Wednesday, April 16, 2008

 

It´s the War, Stupid

So the choice is between a terrible decision and one that is even worse. The terrible decision is just to begin leaving, knowing that even more innocent civilians will be killed and that we’ll be dealing with agitation out of Iraq for years to come. The worse decision would be to wait another year, or two, or three and then take that terrible course. If we thought a longer commitment and presence would lead to a better outcome, then the extra commitment might be sensible. But nothing occurring in Iraq in the last year has given rise to any hope that things are getting better rather than worse. (This, by the way, is the reason I have changed my mind: the absence of evidence that the chances for a “decent” departure will improve.)

-James Fallows in The Atlantic November 30, 2006

This is what I have been saying since the first day American troops entered Iraq. All exaggeration, lies, and hyperbole concerning “The Surge” aside, I have never seen anything in Iraq that looks even remotely like an improvement. What I have seen is a steadily escalating disaster that has all but destroyed the American economy and now threatens to do the same with the rest of the economies of the world. If anyone could have looked into the future on the eve of the Iraq invasion and shown the American people the harsh realities we face today as a result of the war, everyone in the Bush administration would have been tarred and feathered. The terrible thing is that many people predicted almost the exact outcome. If anyone in the Bush circle would have listened to James Fallows from the start, we´d be in a lot better shape today.

Since the beginning I have asked this simple question: Was there a single conservative pundit who predicted that the war would go badly? I didn´t hear one conservative opinion at the outset of the war that stated that Iraq would be anything less than a cakewalk, a homerun, or whatever bright-and-cheery adjectives that were used to describe this war that was to finance itself from the oil revenues. In the halcyon days of “Mission Accomplished,” many conservatives actually called upon liberal opponents of the war to apologize to the American people for their negative views. I don´t expect conservatives to apologize for being horribly wrong; I just want them to get the fuck out of the driver´s seat and let someone else take over.

In talks with my two brothers about the war, we have often expressed our opinion on the American exit strategy from Iraq. It could be modeled on the Spanish exit after the election of Zapatero. It goes something like this: just get the fuck out. Load up everyone and everything we can into some C5 aircraft, take off, and blow up everything of any military use we are forced to leave behind. Leave all of the KFCs and Burger Kings built for the troops and then fire every one of the government contractors who have been living like a gigantic tick on the ass of the American taxpayer.

Saving the American economy is only one of the reasons we should run from Iraq as fast as we can. The most important reason for leaving is that we cannot “win” in Iraq, even if we stay for the 100 years that John McCain suggests. There will always be a large element in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East that will never accept an American military presence in their midst. I can´t say that I blame them.

American military occupation was what got us into this mess in the first place, if you remember correctly. After the first Gulf War (I disagreed completely with that war as well) we left a sizeable contingent of American troops in Saudi Arabia. This is a country that is supposedly an ally of the United States yet treats one half of its population (women) like political prisoners, denying them basic rights, such as the right to drive a car. Kuwait, the country we rescued from Saddam Hussein´s aggression, also has a fairly terrible record of human rights. You can say the same for every other country in the region. I never understood the idea that we could somehow instill democracy in the region through force when we can´t even convince our alleged allies to allow their female citizens to obtain a driver´s license. It´s not like this is the only bad thing about Saudi Arabia, but it´s a good place to start.

The funny thing is, remember when conservatives scolded war opponents for comparing it to Viet Nam? Now we are looking back on that horrible conflict in Southeast Asia with rather fond memories compared to the shithole we find ourselves in now. I mean it´s funny in a horrifically tragic kind of way. Bush makes Richard Nixon look like Abe Lincoln. It wouldn´t take much to make an improvement over our exit strategy in Viet Nam. We couldn´t have planned a more ignominious departure than the one we chose in Viet Nam. Yet somehow that wasn´t the end of the world like Viet Nam supporters predicted. When we finally leave Iraq after failing to meet our ill-formed objectives, the country is sure to fall into chaos. My question is, “How will we know the difference?”

In a very direct way, skyrocketing oil prices resulting from the war have further strengthened a number of despicable regimes in OPEC while crippling the U.S. economy. The United States has replaced Israel on the Muslim world´s shit list, and bored Muslim teenagers from Morocco to Afghanistan have begun to search anti-American, jihadist websites instead of looking at naughty Britney pics while they are online. America used to be the great Satan, as far as Muslims were concerned. Then Bay Watch came along and the extremists forgot about the great Satan bit and concentrated on Pamela Anderson´s boobs like everyone is supposed to do. I´m sure that even Osama bin Laden tossed off to her in that red one-piece bathing suit at least a couple of times. When we pull out of Iraq we can ask Pamela Anderson to undergo yet another breast enhancement in the name of national security.

