Zeno's Paradox: More on Iraq / Bush / Honesty

Zeno's Paradox

March 25, 2004 - More on Iraq / Bush / Honesty

I figured that I'd follow up on some of the comments that I made on some weblogs about Iraq and Bush and all the nonsense that has come out of this. To be completely honest, I go back and forth internally when I try to think about how I should consider the Iraq war of 2003. One part of me is glad that we've taken Saddam out of power and that Iraqis can now start rebuilding a representative and civilized society, while the other side of me wonders if the cost was worth it and whether the ends justified the means.

I can't really find fault with the action of going into the country and wiping out the Baath Party, Republican Guard, and killing Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay. I'm glad that the Iraqis are in the process of writing their constitution and rebuilding their society. I'm generally optimistic about Iraq's future prospects, though I don't think that it'll become a glowing example of self-rule and self-determination in the Middle East. I see the country evolving more along the lines of Egypt or Jordan than I imagine it becoming shining Jeffersonian democracy in the Middle East.

Now, I do think that Iraq is better off, but I wonder if the United States is better off. Personally, I think that the largest casualty of the Iraq war is the principle and understanding that the American people have with their government. Perhaps I'm being a na�ve fool, but in the United States, the president should be a leader, not a dictator. As more information comes out, it's apparent that Bush (and administration) had made up their minds about going into Iraq from day one. However, prior to September 11, the president that lost the popular vote lacked the public support for such an action.

After the downing of the twin towers, Bush cynically used the tragedy to manipulate and deceive the people of the United States and the world in order to achieve its true goals. It (rightfully) went into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and wipe out the local Al Qaeda elements. However, Bush ceased to follow through with the action, even going as far to omit funding for operations in Afghanistan in a following budget proposal. Now, I recognize that Afghanistan is a rough place and change will not come quickly to that part of the world, but I also recognize that two years later, Kabul is better off, but the rest of the country is in relative chaos. I can't help but think that we screwed up by doing a half-ass job there and that Bush basically dropped the Afghanis as soon as it became apparent that he could go after Iraq.

Bush never was on record saying that September 11 and Iraq were related. However, he seemed content to let the misconception live on as pundits and "senior administration officials" spoke of Saddam and the war on terror. I do think that there was a good case for going into Iraq, but not the one that the administration made. I wasn't convinced that it was the right thing to do at the time, and in the absence of WMDs or connections to Islamic terrorism (aside from the payments to Palestinian "martyrs"), hindsight has shown that none of the reasons given to the public by Bush were true to begin with. I think that there was a good case to be made that by building a modern democratic Muslim state, we could set an example for the others to follow. The problem that I have is that we had already started rebuilding one Muslim state, and it didn't make much sense to topple another and start building another. I still don't understand why the shining beacon of democracy had to be Iraq, and we should pull out needed resources from Afghanistan to build another. The United States is responsible for these two nations now, and I'm not convinced that Bush is willing or able to put in the time, effort, and patience to finish the job.

In terms of the domestic situation, the thing that bothers me the most about Bush is that I cannot trust a single thing the man or his administration says. Bush has shown himself to be primarily concerned with the politics of looking good and getting reelected, and not concerned at all with the policy or direction that he sets the country in. I found the stories that were told by former loyal administration members to be appalling. Paul O'Neil described Bush's preoccupation with Iraq. David Kay has been pleading with Bush to come clean about the WMD claims. The auditor on the recent drug bill has come out saying that if he told the truth to Congress about the costs of the program - he'd be fired. Clarke has come out and destroyed the idea that Bush was a president that is strong on terror. I find the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak to be morally disgusting. (It's no wonder we didn't know about Khan in Pakistan when the CIA is a political toy.) In short, I see many reasons to distrust the administration, and no reasons to think that it's concerned with anything beyond holding and expanding its power regardless of the costs. What will the American people and Congress think the next time that there is a legitimate threat to the United States? After misleading the public and Congress so many times, who actually believes this administration?

In the 2004 presidential election, I will be voting for John Kerry. I don't particularly like the man, and I'm sure that some of his policies and philosophies are duds. However, before the American nation can start doing things like debating policy, we need to get back to a point where we can judge the policies on their merits. At the moment, if Bush proposed a plan to cure AIDS in Africa over five years and for a billion dollars, my question wouldn't be whether we'd be doing enough or if the actual idea was any good, but whether the idea I was being presented with was an actual policy proposal or some sort of empty unrealistic statement crafted to appeal to the largest voting demographic. With Kerry, I could at least see where things lie and make my judgments upon factual information. With Bush, any sort of decision making is no better than gambling that he is factually representing the facts that day.

Posted by br284 at 11:11 PM

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