He's a Uniter, Not a Divider
Well, at least he seems to have gotten Iran and Iraq back together... Nice work, Dubya!
My prediction is that, if our gloroious already-accomplished victory in Iraq continues to eviscerate our military, he might end up getting China and Taiwan back together, too. On the other hand, back in 2001 The Current Occupant did accidentally pledge that we'd protect Taiwan if China invaded...so God knows what's going to happen.
Could Iraq end up being to us what Afghanistan was to the Soviet Union? Not exactly, but it has already weakened us politically and militarily (not to mention sapping our moral capital) just as China is beginning to become a real threat. We could have come out of 9/11 even stronger than we were before, but, alas, things have gone more badly for us since then than anyone could have predicted. This is a point that reasonable people should make over and over again until everyone else starts to get it: the Bush administration may not have lost the war against al Qaeda, but it has come closer to losing it than anyone could have thought possible five years ago. Nobody--NOBODY--could have predicted that we'd still be looking for bin Laden five years after 9/11. Um...are we still looking for him, incidentally? Unwitting though it may be (and so often is), the Bush administration is the best ally al Qaeda has ever had.
Had we hit the Taliban and al Qaeda with everything we had after 9/11, we'd have gotten bin Laden and sent a strong message to the world. We'd have maintained the aura of invincibility that we generated in Gulf War Episode I, and which has evaporated again in Gulf War Episode II. If we'd have then spent even half the money we'll spend in Iraq rebuilding Afghanistan, we'd have shown the Islamic world that we were powerful yet benevolent--we'd have shown them that we can crush those who attack us and be great benefactors to those who do not. Instead we chose the most incoherent and ineffective of all possible strategies.
I remember back in 2000 looking around in awe thinking: people somehow seem to think that it doesn't matter that we're allowing a demonstrably dishonest and incompetent bunch of soundrels steal the presidency. It was as if a big chunk of the population was saying: Sure, these guys are bullshit...but what does it matter? How bad could it be? Everything's going great. How bad could they possibly screw things up?
Well, we've got our answer now.
[See, everything I try to write now can just be summarized as follows: Bush sucks. So why read this blog? Just scrawl 'Bush sucks' on a post-it note and put it on your monitor. Thankfully we're all going to get a break from this for a couple of days while I travel back to lovely Jefferson County, Missouri to visit the parental units down on the farm. Try not to tear the place up while I'm gone.]
Well, at least he seems to have gotten Iran and Iraq back together... Nice work, Dubya!
My prediction is that, if our gloroious already-accomplished victory in Iraq continues to eviscerate our military, he might end up getting China and Taiwan back together, too. On the other hand, back in 2001 The Current Occupant did accidentally pledge that we'd protect Taiwan if China invaded...so God knows what's going to happen.
Could Iraq end up being to us what Afghanistan was to the Soviet Union? Not exactly, but it has already weakened us politically and militarily (not to mention sapping our moral capital) just as China is beginning to become a real threat. We could have come out of 9/11 even stronger than we were before, but, alas, things have gone more badly for us since then than anyone could have predicted. This is a point that reasonable people should make over and over again until everyone else starts to get it: the Bush administration may not have lost the war against al Qaeda, but it has come closer to losing it than anyone could have thought possible five years ago. Nobody--NOBODY--could have predicted that we'd still be looking for bin Laden five years after 9/11. Um...are we still looking for him, incidentally? Unwitting though it may be (and so often is), the Bush administration is the best ally al Qaeda has ever had.
Had we hit the Taliban and al Qaeda with everything we had after 9/11, we'd have gotten bin Laden and sent a strong message to the world. We'd have maintained the aura of invincibility that we generated in Gulf War Episode I, and which has evaporated again in Gulf War Episode II. If we'd have then spent even half the money we'll spend in Iraq rebuilding Afghanistan, we'd have shown the Islamic world that we were powerful yet benevolent--we'd have shown them that we can crush those who attack us and be great benefactors to those who do not. Instead we chose the most incoherent and ineffective of all possible strategies.
I remember back in 2000 looking around in awe thinking: people somehow seem to think that it doesn't matter that we're allowing a demonstrably dishonest and incompetent bunch of soundrels steal the presidency. It was as if a big chunk of the population was saying: Sure, these guys are bullshit...but what does it matter? How bad could it be? Everything's going great. How bad could they possibly screw things up?
Well, we've got our answer now.
[See, everything I try to write now can just be summarized as follows: Bush sucks. So why read this blog? Just scrawl 'Bush sucks' on a post-it note and put it on your monitor. Thankfully we're all going to get a break from this for a couple of days while I travel back to lovely Jefferson County, Missouri to visit the parental units down on the farm. Try not to tear the place up while I'm gone.]
posted by Winston Smith at
6:54 AM
4 Comments:
Ahhh, but remember Winston, Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet and dixcovered Love Canal so we sure couldn't trust him. (I know, I know -- he never said any such thing, but that's what they kept/keep telling us, wasn't it?}
The hope is that eventually, at some point (58 K American dead comes to mind as one such point in historical analogy), the public is going to acually realize that they lied us into the Iraq War. If the elections keep going GOP after that, then yes indeed, the computers are rigged. Meanwhile, however, the Greenland Ice Shelf is getting very slippery on it's underside, and if it slides into the sea then the resulting fresh water turns off the Gulf Stream, and many very interesting things begin to happen in this world we call home. Myself, I'd love to see Karl Rove frogmarching across the frozen tundra in search of some tasty caribou steaks. --Beel
No, the hope is that the 8 million Iraqis who voted against al-Qaeda and the Ba'athists take control of their own country and a peaceful nation rises up out of the ashes of Saddam's tyranny and mass murder.
Nothing wrong with endless variations on "Bush sucks." Look at the Poor Man.
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