Here is all the evidence anyone will ever need to indict this president for failure, massive, unredeemable failure. His mindset is clear. Let no fact, no reality, no reason, no event intrude on his version of events. Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for killing almost 3,000 Americans is not, in the words of George W. Bush, "a top priority use of American resources."
Instead we fight a war in Mesopotamia, the cradle of Western Civilization and George W. Bush's grave of choice for thousands of Americans. Make no mistake about it, Iraq was his choice. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. And the world and region were both better off with Hussein--vile despot that he was notwithstanding--ruler of a united Iraq.
Now we all have front row seats for the civil war there, one George W. Bush unleashed because Osama bin Laden, as so many of us have said time and time again, just wasn't that important to Bush.
And to think they called us fools, radicals, peaceniks, traitors?
We were right all along, and there's no joy in it at all. Just pointless misery, death and destruction. All brought on by a little, insecure man who had to prove he was tougher than his father.
Could Sophocles or Aeschylus have woven this tale any better?
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Darfur Tragedy
Winston-Salem Journal
Time is running out for the international community to do something to stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the violence that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since February 2003 is very likely to get even worse.
In August, the U.N. Security Council rightly voted to send a peacekeeping force into Darfur at the end of this month. It was supposed to replace a relatively small, poorly equipped and inadequately financed African Union force that has been trying, with little success, to enforce a cease-fire. But the Security Council resolution apparently meant nothing, because it said that a U.N. force would be sent in only with the consent of the government of Sudan.
The government of Sudan, which is widely believed to have been backing the militias that have been carrying out the atrocities, has unsurprisingly refused, saying that a U.N. force would violate its sovereignty.
More than two years ago, the U.S. State Department and the United Nations called what was happening in Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Darfur has been compared to Rwanda, not only because of the widespread, vicious attacks, but also because most of the world seems not to care.
The killing started after insurgents from some black, non-Arab Muslim tribes rebelled against the government in Khartoum. In response, the government allowed nomadic Arab Muslim militias, called Janjaweed, to attack the black tribes and drive them out of the desert region along Sudan's border with Chad, where they had been eking out a meager existence. The militias have systematically massacred people of all ages, raped women, burned villages and sent millions to refugee camps, where they still are not safe.
In May, the largest rebel group and the Sudanese government signed an agreement to end the civil war, but that has not stopped all attacks. The African Union force, running out of money and unable to enforce the cease-fire, is set to leave when its mandate runs out on Sept. 30.
Without a peacekeeping force at all, a renewed bloodbath is almost certain. The Bush administration and the United Nations have said many of the right things about Darfur, but they must back up their words with deeds. The United States should exert all the diplomatic muscle that it can. The United Nations should consider sending in a force without the consent of the Sudanese government. If nothing else, the United States, the European Union and other nations should give the African Union force whatever it needs to stay and do a better job in Darfur. Otherwise, the world will once again be shrugging its shoulders at genocide.
Actually I have a lot to say about it, but don't really know how to express it.
In 2004, I did some campaign work for Kerry-Edwards. One of the things we did was spend the day at a couple of rallies with John Edwards.
I had the opportunity to meet several remarkable women on that day, including Kristen Breitweiser and General Claudia Kennedy.
I remember Kristen Breitweiser telling me that she was angry about the war being waged on the back of the victims of 9/11, and that the loved ones of service men and women were so heroic for speaking against the Bush Administration. This is from a woman who VOTED for him in 2000.
I had previously told her that I was there to give a friend support, and that we were military families, my son being in bootcamp, and not yet having been deployed to Iraq. I think of her, and our conversation, every time I hear something like this.
I think of my son, her husband, and the other people who have been affected by this insanity on a very personal level, and I am so angry.
There is plenty to say about the politics of this. There is lots to say about the ethics of this and the psychological and literary parallels.
I can only think about the human cost and the humanity squandered, and wonder who will pay for the waste.
To put him in the best light he is the character Stephen Colbert plays on his Comedy Central show. Well intentioned, out of touch, clueless, idiot.
The "evil" things people attribute to him should rightfully be attributed to Karl Rove, the evil little garden gnome, and DICK Cheney.
They have even some of the most staunch Republicans up in arms and writing books attacking their incompetence and it kind of scares me that I am agreeing with conservatives like John Dean and even Pat Buchannan. Hell that annoying Tucker Carlson who annoys the hell out of me even made some points about the futility of trying to export democracy, etc.
......I guess maybe the Democrats agree that Osama is not all that important?????