I got up this morning and read the news online while drinking my coffee. Was immediately depressed and disheartened that President Bush — after his daring and very brave overseas (well, actually, he didn’t quite make it to Europe) trip to meet with the only two countries he already has on his side — has all but declared that he will invade Iraq this week.
All day, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the things wrong with the situation the world is now facing. After the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001, I’d say most people had an inkling that the world was going to become a much more dangerous and unstable place. How sad it is that the country most responsible for leading us all down that path has been the United States of America. Now we find ourselves teetering on the precipice, and George Bush is getting ready to shove us all over the edge.
Americans seem to be “rallying around the President,” as the irrepressible Cokie Roberts explained today on National Public Radio, citing a Gallup poll showing that Americans now support going to war with Iraq by a margin of 2-1. I’m not even going to bother checking on the veracity of those comments, since most of the rest of America won’t either — so does it really matter if they accurately show the mood of the country? Cokie also explained that the same poll shows Americans now hate the French.
By the way, does anyone know anything about New Zealand’s immigration policy?
At some point today, I flashed back to the beginning of the first Gulf War. I was staying at my dad’s place in Anchorage, on holiday break from college, glued to CNN, of course. I remember being anxious about the conflict in the days before the war started, and in awe of being able to see so much live on television. But I wasn’t anywhere near as deeply pessimistic as I am now.
Although I’m not optimistic, I truly hope America hasn’t really fucked things up. I hope that people and nations who until recently looked to America as a reasonably fair and rational nation will one day soon feel that way again. I hope I’m wrong in my expectations of the consequences of this war, and that somehow, someway, the people prosecuting this conflict will manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat and do right.
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I think Dubya’s pretty much messed it up for America, both domestically and abroad. And I’d hardly say we’re all “rallying around” him here–at least not in my neighborhood.
It comes as no surprise that this priveleged rich guy who grew up believing he and his are above the law, has no respect for the rule of law–disregarding our own Constitution and international process if they are in the way of his personal goals.
Why bomb Iraq? So he can hand out the contracts to rebuild it to his buddies. The rich get richer and the Dixie Chicks aren’t the only ones who are ashamed that our president is from Texas.