Bush, Iraq etc.

I haven't said much about Iraq on this blog, for the reason that anything I might have to say has already been said by others better at words than I; for instance, go read what people like Bruce Baugh have to say.

There's a long thread about Bush, Iraq etc. on Dreamlyrics. Anne Blaeske has already posted the first message of the thread on her blog. This is David Edelstein's most recent response.

I've never been much of a liberal, as you well know. When Bush was elected, I was slightly disappointed, but not terribly upset. I didn't think Gore was much better, and while nothing about Bush impressed me, at least he had a reputation for picking competent "assistants" who actually make all the decisions.

I figured he'd be a mediocre President, quickly forgotten, much like Jimmy Carter (except that Carter has gone on to do far more good as an ex-President than he ever did as a President, something I don't expect from Bush.)

Instead, Bush has been pretty nearly an utter disaster.

A year ago, the entire world was rallied around us. We had the sympathy and support of the entire planet. We were getting condolences from freakin' /Libya/!

In one year, Bush has pissed all that away and turned us into the bumbling cowboys that everybody hates again. Afghanistan was one thing -- we were perfectly justified in bombing the s*** out of the Taliban, and I'm glad we went there, although now we are rather predictably mishandling the aftermath.

But instead of maybe pressing Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to do more about the fanatics in their country from whom al-Qaida and the Taliban originated, instead of doing something about the mess in Israel and Palestine, instead of standing up to China's desire to become the next superpower, or pushing North Korea towards its inevitable collapse and trying to do something to make it as bloodless as possible, Bush doesn't show a single spark of statesmanship. Instead, out of left field, suddenly the villain we all need to worry about is _Saddam Hussein_! WTF? Saddam has been a noxious toad squatting in Baghdad doing exactly what he has done for the last 10 years, no more or less. He blusters and threatens and tries to rattle our chain now and then, but he hasn't done anything to provoke a serious U.S. response, and is highly unlikely to do so. All this crap about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is dubious at best, considering that all the experts who don't happen to be taking their marching orders from the Administration say it's unlikely Iraq has any or could develop any in the near future.

Bush wants to look better than his Daddy did. His oil cronies want a more "cooperative" trading partner in Baghdad. And there are an awful lot of chickenhawks, from Bush on down to certain people posting on message boards, who have never faced any danger and who know neither they nor their sons or daughters will ever go anywhere near the fighting, and from that safe vantage point bang their fists on tables and thunder that _Saddam must go_! The fact that most of the senior military leadership has been expressing reservations about an Iraq campaign (and when senior military officials express "reservations" about a plan proposed by a President they like a hell of a lot better than they liked his predecessor, it means that in private they're probably saying "Is he out of his freaking /mind/?") should say something about the advisability of stepping in there. But no, we have people who think that the Middle East will somehow become a safer, more peaceful place if we just kill someone we really don't like. We can't find Osama, so Saddam makes a convenient standin, because he's /there/, like a scab that never completely healed.

Oh, and meanwhile the economy still sucks and the unemployment rate is still high and our budget surplus is history and health insurance is becoming so insane that even I am starting to think that socialized medicine might be a preferable alternative, and John Ashcroft wants us to do our patriotic duty and support a police state, but don't worry about that because the /really important/ thing is that we take out a dictator on the other side of the planet, because that will so improve the lives of the Iraqi people.

*spits*

You can read the whole thread here.

It's a pity Amadán doesn't have a blog; he's a good antidote to the increasingly shrill tone of all those warbloggers, many of whom seem to take all their political, social and moral opinions from the pages of Robert Heinlein juveniles.