More bad news

I'm so glad this little corner of the virtual expanse goes relatively unseen, I imagine, as I find I just want to vent more. The Virginia Tech insanity Monday, followed by news of the slain Peace Corps volunteer, is making me sick. But that's just on top of all the bombings in Iraq, which lead me to conclude that abandoment is best. I used to think we had a responsibility to clean up our mess. I don't really much care anymore. Sure, I think GW Bush should be impeached, but I've also come to think that the barbarism sewn (and controlled) by Saddam Hussein is beyond anyone's control. Some fear that if the U.S. pulls out, the Sunnis will be persecuted. Well, they're pretty active in blowing up U.S. troops and trying to make the Shia look incapable of governing by killing off Shia by the thousands, so I'm not so sympathetic. The other fear is that the Shia will ally themselves with Iran, creating an even more annoying Iran. But that's really a foregone conclusion, I would think. Perhaps if we leave now, we'll at least have an opportunity to play all these forces against one another -- from the Saudis who say they may send in troops to defend Sunnis if the U.S. leaves, to the anti-Saudi Iranians whose foreign policy seems to center around doing whatever they can to hurt America, rather than looking out for their more direct interests -- while we try to figure out how to live without oil. If the Middle East falls into a Shia-Sunni war, at least all countries involved will want us to buy their oil. And they should undercut each other's prices if they're in conflict.
Sadly, my views come from a fairly left point of view. I don't want to sacrifice anything to give Iraq democracy. If the Iraqi Shia couldn't get it on their own -- or at least start the fight themselves -- do they even deserve it? The argument that the moderates suffer most doesn't do much for me, either. I would hope they could get themselves out of the conflict zone, but there are limits to U.S. power. Limits far more restricting than any the neocons imagined. I'm certain every American would risk death to maintain our constitutional sovereignty, but we Americans know that there is no enemy at the gates putting that liberty at risk. Osama may hate our freedoms, but unless he runs for office here, there's not a whole lot he can do about it. If we don't fear him and his bombs, he's a paper tiger. We are still flying and traveling abroad. We've not abandoned our cities for free of sitting too close to the next 'ground zero.'
But though Osama has nothing, still there is this feeling far beyond anything he and his criminal ilk have wrought, that things are just falling apart, that misery and ignorance and danger are increasing. Will it be global warming-induced food shortages? Ethanol-induced food shortages? Growing extremism? Fear, all by itself? Nuclear meltdown in North Korea? A Canary Island-spawned tsunami wiping out the East Coast? What's next? Why now does there seem to be a limitless list of apocalyptic scenarios. And as if these scenarios weren't bad enough, there are seas of childlike adults who seem to welcome whatever may herald "the end times," or whatever apocalypse a person's specific faith has to offer.
I remain, by nature, an optimist. But these are damned depressing times.