Instead of the Peace Corps, our government can enlist the services of thousands of liberal, educated Americans to travel the world and tell people about the new Bay Watch with the even bustier new Pamela. They would be like Mormon missionaries but not creepy in any way. While these ambassadors are roaming the globe they can also try to convince people that most people in America never agreed with Bush and his policies. Hell, most people didn´t even vote for him. We could finance this program with the money we save by taking away one single contract from Haliburton. I´ll shut up now.

Labels: Rant

9:12 AM

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Friday, February 01, 2008

 

Source: Think Progress

Thanks for Nothing

As if any thinking person needed further evidence that President Bush has been a complete failure these past seven years, we now have it in an easy-to-read graph form. These past years have not just been a failure of the President but of the entire neo-con message. They have had an almost unprecedented freedom to carry out most of their major decisions and everything they have touched has been a disaster. If you are still a Republican supporter at this stage in the nightmare, there is no helping you. You are like the band on the Titanic except you don’t give aid and comfort to the victims; you try to blame others for your bad policies.

I’ll be the first to admit that statistics can be made to support or attack anything but I think this chart simply spells out what all of us have been feeling lately. I have had the displeasure of witnessing the dollar’s more than 11% decline against the euro in just the past eight months or so. Any American with an automobile has seen gasoline prices skyrocket since the Iraq invasion. Anyone who can read will tell you that the war in Iraq has been a tragedy seemingly without end. We don’t need graphs or statistics to tell us as much.

During most of the Bush administration there has been little in the way of criticism from other conservatives concerning the Bush policies. I never read a single prediction by a right-wing pundit before the war that bore any resemblance to what actually happened once we invaded a sovereign Middle East nation. Only the most foolhardy conservative zealots actually believe that America is safer now than before the invasion; only an idiot could think that we can actually “win” or "finish what we started" in Iraq.

The entire conservative platform is based on theories and falsehoods. They claim to be for smaller government yet have inherited a budget surplus and turned it into a $731 billion deficit. What they mean by smaller government is fewer public services and more pork for leeches like Halliburton and Blackwater. Conservatives still insist that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. This is after the past few years of seeing the biggest bankruptcies in U.S. history. Dick Cheney made $32 million in 2000 as CEO of Halliburton, a private government defense contractor. It’s hard for me to imagine how a government agency could be considered efficient while paying one of its employees $32 million a year, but I’m no accountant.

Conservatives have convinced many Americans that cutting taxes will answer all of life’s problems. Most of their tax cuts have gone to the wealthiest Americans who care little about mundane things like public transportation or health care, things you’ll never be able to purchase with your measly tax break. Conservatives would have you believe that the social democracies of Western Europe that have national health care and great public transportation are socialist hellholes unfit for humans or that they are all on the brink of collapse (kind of ironic since the dollar has tumbled nearly 50% against the euro under Bush). Imagine living in a city with public transportation so efficient that you wouldn’t need to drive a car every day. Think of the money you would save by not owning a car as a tax break. Think of the billions of dollars that Americans spend every year on health insurance and how much better our health system would be if we spent that money on actually treating patients.

The Rolling Stones, in their partying heyday, never trashed a hotel room as badly as Bush has destroyed the American economy and our national reputation—and he still has a year to go. All of these dire economic indicators and we are plunging into a recession!

Bush has spent the years since 9/11 trying to scare the shit out of us with stories of boogey men Muslim extremists squatting in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan. The trouble is that Bush didn’t think it was necessary to find out the exact location of that cave so those actually responsible for 9/11 got a get-out-of-jail card. Of course, the only threat they pose now is merely theoretical. If we had an intelligence operation in America that was even remotely functioning we could have prevented the attack in the first place but that is beside the point this far into the game.

Bush has completely ignored the threat posed by global warming even though a consensus of the world’s scientists agree that this is a serious issue and one that must be addressed sooner rather than later. This real threat is ignored and anyone who talks about global warming is a Chicken Little, scientific studies be damned.

The theme for the Bush years seems to be "Stay the course." He has delivered on that promise. In matters of foreign policy, economics, environmental issues, and just about every other presidential responsibility Bush has struck icebergs and kept going full steam ahead. He and his cronies all have lifeboats, don't you worry about them. It's the rest of us passengers who should be concerned.

Labels: Rant

1:48 PM

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