Atrios, responding to the GOP Senators repeated willingness to give an Iraq strategy they think will fail one more chance, writes, “It’s easy to gamble with other peoples’ lives.” Sadly, yes. It reminds me of the final verses from Dylan Thomas’s The Hand That Signed the Paper:
The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.
The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.
But the tears flow nonetheless. Just not from those making the decisions.
