Iraq Unraveling
Where did it go so wrong?
You know things have got to be bad if I, a supporter of the war in Iraq, am starting to believe that the Bush administration has screwed things up so badly that we may now have reached a point where things in Iraq are not salvageable.
I'm not going to quibble about whether it was right to invade Iraq or not, that deed has been done and like it or not it is now reality. What can now be determined is whether the Bush administration has allowed things to deteriorate so precipitously that Iraq has become a failed state, and has the United States to blame for its lot. The Bush administration, and specifically Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have utterly and completely failed the American and Iraqi people in the aftermath of the war by failing to provide for security and stability in Iraq. This in turn has led to an Iraq with no central authority and the regions spinning out of control.
By failing to stop the looting and destruction of central governmental authority in Iraq after the war the US lost the confidence of the Iraqi people and since that point has done little to nothing to get it back. Month after month the US-led Coalition Authority undermined itself with ridiculous and poorly thought-out policies like the blanket disbanding of the Iraqi armed forces and the removal of all Baath party members from power. By doing so the CPA removed the two main sources of stability in Iraq and created a power vacuum by failing to provide an alternative.
Rumsfeld added to this chaos by refusing to authorize an adequate level of US troops which would be necessary to maintain stability in Iraq. As the situation deteriorated monthly Rumsfeld and Bush assured the American people and the world that things were getting better in Iraq while ignoring the storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
The culture of arrogance and lack of respect for international covenants like the Geneva Conventions has come around to haunt the Bush Administration. More than 50 years of patiently tying the United States into the community of nations and encouraging respect for human rights, international consensus, multinational institutions and respect for our allies has been destroyed. As a student of International Relations I stand aghast at the mess this administration, with its "with me or against me" attitude has made of United States international statecraft.
But more than scholarly disgust I am appalled as a US citizen at the culture of lawlessness in the military today. One can blame the individual soldiers themselves, and I do, but this all started in the White House and the Defense Department after 9/11 with orders like the one that any US citizen can be declared an "enemy combatant" and detained for as long as the President wants, with no access to counsel and no respect for constitutionally guaranteed rights. Now the same lack of respect for law and decency has percolated down into the lower ranks of the US Armed Forces and the situation at Abu Ghraib is only the tip of the iceberg.
The repulsive level of arrogance and deceit in this administration is astounding. They all seem to be living in some kind of Alice in Wonderland world where facts, rules and truth have no relevance. Bush says Rumsfeld is doing a "superb" job and that the prisons in Iraq will keep operating. Rumsfeld assures us he would have done nothing different if he could re-do anything and that Iraq is on its way to becoming a stable and functioning democracy. Condoleeza Rice assures us she was all about Al-Qaeda when she had no idea who Al-Qaeda was when she came into office.
The only answer to this mess and to the threats presented to this country is the removal of the Bush administration from power in November 2004. At every election I hear "this is the most important election of our lifetime" and stated too often that can easily become a cliché. But at this point I truly believe this is a statement of fact. We are facing a hideous and evil threat to the very essence of what America means, not only to the world but to ourselves as American citizens and the only way to stop it is to vote this gang of self-righteous, evil and corrupt old fascists out of office in November. God help us if we fail in this task.
1:15:43 PM 
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