WHO'S TO BLAME?
The United States and a fair portion of the
rest of
the world has a serious problem that isn't going to go away for a
while. It is called IRAQ. The Bush administration created the
problem, turning from a widely supported war against terrorists
to an
unprovoked invasion of an Islamic country, for reasons that, it
has
become increasingly obvious, were outright lies. Far from
reducing
terrorism, this attack thrust a relatively stable country into
chaos,
multiplying terrorist recruitment and motivation manyfold. It
will be
our most costly war ever, and has earned us the disapproval of
most of
the world
The lies, the deceptio
ns, and the instances of poor judgement
by the Bush administration could fill several pages, but that is
beside the point.
The ultimate blame for this mess belongs to us. We, the people
allowed it to happen. We could have prevented it, and we
didn't.
When I say 'we', I'm not implying that I personally ever voted
for
Bush or believed we should invade Iraq. But the majority did,
and
should have known better.
We are entirely too focused on party politics. When it comes to
foreign policy, and when it comes to honesty, it doesn't matter
whether the President is Democrat or Republican, liberal or
conservative. If a President is making an unwise choice in
foreign
relations, and if he is lying to Congress and the voters, party
loyalty should not matter.
Our democratic republic provides us much more freedom than we
would
otherwise have, but it also makes us responsible for its
government.
We can't have it both ways The Consititution cannot guarantee
honest
or wise leaders. We must constantly watch them and hold them
accountable, remembering that power tends to corrupt, and we must
not
be surprised when corruption happens.
We must also remember that politicians are not inherently wiser
or
more intelligent than everyone else. We have the tools at hand
to
supervise elected officials: a free press and freedom of speech
enabling us to strongly influence our government even between
elections.
When there was time to stop the Iraq invasion before it started,
our
Congress let us down, the news media sould have investigated and
reported the facts more thoroughly, but in the end, we let
ourselves
down.