When George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union Address in January of 2002, we were already at war in Afghanistan, rightfully seeking justice against al-Qaeda, and the Taliban who harbored them, in retaliation for the attacks of 9/11. Good. We were on the right track. We were going to get Osama and his deputies, break up al-Qaeda, and take out their financing and other support systems. Cool. Kick ass.
But anyone who was really paying attention to that State of the Union speech had to have seen it coming. This was the speech in which Bush defined his new "axis of evil" -- North Korea, Iran, and Iraq -- who, he told us, were seeking weapons of mass destruction and posed "a grave and growing danger"! Oh my!
He told this to an American public still numb over the 9/11 attacks. America was too shell-shocked to think it through. So they trusted their president.
He took that trust and look what he did with it.
He diverted troops from their noble mission in Afghanistan and sent them into Iraq instead. It didn't matter that the U.N. weapons inspectors had found no WMDs there. We were told that Iraq had them anyway, damn it, and Rumsfeld knew exactly where they were located ("in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat")! Trust us.
And what a mess we've made there! We've got a raging insurgency and civil war, and the American troops caught up in it are dying at an alarming rate. The innocent Iraqi civilians still don't have more than a few hours of electricity per day, and they're lucky if they have clean water. Many are still unemployed, having lost their livelihoods when Bush started bombing more than three years ago. And they cannot feel safe when they leave their homes. Yep, that's George W. Bush, self-proclaimed "Compassionate Conservative". (Would someone please give him a dictionary?)
So, like a spoiled child who trashes one toy and then moves on to another, Bush now sets his sights on Iran. Iran also has no WMDs. In fact, sources say that Iran is at least 10 years away from developing nuclear weapons. But that doesn't stop Bush from warning them that "all options are on the table".
Whoa there, tough guy.
In the meantime, North Korea has been waving nukes at us -- nukes that could potentially reach U.S. soil. Bush responds with gratuitous rhetoric, but it's clear that North Korea -- the one nation in his "axis of evil" that really does have WMDs -- isn't so high on his list of priorities.
Could it be that tough-guy Bush is afraid to deal with real WMDs?
Or could it be that North Korea isn't sitting on quite enough oil?
Keep up the good work, dude.
ReplyDelete"We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq..."
ReplyDelete-- Secretary of State Colin Powell, during a visit to Cairo, Egypt, 24 February 2001