While the Democrats snipe at each other over similar platforms, and the Republican candidate can’t remember who the enemy is, the anniversary of America’s most disastrous foreign policy mistake is upon us.
It was this week on March 20, 2003, when the smug and cocky George “Worst president ever” Bush and Dick “Head” Cheney decided against good military advice, to rain bombs on and destroy the infrastructure of Iraq and open a Pandora’s Box of perilous times for this Nation. This was the beginning of a preventative war that was unnecessary and what will serve as Bush’s pathetic legacy.
Saddam Hussein, as we now know, had no part in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon; he possessed no weapons of mass destruction, and he posed no great threat to the security of the United States.
Now what did we do in Iraq? We deposed and executed a brutal despot, but in the process destabilized Iraq. Then we opened the door for al-Qaeda terrorists to establish a foothold in a country where they could not have operated under Saddam. We destabilized the entire region by emboldening Iraq’s most dangerous enemy Iran. We are now involved in an occupation of Iraq and the majority of the Iraqi people don’t want us there. The majority of Americans at home are calling for an end to this madness and for our troops to return home. Levels of violence had dropped during the surging of another 30 to 50 thousand troops sent to the Iraq, but now that violence is starting to spike up with more suicide bombings in Baghdad this week.
So now that we will have a new administration in less than a year how do we end this quagmire that spills American and Iraqi blood daily and bankrupts this country? So far none of the three remaining candidates has a satisfactory answer to that.
So far Clinton and Obama have spent more time on telling us who voted for the war than how they plan to end it. Okay, Hillary, you were spineless and rubber-stamped the Bush plan, without doing the research. Obama, you weren’t able to vote one way or the other because you were not in the senate, and felt no pressure of being bullied to go along with the GOP.
McCain’s plan is more of the same - war without regard to how we are going to pay for it, or how we're going to protect our troops from roadside bombs.
None of the candidates have a credible plan to proceed. Rigid timeline withdrawals will not help, and a blank check approach to this war is no longer an option either. The candidates need to begin talking about how America will proceed in world affairs after the Bush / Cheney regime is gone.
I want to live in a America that will:
No longer be in the business of preemptive wars and nation building.
No longer be in the business of torture.
No longer be in the business of kidnapping people and sending them to secret prisons.
No longer be in the business of propping up repressive regimes because they allow business to operate in their countries without regard for human rights.
No longer appoint incompetent yes men like FEMA’s “Heck of a job Brownie” or Secretary of Defense Donald Dumbsfield over qualified people who could do the job right.
No longer disregard the basic human rights that are in the Geneva Convention.
No longer disregard the Fourth Amendment and end unsupervised wiretapping of Americans.
No longer propose amendments to the Constitution to limit the rights of Americans on the basis of sexual orientation.
No longer allows a few giant media conglomerates to control the internet or the airwaves.
No longer depend on foreign oil.
No longer put corporate interests above American interests.
No longer run huge war deficits and cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals.
All right Mr. and Mrs. Candidate, your turn to respond.
Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.
