July 22, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

BOSTON GLOBE: BUSH FOREIGN POLICY A DISASTER

Lord, it took a while, but the major media are finally acknowledging what many of us knew years ago: that George W. Bush has been a disaster on the international stage. It's not only that he has squandered U. S. lives and U. S. resources, or that he has made generations of enemies; he has committed war crimes. When you look at the record of torture, the massaged intelligence and outright lies, and the horrendous loss of innocent life in Iraq I don't think you can reach any other conclusion. Bush and Cheney are war criminals. This editorial is at www.boston.com:

Bush called for a humble foreign policy as a candidate. But he and his advisers -- especially Vice President Dick Cheney -- believed from the start that America was so much stronger than all possible competitors that it need not be constrained from acting unilaterally whenever it saw the need. Bush has broken with predecessors of both parties, who sought security in strong alliances, support for the United Nations, diplomatic engagement with dangerous rivals, and respect for international treaties. And when deciding on fateful policies, Bush has often disdained to take into account the cultural and historical conditions specific to key countries.

In practice, that attitude has resulted in one calamity after another: the breakout of Iranian influence, unnecessary tensions with Russia, Bush's refusal to demand a quick halt to last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah, US disavowal of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Kyoto protocol, and six years of declining to stem the tide of extremism by actively seeking to broker a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians.

Clearly Iraq is Bush's greatest failure. Whether the many-sided conflicts raging there are the inevitable consequence of the US invasion or whether they stem from incoherent post-invasion policies, the result is the same: Sunni Arabs and Shi'ites are slaughtering each other. Al Qaeda in Iraq, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden's gang, is sending suicide bombers to blow up mosques and markets, police stations, and US vehicles. With jihadist partners, the group has declared an Islamic State of Iraq in the west of the country. Disparate Shi'ite militias, each with its own source of Iranian backing, are killing Sunnis and Americans and fighting each other for local dominance.

IRAQ IS BUSH'S FAULT

We had the extraordinary spectacle of an undersecretary of defense criticizing Senator Hillary Clinton, suggesting the Senator's criticisms of the Iraq war were aiding the enemy. I have little doubt the attack on Senator Clinton emanated from the White House or from Dick Cheney. The greatest enabler of the enemy has been the Bush administration, who started this unnecessary war, and who have bungled everything since. Of course, the defense profiteers are happy. This commentary from Keith Olbermann is at www.truthout.org:

The selection of the wrong war, in the wrong time, in the wrong place - the most disastrous geopolitical tactic since Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia in 1914 and destroyed itself in the process - that had nothing to do with the overwhelming crisis Iraq has become. It isn't Mr. Bush's fault.

The criminal lack of planning for the war - the total "jump-off-a-bridge-and-hope-you-can-fly" tone to the failure to anticipate what would follow the deposing of Saddam Hussein - that had nothing to do with the chaos in which Iraq has been enveloped. It isn't Mr. Bush's fault.

The utter, blinkered idiocy of "staying the course," of sending Americans to Iraq and sending them a second time, and a third and a fourth, until they get killed or maimed - the utter de-prioritization of human life, simply so a politician can avoid having to admit a mistake - that had nothing to do with the tens of thousand individual tragedies darkening the lives of American families, forever. It isn't Mr. Bush's fault.

The continuing, relentless, remorseless, corrupt and cynical insistence that this conflict somehow is defeating or containing or just engaging the people who attacked us on 9/11, the total "Alice Through the Looking Glass" quality that ignores that in Iraq, we have made the world safer for al-Qaida - it isn't Mr. Bush's fault!