Bush squandered opportunities
We will now be hearing from the Bush administration how the London terrorist bombings demand that the United States be patient in the "war on terrah," and how that battle is being taken to the terrorists in Iraq.
The problem with that logic is that it pretends that Iraq ever was a central front in the war against terrorists. Unfortunately, the evidence is now clear (as it always was), that Bush withdrew resources which could otherwise have been engaging the real terrorist threat here in the United States, and overseas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, and Europe.
But monkey boy squandered that opportunity, bullied the rest of the world into allowing him to pursue his personal little vendetta against Saddam Hussein, and to make his pals in the oil business even richer. All he did was interrupt Saddam's bizarre little project writing novels, provided a focus point to recruit more terrorists, spent the lives of thousands of American soldiers, spent billions in American treasure (borrowed from China and due on future generations), and diverted resources away from the real fight against Al Qaida.
The only solution to the quagmire is regime change here at home.
We need to fulfill that difficult task of doing what we do as patriotic citizens when our president lies to us.
I fully embrace the rising cry for IMPEACHMENT NOW!
posted by Schroeder @ 7:50 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
You had your chance at regime change last November, and failed. Your failure to understand the strategic importance of the war in Iraq as a part of the larger War on Terror is typical of the myopic left. Fortunately, the British and American publics understand the stakes in this war. They understand the only way you can win the way is to transform the entire Middle East. Instead of trying to score cheap political points perhaps the left could come up with a comprehensive foreign policy of its own? Or is it easier to just blab about oil and go on and on about how you were "lied" to.
Take note that there WILL NEVER BE PEACE ON THIS EARTH.... It doesn't matter who is president or anything else. It is written in God's Holy Word. You can't fight the TRUTH.
Excellent blog! Very well written.
And for the twitcher - your comment is not only the funniest thing I have ever read - but the saddest and most ignorant as well.
Ah the left... the fact is you lost the election. America made clear they support the neoconservative foreign policy as it stands. DEAL WITH IT.
Nice to hear from all of you.
Twitcher, you might disagree with me that the election was fair. I think the irregularities in the supply of voter machines in key precincts alone merits attention, not to mention the suspicions raised by unusual behavior of new electronic voting machines and exit polls.
I think, however, that liberals, conservatives, and people of every political persuasion, can agree that the November election was particularly disappointing for those who love democracy. That election was characterized by the overbearing influence of big-money third party organizations (in some cases thinly-veiled fronts for campaign spin operations), which disparaged the characters of both candidates and distorted the facts. This occurred in an environment in which the press failed to perform its vital responsibility to parse lies from truths.
As for your criticism of the "myopic left" failing to recognize the strategic importance of the Iraq War, hey, don't just take my word for it that Iraq is a major distraction that we can't afford, and that is creating a MORE DANGEROUS WORLD, listen to what the Army War College is saying:
In the three years since 9-11, the Administration has yet to arrive at a clear definition of the enemy or the aim in the War on Terrorism; to date, American policy has combined ambitious public statements with ambiguity on critical particulars. Heretofore, the costs of pursuing such ambitious but ill-defined goals have been high but tolerable. The ongoing insurgency in Iraq, however, is increasing the costs of grand strategic ambiguity to the point where fundamental choices can no longer be deferred.
the Bush doctrine is quit simple. Terrorism is born of the virus of Islamic Fundamentalism. This virus is bred in the swamps of despotism and despair that is the modern middle east. Therefore to eradicate the virus you must drain the swamp, which means completely transforming the middle east.
Iraq was just step one. I agree that we did not do enough in afghanistan. after 9-11 there should been a draft and large scale invasion. we should also be occupying areas of pakistan that musharraf refuses to control. Alas, you can imagine the body count that would result of such a policy - which is why we avoided the hard choice in afghanistan and did it on the cheap.
that being said the next logical step in teh transformation process was iraq. this is a long-term strategy not a short term fix. and there will be many more iraqs to come so i'm not sure how you are going to handle the future battles if you are still agonizing over this one. I suspect we'll be occupying most of the Middle East by the year 2020.
You see Twitcher, we're closer in views than you think.
I agree that "to eradicate the virus you must drain the swamp," but I fear we do indeed differ on tactics. Kill the virus, sure, but draining the swamp can never be accomplished by a "shoot anything that moves" policy. Notwithstanding the sacrifice of American troops in Iraq, they are largely unprepared to fight an insurgency with guns drawn when 99.9 percent of them don't speak or read arabic.
There ought to be a more concerted and *HONEST* endeavor to force countries like Saudi Arabia to reform their systems. Peaceful change can take time, but war should be only the very last option considered. The Downing Street memos, and earlier evidence, demonstrate beyond any shadow of a doubt that Bush and Blair conceived of war with Iraq as the FIRST option, and justified it by lying to the world.
I therefore must strongly disagree with you that "the next logical step in teh transformation process was iraq." Just because that's what everyone was brainwashed to believe so that Bush could have his war does not make it so. There were other ways to deal with Saddam Hussein. To his credit, Bush brought the world to realize that he had to be dealt with - for reasons other than WMD - but he never intended to cooperate with the rest of the world, because that would have meant diplomacy, and sharing Iraq's oil.
Unfortunately, I am not convinced for a microsecond that the true goals of the Bush administration (i.e., the monied interests who Bush GWB's buttons) are to promote democracy. He/they want to control Middle East oil.
Now, we can have a debate about costs and benefits of a war for oil, but let's call spades spades shall we.
To lie, as the Bush administration has done, and to pre-emptively attack a country that never posed a threat to us, is hardly going to drain the swamp, as you say, and will instead engender even more mistrust and hatred of the United States around the world, making the job of recruiting terrorists even easier for Al Qaida.
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