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Bush is no longer the man
is royally screwed from here on out. He underestimated the fact that no one on the right possesses any
kind of foresight when it comes to foreign policy—after all, it was his very advisors, when they worked for
Reagan, that built up and supported characters like Saddam and bin Laden in the first place by giving
them billions of dollars and gobs of weapons—they thought it was a good idea!
So, when the oh-so-wise advisors (side note: remember during the election when people brought up the
fact that Bush was not very intelligent and that he showed little to no intellectual curiosity his defenders
quickly noted that he would surround himself with “smart people”? Ha!) informed him that they did not
exactly have any evidence proving that Saddam possessed the much desired weapons of mass
destruction but that they were certain that if we invaded Iraq the WMDs would no doubt turn up. Until
then, making up evidence or just using evidence that pre-dated Clinton’s Desert Fox operation in ’98
would have to due to build support for the needed war.
So we invaded Iraq with a very small force of about 200,000 troops when the first gulf war had a force of
about 600,000 (and involved no invading what-so-ever) all-the-while experts outside the Pentagon
warned that we would need a much larger force to occupy the country. In the meantime “experts” inside
the Pentagon said that we had more than enough troops because we are a “modern” military. Now we
have 130,000 troops stationed in Iraq as an occupying force—that number has dropped by about 50 so
far this week—and Rumsfeld has miraculously changed his tune and now says that if the generals
request it, he would be more than happy to send more troops to Iraq. Only now, if we boost our troop
presence in Iraq there is going to be an inevitable air of Vietnam, circa 1968 post-Tet-offensive, when
after we thought we had all but won the war (remember the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the USS
Abraham Lincoln… 506 troops have died since then when “major combat” was declared “over”) we had
not. AS Rumsfeld so quaintly put it in an internal Pentagon memo months back, we have entered the
“…long hard slog” he considered but waived away; he’s not the one fighting!
One thing that puzzles me is that if we have approximately 2,000,000 active duty military personnel in
the US armed forces then why are we calling up all of the National Guardsmen and Reservists to fight
this war? I have several friends in various branches of the military that do nothing but train 10 hours a
day. What, exactly, are they training for? Instead we are sending bankers and college students who do
some pushups and run through some drills every 4th weekend and for two weeks a year. These people
are supposed to be our last line of defense why are they, all-of-a-sudden, our first line of offense? Isn’t
that the whole reason why Bush joined the National Guard when he was my age, because he did not
want to be the one fighting?
I now look to left and see everyone with their arms crossed, shaking their heads mumbling, “I told you
so” and I look to the right and see everyone with a panicked, bewildered look in their eyes, pleading,
“give us a few more months and I can assure you we will find the weapons of mass destruction.” Isn’t
that what the left said about inspections before the war? Give the inspectors more time? What was
Bush’s answer? Bomb’s away!
Bush and company are not ones to learn from the sins of the father. When Bush the Elder’s State
Department received a letter in April of 1990 from Saddam Hussein’s government asking if we would
mind if they invaded Kuwait Bush replied that we have no interest as to what goes on in the Middle East.
He lied. He just wanted an excuse to showcase our new weapons and the American military’s awesome
might on the world-stage and the invasion of Kuwait was the perfect one. It still couldn’t win him
re-election though. Fast-forward to August 2002 and what do you find? Well, other than Bush the
Younger taking yet another month-long vacation at his ranch—we have him now using 9-11 as an
excuse to invade Iraq so that he can showcase our new weapons and our awesome might to the world
(and to get the exclusive contracts to one of the largest oil producing nations in the world). Again, it is
not going to win him re-election but maybe a cushy job at Carlyle like his daddy.
Can’t say we didn’t warn him. Even those on the left that conceded the possibility to there still being
WMDs in Iraq thought it was a bad idea to invade while we were/are still fighting the real war on terrorism
in Afghanistan (remember that place? You know, where Osama bin Laden is and those responsible for
actual terrorist plots and actions against the US?).
Oh yes, Afghanistan. We have a whopping 30,000 troops there to continue the fight and search for
Osama bin (“dead or alive”) Laden in a country of 25,000,000 people of which we control very little of
the outside of Kabul. Warlords still rule supreme in the North and the Taliban still holds substantial
territory in the south. In Kabul Afghanistan’s President cannot dare to leave the executive office
because he would most certainly be killed. What are we doing about it? Losing soldiers in Iraq.
Thank You.