The fastest way to destroy the operational effectiveness of a nation’s military is to put most of its forces into a quagmire of religious strife and civil war. Just the act of keeping most of our combat troops in an area that makes each and every soldier a legitimate target for any Iraqi that opposes our “occupation” of Iraq shows the entire world that we have absolutely no idea of what we are doing. We have finally proved that we are a nation led by extremist “Christian” forces that are in reality, not much different than the Taliban.
Bush has been in Australia making a fool out of himself and the rest of the country. The best thing that this President could do at this particular point in his life is to just shut-up. Just about everything he says and does, proves to the world that we have an idiot in the White House. The fact that he is responsible for almost a million people losing their lives is probably lost on him. He still envisions himself as a staunch defender of America and I honestly believe that he feels no guilt or remorse for the dead and dying. This makes him either a sociopath, or pretty much of a fool. I think it’s a combination of both.
Every American that died in Iraq was someone’s son, brother, father, daughter, mom, or friend. Bush, in my opinion, doesn’t see it that way. I believe that he sees them as numbers, statistics. I believe Bush believes that part of the job he has as President, is to ask others to make the “supreme sacrifice”. He is unfortunately, right. The President of the United States has the authority to send American soldiers into harm’s way. The part of the equation that he doesn’t have a good grasp of, is the part that mentions the concept of “a clear and present danger” to the nation and its people. Just as many despots that came before Bush, he has confused American interests with his own flawed perception of the issues America faces. This will ultimately insure his place in history not as a defender of freedom and justice, but as another despotic warmonger that indiscriminately causes the death of innocent people.
The American people have been very complacent during this “process”. For years now, we have seen our legislators give a blank check to the executive branch of government that allows them to wage war against anyone that they deem a “terrorist”. You might replace the word “terrorist” with the phrase “enemy of the state”. It is one and the same in the eyes of this dysfunctional administration. The horrifying truth is that way too many Americans are willing to give up their most precious freedoms for what they see as “security”. This is the way that history has shown how most dictatorships gained their power. No longer is the government accountable to the people, rather it is the other way around; the people are accountable to the government. This seems to have already taken place in America.
It saddens me to see the people that understand this not being able to come to a consensus on what should be done about this sad state of affairs. Day after day I think about President William Jefferson Clinton exposed as an adulterer and forced to listen to the radical right that proclaimed he was unfit for office because of a personal indiscretion that was really no business of anyone save the people involved. That he was impeached over it is mind-boggling when you think of the lies this Administration has told and the wholesale slaughter of an entire nation. Sometimes I wonder how the American people could be so “ethically challenged” when it comes to these criminals that make up the executive branch of our government. There exists a “double standard”; one for the left of center, and one for the “radical right”. This is proving to be something that has a direct effect on the underpinnings of our form of government. The representative republic we had has morphed into something else. What I see I don’t like. What I see, and the acquiescence of the American people towards this path we are travelling, honestly scares me and disgusts me at the same time. The same people that debate the death penalty and fight for the natural habitat of a spotted owl, give their blessing to “pre-emptive wars” and clandestine murders and “counter-insurgencies” supported by their government, if only by their silence.
If the American people were on a therapist’s couch, they would be labeled as sociopaths and possibly schizophrenics. I call it a moral meltdown. Now that we know about all of the lies told by this administration and saw these lies in the light of day when no weapons of mass destruction were found, we should be holding our government accountable. We are not doing that, and this is morally and legally wrong. Once a government is not held accountable to the citizenry, it is a criminal enterprise. The saddest part of all this is that the American people has condoned this behavior by their silence. This is becoming a tragedy of conscience. T here is nothing that is more important to this country than the American people fixing their “moral compass”. The one we have isn’t working, and everyone in the world understands this it except for the people in the United States. The longer we let this go on, the more we assume the guilt of our government’s crimes.
This is the way I see it.
