occupation FAIL

So I wrote this on the blog last August 8, in the context of the alleged rape of Jamie Leigh Jones:

Imperialism creates victims on the outside, but it also colonizes itself on the inside. In so many ways, from hatred to divisiveness to violence to poverty and alienation, we are a colonized and brutalized civilization. The solutions must be found in our collective self-criticism, solidarity, and emancipation. And we must get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible--not merely because of the harm our presence does there, but because in order to survive a transition away from our status as empire, we need to learn humility.

With no end to our awkward occupations in sight, with the U.S. blocking efforts at a referendum on U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq, and generally getting mucked up and seeming to kill a lot of innocents in Afghanistan, it seems like those words are even truer now.