“In a speech earlier President Bush said if Iraq gets rid of Saddam Hussein, he will help the Iraqi people with food, medicine, supplies, housing, education – anything that’s needed. Isn’t that amazing? He finally comes up with a domestic agenda – and it’s for Iraq. Maybe we could bring that here if it works out.” -Jay Leno

If you were to ask an informed American how the economy, job market, retirement funds, education, stock market, or healthcare is doing, they would tell you things aren’t pretty right now. We’ve got a pathetic economy, millions of jobs lost, too many people without adequate healthcare, and a stock market that specializes in devastating the savings of ordinary folks and allowing insider trading that effectively makes the rich even richer, Let’s be honest. Martha isn’t going to jail anytime soon. If these domestic issues are being ignored, then you must wonder what our government is doing. They are spending billions of dollars to fight terrorism, and not very effectively I might add. Now. I’m no military expert and I myself probably do not have the capabilities to effectively fight terrorism (even though I do my part as an American and adjust my alert levels daily I am on an orange level of alert today which corresponds with a slightly elevated level of fear. Let’s just say I haven’t duct taped my home completely, but I am looking over my shoulder as frequently as possible.) However, I do believe that given enough time, money, military intelligence, and opportunity, a blind man could locate Osama bin Laden. I suppose that George W. Bush’s mother, Barbara, never told him to always finish what you start. If you can’t find one evil terrorist, don’t move onto the next. Chances are that if you can’t find one, you won’t find two,

Our last decent Republican president said that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Even when George W. Bush isn’t spouting off one of his many Bushisms, he is making a fool of himself and the Americans he is representing, When asked about attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, he said, “Bring em on!” No one wants to talk about American soldiers dying in Iraq. Wait, except for our president. He wants to encourage it, He seems to forget these people are mothers, father, sons, daughters, cousins, and friends – not simply wartime sacrifices. I can understand why he wants to take out Saddam Hussein. Bush is already doing his job. How is it that so many of us are baffled by anti-American sentiment? Everyone is just jealous of our superpower, right? Wrong. We’ve burned more bridges than we’ve ever thought of building, In Feb. 2002, Bush referred to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “axis of evil.” He didn’t say the select few who commit terrorist acts or the corrupt leaders are evil. He referred to the entire nations. Perhaps this is the reason there were so many hate crimes against Muslims after September 11. We laid a blanket of prejudice because it’s easier that way. Maybe this is why we can invade countries and kill the innocent, yet we get so angry when the same is done to us. When you are angry with a nation’s government officials or military actions, the solution is not to attack the entire country. Is this not what happened on September 11? We turn around and react in a similar way and count on it never coming back to us.

If for some reason Bush couldn’t understand why our involvement in Iraq wasn’t needed from sheer common sense, perhaps the lack of support should have clued him in. The big countries like Germany and France turned us down so instead of taking that as a hint, we turned around and made ignorant fools of ourselves. Remember “Freedom Fries?” What were we thinking? Well, we were thinking what we’ve been thinking for centuries now. If you don’t agree with us, you’re wrong and you deserve whatever we do to you. This is a scary attitude from the superpower country of the world. At least we rounded up some support from countries like Latvia, Oman, and Qatar. Wait, where exactly are those places? The majority of Americans (besides Colin Powell) don’t know or care. Support is support even coming from a country we’ve never heard of that probably doesn’t have the capabilities needed to wage a war. It makes no sense to me, but very little does these days. How can a president leave office with the biggest surplus in history, only to have the next guy come along and turn that into a billion dollar deficit? Why do you go to war when you really don’t need to, and how do you convince an entire nation they need to be scared…of everything? September 11 was a tragedy, but chances are, you or I won’t be killed in a terrorist attack. However, each and every one of us will affected by the deficit, poor economy, failing job market, and lack of health care. I may never get a decent job or be able to pay for my prescription medication, but at least I won’t be killed by Saddam Hussein. I know I can breathe much easier knowing this. Or maybe I will after we find him.

The war hasn’t been all bad. There was the heroic story of POW Jessica Lynch. The military originally said that Lynch was involved in a fierce gun battle before her capture. A book deal, television movie, and countless other exploitation’s followed. Then Lynch came out with the real story. Her gun jammed and she didn’t even get a shot off. She doesn’t know why the military would tell lies, I think I might have an idea. We’ve been in Iraq for quite some time now. We were given a few thousand reasons as to why. There was the sudden imminent threat that Saddam posed, the need to destroy those weapons of mass destruction, revenge for September 11th since Osama bin Laden suddenly morphed into Saddam Hussein, and there was always a hushed mention of oil. Well, where are the terrorists? Where are those weapons of mass destruction? A little bird must have told Bush that when young American soldiers are being killed in a war that has never been completely justified, it’s time for a heroic war story. Even that didn’t work.

Now, I don’t have all the answers and I don’t know exactly what should be done. However, I do know that are some very valuable lessons to be learned here. We should be realizing that maybe a promiscuous president wasn’t so bad, maybe this situation is going to hit home sooner than we think, and maybe if some things don’t change soon, we will find ourselves in a situation worse than we ever imagined. It is my biggest hope that America in 2004 will realize there are much worse things than changing horses midstream, especially when we shouldn’t be in the stream to begin with and the rider wasn’t elected in the first place.

Copy the Story Link