Thursday, March 30, 2006

Get governing yourself, Mr. President

So, let me get this straight:

Bush makes a contrived case for war built around politicized intelligence, launches a premature invasion, completely botches the occupation and reconstruction, declares mission accomplished long before any mission has been accomplished, keeps changing the rationale for going to war as each rationale crumbles under the weight of evidence, stands hapless and helpless while the country he invaded descends into sectarian violence and civil war and while pressing problems throughout the rest of the world worsen, barely even acknowledges that any mistakes were ever made, shifts responsibility onto future presidents, spins fantasy upon fantasy as truth, loses the confidence of the American people, and now...

Now he tells the Iraqis to "get governing" themselves? Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall, over and over and over again.

Nothing against the Iraqis, and I know that at some point they'll have to assume the ultimate responsibility of self-governance all by themselves, but isn't it all rather rich of Bush to foist that responsibility on them now, given all that he's done to ruin any hope Iraq may have had of transitioning peacefully to democracy?

This is his war. The civil war now raging in Iraq and threatening the long-term prospects of Iraqi democracy, is a result of that war. It seems to me that the chain of responsibility is clear.

posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at 8:25 AM

Bookmark and Share

6 Comments:

  • Great opening paragraph Michael!

    By Blogger creature, at 6:41 AM  

  • That's a big oy there.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:01 PM  

  • Responsibility is something this president's not very good at. Now implacability - that he has down to a 'T'! I swear - if anyone in Hollywood were ever casting for the role of a rock - George Bush would 'own' the part, hands down!

    By Blogger TFLS, at 11:58 PM  

  • Simply pathetic!!! Get governing, we can say the same about him and his administration about the USA.

    How can he expect them to get governing when there is a civil war raging that he started???

    We need to get the Democrats one of the Houses of Congress this fall, then watch the fun begin. Lets call the investigations and blow the cover off of this administration.

    We simply cannot let this administration go on unchecked as it will set a example for future Presidents of both parties. That if he cam be an imperial President so can he or she.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 5:43 AM  

  • The lack of a response only indicates busy-ness, Nate. And the purpose of the post wasn't to bash Bush but to outline just what's gone wrong in Iraq. If Bush wants to be judged as a war president, if Iraq is his legacy, then he must accept the blame for what went wrong. What in my opening paragraph was wrong?

    What the problem with Bush telling the Iraqis to get governing? Look at what he's done to Iraq! Given how badly he botched the occupation and reconstruction efforts, given how badly the war was planned (failing to establish law and order, to prevent all that looting, to prepare for opposition and insurgency, to account for tensions between Sunnis and Shiites (and among Sunnis and Shiites), how are the Iraqis in any position to govern themselves? They barely even have a workable police force. As I said in my post, the time will certainly come for the Iraqis to govern themselves, to take full responsibility for their own destiny. I just think it's a little rich for Bush to be telling them to do that when things are going badly and when he want to shuffle responsibility onto anyone and everyone but himself.

    By Blogger Michael J.W. Stickings, at 1:19 AM  

  • I wonder what each of you do or have done to make your communities a better place, much less what your prowess is to reverse the myriad of commotion in the international scope of U.S. geo-strategic motivations.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:51 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home