Our Worst Nightmare
I'm really beginning to think that the Iraq War marks the beginning of the end of America as we know it.
The failure of governance that led us to this war was complete. Let's briefly recap what happened: A dangerously ill-informed President with a gambler's personality was ALLOWED (whether his neo-con advisers forced him or not) by the American public, his own party and the opposition party to bet 350 billion dollars (so far), 150 thousand fighting men and women, more than 3,000 American soldiers dead, and tens of thousands (now estimated at over 36,000 for 2006 alone) of Iraqi lives that winning a war in Iraq would guarantee him some sort of legacy as the protector of America.
It was a crazy bet. An insane bet in every way. It was a losing bet from the moment it was conceived. But it happened anyway.
The simple reality is that the enormous downside of this invasion - political, social, financial and otherwise - should have been clearly known to all. The risks (among them, notching the Middle East to an even higher flame) were so completely out of proportion to the potential rewards (can anyone even tell me what those rewards might have even been?) that ignoring them was virtually a criminal act. Other Presidents may have overseen bad foreign policy initiatives - for whatever narrow interests that President was hoping to serve (or thinking he was serving). Those Presidents may have made some serious errors. But the magnitude of the current mistake is at a whole new level. It's a monumental, era-defining mistake that has already cost us the reputation of our country and will, for a long while, paralyze our ability to exert a genuinely beneficial influence around the world (presuming we are capable of exerting such an influence).
It should have been clear to all that Bush's gamble could take us all down with him. But our system of governance failed.
And what about that system? Our system of checks and balances was designed so that even a dangerous man could be somewhat checked and therefore not become a completely dangerous President. That didn't happen this time. Instead, this dangerous President is still somehow calling the shots. He has two more years at the captain's wheel of our ship of state and we certainly sill have a lot further to sink. But what's really going to be done about it?
In laymen's terms, it's clear we need an intervention. But it's not at all clear that we know yet how to get that done. Even if the Democrats don't "allow" Bush to send more troops (by cutting off funding - something they won't do), how do we put Iraq back together again?
If we told the Iraqi people that we would investigate what Bush and his cronies did to them in the name of America if they would only stop killing each other, would they take us up on the offer? Let's say one day of investigation for each day there are no sectarian murders in Baghdad. Sometimes I fantasize about that sort of thing. As the new and powerful film "Pan's Labyrinth" points out, sometimes fantasy is our only way of maintaining hope.
My apologies for not doing much posting in the past few weeks. I'll try to do better in the future. I guess I've had Iraq on my mind more than I realized.
The failure of governance that led us to this war was complete. Let's briefly recap what happened: A dangerously ill-informed President with a gambler's personality was ALLOWED (whether his neo-con advisers forced him or not) by the American public, his own party and the opposition party to bet 350 billion dollars (so far), 150 thousand fighting men and women, more than 3,000 American soldiers dead, and tens of thousands (now estimated at over 36,000 for 2006 alone) of Iraqi lives that winning a war in Iraq would guarantee him some sort of legacy as the protector of America.
It was a crazy bet. An insane bet in every way. It was a losing bet from the moment it was conceived. But it happened anyway.
The simple reality is that the enormous downside of this invasion - political, social, financial and otherwise - should have been clearly known to all. The risks (among them, notching the Middle East to an even higher flame) were so completely out of proportion to the potential rewards (can anyone even tell me what those rewards might have even been?) that ignoring them was virtually a criminal act. Other Presidents may have overseen bad foreign policy initiatives - for whatever narrow interests that President was hoping to serve (or thinking he was serving). Those Presidents may have made some serious errors. But the magnitude of the current mistake is at a whole new level. It's a monumental, era-defining mistake that has already cost us the reputation of our country and will, for a long while, paralyze our ability to exert a genuinely beneficial influence around the world (presuming we are capable of exerting such an influence).
It should have been clear to all that Bush's gamble could take us all down with him. But our system of governance failed.
And what about that system? Our system of checks and balances was designed so that even a dangerous man could be somewhat checked and therefore not become a completely dangerous President. That didn't happen this time. Instead, this dangerous President is still somehow calling the shots. He has two more years at the captain's wheel of our ship of state and we certainly sill have a lot further to sink. But what's really going to be done about it?
In laymen's terms, it's clear we need an intervention. But it's not at all clear that we know yet how to get that done. Even if the Democrats don't "allow" Bush to send more troops (by cutting off funding - something they won't do), how do we put Iraq back together again?
If we told the Iraqi people that we would investigate what Bush and his cronies did to them in the name of America if they would only stop killing each other, would they take us up on the offer? Let's say one day of investigation for each day there are no sectarian murders in Baghdad. Sometimes I fantasize about that sort of thing. As the new and powerful film "Pan's Labyrinth" points out, sometimes fantasy is our only way of maintaining hope.
My apologies for not doing much posting in the past few weeks. I'll try to do better in the future. I guess I've had Iraq on my mind more than I realized.
posted by AJ, N.Y.C. at 9:06 PM
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