Some food for thought for my Asia-Pacific sections today (by way of Prof. Armstrong): Historian John Dower compares the Iraq imbroglio to Japanese expansion in Manchuria. Before rejecting his argument outright, at least consider the source. Dower knows a great deal about America’s experiences in postwar Japan — more, I’d wager, than anybody working in the Dubya administration.
Tag: Dubya Diplomacy
Zero Intelligence.
“‘Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration — what I call the “dancing in the street crowd,” that we just simply will be greeted with open arms,’ [Republican Richard] Lugar said. ‘The nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent.'” A new intelligence report declares that, despite Dubya’s dog-and-pony show, things are looking worse in Iraq. “At worst, the official said, were ‘trend lines that would point to a civil war.’” Bang-up job, Dubya, as usual. “‘It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous,’ said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska,” referring to the administration’s disbursement of reconstruction money thus far. After getting us into this fiasco, the least the Bushies could have done was try to manage it properly. We must get these fools out of office already.
Coalition of the Disgusted.
Aside from the Philippines, Nigeria, and Poland, the world wants John Kerry by a landslide. Undecided voters out there, you know how you can “Ask the Audience” on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when you’re stumped? Consider it like that.
Fighting Mad.
“‘Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty,’ Kerry said. ‘Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions [in] government contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you’re still on their payroll makes you unfit.’” It’s about freakin’ time we got some push-back…now just wait until the Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth ads start airing.
Dubya Distilled.
Well, with talk of deregulation, privatizing Social Security, tax code “simplification”, anti-gay and pro-life rhetoric, “Hollywood value” and “activist judge” hectoring…all punctuated by that off-putting and consistently out-of-place chimp smirk, you can’t say Dubya didn’t warn us about his plans for a ultra-conservative second term last night. (And for a man who was heroic enough to stop circling Nebraska and venture down to Ground Zero three long days after 9/11, he seemed amazingly ready to bolt-and-run at the sign of one measly protestor.)
Not much was said about Dubya’s first four years in office, of course, aside from 9/11 (9/11, 9/11) and the usual conflation of Al Qaeda and Saddam. But, really, what can he say? Deficits through the roof, the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, 1000 men and women dead in a needless diversion of a war…His administration has been an embarrassment of historic proportions. And it is time for him to go. (Dubya video via I’m Just Sayin’.)
Immigrant Song.
“If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.” If you believe that rich people deserve tax breaks while the middle-class struggle harder and the poor send their kids to war, then you are a Republican. If you believe that cutting First Responder, Homeland Security, and Nunn-Lugar funding, lying bald-faced to our allies before the UN, letting Osama Bin Laden disappear into the caverns of Afghanistan, and contriving a casus belli to start a war in Iraq that has further alienated the moderate Muslim world is sound anti-terror strategy, then you are a Republican. If you believe an extramarital blow job is an impeachable offense, but dissembling to the American people about war is hunky-dory, then you are a Republican. If you believe God loves you, but He hates gays, liberals, and foreigners, then you are a Republican. If you’re an immigrant bodybuilder who made it to the top of his field through hard work, discipline, and the judicious application of enough steroids to kill a small horse, then you are a Republican. And if you’re a serial groper who was befuddled enough to think Nixon was a good idea in 1968 and who somehow earnestly believes that the GOP hasn’t moved much further right since the days of Tricky Dick, then you are Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Offsides.
Iraq’s Olympic soccer team ask to be removed from Bush re-election ads. “‘My problems are not with the American people,’ says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. ‘They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything.'” Sorry, y’all…it’s just that Dubya has very little to fall back on these days. It’s not like he can campaign on his domestic record.
The Final Straw.
Postponing Election Day?!? You must be joking. Are “the terrorists” going to infiltrate every middle school gymnasium and public library in the country, counting extra votes for Kerry and offsetting Dubya’s Diebold advantage? We held elections in this nation in 1864, 1944, 1968…surely we can handle 2004.
Whatsmore, what’s all this talk of terrorists determining the election anyway? When are the Bushies going to realize that Osama Bin Laden and his ilk probably prefer Dubya in office? No other man could have so brazenly squandered the enormous international reservoir of post-9/11 goodwill, so thoroughly fractured the natural alliance of the West against terrorism, or so decisively set the moderate Muslim world against the United States. For Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush is a godsend. For three and a half long years, he’s been a divider, not a uniter.
Postponing Election Day…my Lord, what tripe. Yes, I know Homeland Security is covering its bases by arguing that they’re just thinking out loud. Well, it’s still a terrible idea, and a particularly tone-deaf one coming from an administration who came into office so ignominiously with Bush v. Gore. Forget Warren Harding or even Richard Nixon — this presidency has earned its place since that 5-4 decision as the most corrupt in our nation’s history. They have to be shown the door on Election Day, and not a day later.
Silent Lucidity.
In the dead of night (EST), and quieter than the Teddy Bear’s picnic, the Bushies handed Iraq over to the interim government two days early. I agree with Slate‘s Fred Kaplan – this actually seems like a good call for once by the Bushies. I guess they already figured out how much trouble the “Mission Accomplished” banner can cause.
And yet outmaneuvered.
Unfortunately, the diplomatic savvy on display in this surreptitious Iraq transfer hasn’t extended to other world hotspots, as Kaplan notes with North Korea. “By his own careless arrogance,” writes Kaplan, Dubya “has stunningly mishandled this confrontation. He has allowed North Korea—the most rickety spoke on his “axis of evil,” a dangerous regime by any measure — to reach the crest of becoming a nuclear power. He has dismissed numerous opportunities to nip this disaster in the bud. And now he comes up with an old formula that evades the recent shift in the balance.” (The disarmament deal proffered by the Bushies now is insubstantially different from the one suggested by President Clinton a decade ago, the one pooh-poohed by Dubya upon his arrival into the Oval Office.)