Brief Foray into Politics
I didn't listen to the entire 90 minute presidential debate this evening, but I did catch about a half hour of it on the radio, sitting in my car with the seat laid back and my eyes closed.
I ardently hoped that there would be truth here — that Bush's fact-bending haze of confusion, along with his foreign policy driven by anti-Islamic prejudice, family vendetta, profiteering, and personal desperation, would come to light, if even for enough of an instant that the millions somehow mesmerized by him would snap awake and question a little the man they've been blindly supporting.
I don't know if my wish was answered in full, but it was pretty close.
I still don't know the answer, and this makes me wonder even further: Is Bush intentionally continuing to blur the lines between Afghanistan and Iraq in order to justify his decisions retroactively? Or does he truly not know the difference between the two nations, the two leaders? It seems ludicrous, but I'm honestly starting to think the latter — they're all Islamic states full of angry brown-skinned non-Christians to him, or something. Any other ideas?
I ardently hoped that there would be truth here — that Bush's fact-bending haze of confusion, along with his foreign policy driven by anti-Islamic prejudice, family vendetta, profiteering, and personal desperation, would come to light, if even for enough of an instant that the millions somehow mesmerized by him would snap awake and question a little the man they've been blindly supporting.
I don't know if my wish was answered in full, but it was pretty close.
Lehrer: Mr. President, new question. Two minutes. Does the Iraq experience make it more likely or less likely that you would take the United States into another preemptive military action?
Bush: I would hope I never have to. I understand how hard it is to commit troops. I never wanted to commit troops. When I was running, when we had the debate in 2000, I never dreamt I'd be doing that.
But the enemy attacked us, Jim! And I have a solemn duty to protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect us.
. . .
Kerry: Jim, the president just said something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in this debate. In answer to your question about Iraq and sending people into Iraq, he just said, "The enemy attacked us."
Saddam Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaeda attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, a thousand of his cohorts with him in those mountains, with the American military forces nearby and in the field, we didn't use the best trained troops in the world to go kill the world's number one criminal and terrorist.
They outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier had been on the other side fighting against us, neither of whom trusted each other.
That's the enemy that attacked us. That's the enemy that was allowed to walk out of those mountains. That's the enemy that is now in sixty countries, with stronger recruits.
I still don't know the answer, and this makes me wonder even further: Is Bush intentionally continuing to blur the lines between Afghanistan and Iraq in order to justify his decisions retroactively? Or does he truly not know the difference between the two nations, the two leaders? It seems ludicrous, but I'm honestly starting to think the latter — they're all Islamic states full of angry brown-skinned non-Christians to him, or something. Any other ideas?