – not only was it achievable, it was morally unavoidable.

Both pieces were well thought out, well written, and gave the impression that the authors certainly knew what they were talking about. But the really interesting information came at the bottom of the first page, where each author was identified.

The first piece was written by a man named Shlomo Avineri, described as a, “professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (who) has been involved in a numerous democracy-building projects in Eastern Europe since 1989.” Professor Avineri’s opinion was apparently based on experience, with an understandable bias in favor of Israel.

The second piece was penned by a man named Randy Sheunemann, described as the, “president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.” I missed that detail when I read the articles originally. If you look up this committee – thank God for Google – you will find that it was created and funded by the Bush administration to act as a purveyor of their official, let’s-go-to-war rhetoric. Google didn’t show anything on Mr. Sheunemann other than his connection to this committee. And that’s the whole point.

This is truly bush league. Americans deserve the truth from their president, not an intentional plan of deception. The administration set up this phony committee to look like a group of impassioned, freedom-loving citizens, though in fact it was no more than a division of the White House P. R. department. We should all bear this in mind during the current discussions on how to get out of Iraq.

You gotta love home renovation. It’s good for the soul.

A foot on either side.


Bartley B