Usually I'm a pretty involved person -- politically active, social, "plugged in" -- but lately I've felt like all I want to do is hibernate. The spring weather couldn't be more gorgeous, but I have no desire to play in the sunshine. I'd rather stay in bed and read Patrick O'Brian and Georgette Heyer novels. Historical fiction is infinitely preferable to the front page of the newspaper or the scrolling headlines on CNN.

Current events are enough to make anyone reluctant to get out of bed. The news is depressing, as much for what they're not telling us as what they are. There's a visible and growing gap between the official story and the truth, and it's increasingly obvious that the ideals of liberty and democracy are being perverted for political ends. More men and women have died since the war "ended" a year ago than died in the official conflict. More Iraqi children have been killed in the crossfire than soldiers on either side. There's talk of bringing back the draft, because more troops are needed to fight the war that we've purportedly won. And now there are reports that some of our soldiers tortured and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners of war. The news itself is disturbing and disheartening, another huge disappointment in my country and my fellow citizens. But the pictures are the stuff of nightmares -- American soldiers, both men and women, grinning and giving the thumbs-up as they stand beside naked prisoners, their bodies forced into humiliating and dehumanizing positions.

Most days I'm a glass-half-full kind of gal. But after seeing those photos, my optimism abandoned me.

These are the images of the war that George Bush doesn't want us to see. Bush wants us to believe that we're on the side of the angels and that we've already won. Meanwhile, since the War on Terrorism is going so well, the government is encouraging us to switch our focus to the War on Obesity (cut out enough carbs and you'll be too dizzy to pay attention to poltics!), and Ashcrofts's War on Porn, in which he plans to take on the evils of Skinemax soft-focus, semi-nude, simulated sex. By all means, let's concentrate on what's important.

Reflecting on all of this, I'm filled with a sickening level of vitriol towards our government and towards the individuals responsible for these acts. I want to divorce myself from everyone involved, deny my country, and wash my hands of the whole grisly business.

But hope springs eternal I suppose, and before I can get out my passport and head north to Canada, I have a more encouraging thought. Bush doesn't want us to see these pictures, but we have. Tami Silicio lost her job providing us with the visual evidence of the human cost of war, evidence the Bush government has forbidden official channels to present. Probably as a result of her actions, the news show Nightline devoted an entire episode to the names and faces of the American dead - the first time the American media has personalized the death toll in that way. An American soldier, Specialist Joseph M. Darby, broke ranks to report the torture and abuse in Abu Ghurayb prison. American soldiers and civilians in Iraq are defying the government-enforced silence and emailing photographs to friends in the United States and posting descriptions of the war on their blogs, providing a scaled down and frank view of the war that directly contradicts the sanitized version we're receiving from politicians and the so-called "liberal media."