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G.W.
Got Hisself A Heap A Trouble Now
By
Bill Zahren
(Posted
on 07/23/03)
See, now, I was
afraid of this. George W. Bush’s global dice roll in Iraq
has (so far) come up snake eyes.
Quoting yourself
is so narcissistic, but I said on March 25:
So, along with praying
for it to be over quick with as little killing on both sides
as possible, I hope the liberated Iraqis lead reporters to
the massive bunkers full of chemical weapons and 8-12 nuclear
warheads. Because I’d much rather hear Bush say, ‘I told you
so’ than ‘Oh shit.’"
G.W.! What happened?
Here’s my guess: your marketing was crap. Let me just say
by way of disclaimer, that I’m a registered Democrat. And
I voted for Al "Internet Pioneer" Gore.
Nonetheless, I
still kind of like ya, Mr. President. That whole Top Gun thing
on the aircraft carrier declaring victory was a bit over the
top, sure. And looks kind of self-indulgent in the rearview
mirror, what with Americans continuing to die one-at-a-time
in Iraq.
Although, to be
fair, while we’re freaking out about the number of Americans
murdered every day in Iraq, we should realize that there is
another country in the world where still more Americans are
murdered every day: the United States.
But, as I was
saying, I don’t think you’re a bad guy, G.W. I don’t think
you’re the Darth Vader that the frothing section of my Democratic
party makes you out to be. And I don’t buy the idea that you
picked a fight with Iraq just to distract Americans from the
ugly economy. That would take a seriously sick person. And
besides, as I’m sure you’re well aware, nothing distracts
Americans from their wallets for very long.
I just think you’re
suffering from some really bad pre- and post-war marketing
strategery.
If only Saddam
would have had the courtesy to commit more "naked aggression"
like he did to justify Gulf War I for President Bush I. Too
bad Saddam wasn’t that dumb again, because then you’d be golden.
Heck, even if he invaded a country we don’t like, like Iran
or Syria, we could have still used it as a great excuse to
kick major booty. But noooooo, Saddam played it cool, made
nice with the U.N. arms inspectors and kept out of other countries.
Absent Saddam’s
aggression, whose idea was it to make the whole Weapons of
Mass Destruction thing Plan B in justifying the war? That,
ah, didn’t work out. Well, actually it did work out. So well
that most Americans think the main reason we needed to kick
Saddam’s buttocks was because he was fixin’ to unleash gas
or a nuke on the U.S. Clear and present danger and all that.
Now, with the
war over (cue the aircraft carrier backdrop!), saying we "can’t
find the bombs" has us feeling a little misled.
And this whole
insistence on always mentioning 9/11 in the same breath as
Saddam worked pretty swell too, but the "proof" sounds more
like a bad Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation gag.
But wait, there's
more. When statement in your State of the Union about Saddam
trying to get nuclear weapons material from Niger turned out
to be wrong, the first response was "CIA approved the speech."
(Insert the sound of CIA director George Tenet being shoved
under the bus here.) Second response was "Hey, all we said
was that the BRITISH said it. We didn’t say it was true."
This from people who once ridiculed Bill Clinton for debating
the definition of "is." Not exactly The Buck Stops Here behavior.
OK, just suppose
we suspended all the above and go with the default argument
that Saddam was an evil person and the ends (kicking him out)
justify the means (going to war).
There’s still
a hitch in our national get along -- if pre-emptive strikes
is the new U.S. policy, what about Mr. Insane Nuclear Clown
Posse himself, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il? He’s killing, jailing,
starving, terrorizing and repressing his people and all but
sending the White House Polaroids of ticking nuclear warheads
with postage to the U.S. clearly affixed. So how come we’re
not rolling north up the Korean peninsula?
The latest addition
to the foreign policy bad-news snowball is Liberia. The Liberians
are mad at us for NOT invading their country and stopping
rebels from shelling civilians. Well, we are the great liberators,
after all. Maybe if Liberia had some poison gas, or at least
some plans to get some gas, someday. It’s a mess. An expensive
mess. Iraq is costing you and me about a $1 billion a week,
($142 million a day).
That would buy
a lot of college scholarships and daycare for single mothers
who want to get off welfare.
So what should
you do now? Maybe start by coming completely clean about what
you knew and when, without resorting to finely crafted subtleties
like the difference between a "grave and gathering" danger
and a "clear and present" danger.
It also would
be nice to see you go on TV and give us a no-nonsense explanation
of what's going on, what we did right, what we did wrong,
how long it will take and why it's worth it, etc. Just give
it to us straight, G.W.
And for heaven's
sake take responsibility for the whole Niger nuclear claim
and get that behind you. "Yeah, it was in my speech. Turned
out to be false. I thought it was true at the time. My mistake."
Would that be so hard? Sure, the Democrats may howl for a
while, but that won't last long. The buck needs to stop with
you, Mr. President.
Then I guess we
gotta go back to the U.N., eat a ton of crow and maybe even
be nice to the French again. (For the record, I love the French.
If not for the French, we wouldn’t have won our Independence
200 years ago.)
Finally, we grit
our teeth and stick it out in Iraq. Leaving now would be worse
than staying. Meanwhile, since I’m technically one of your
250 million bosses, please try to sort out some kind of system
for determining when a country deserves pre-empting and when
it doesn’t and get us a memo. Then figure out what to do about
North Korea and Liberia (and Syria and Iran and ...)
Maybe get the
dapper and eloquent Tony Blair to help out with it. All I
know is that what we got now is confusing to us regular folk.
©2003 Bill Zahren
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