A Level Gaze

A Level Gaze

"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual."
--G.C. Lichtenberg

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Can't we just let bygones be bygones?

Update: transcript now available, some additional material.

Toward the beginning of the SOTU, when Bush discussed the war, he obliquely referenced his critics, then dismissed them as useless. To paraphrase: "We've got a war to win. How on earth can you waste our precious time and energy talking about how we got here? Support the troops!"

Here's the bit that rattled my cage:

In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.

(APPLAUSE)

Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country and show that a pledge from America means little.

(APPLAUSE)

With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor.

Members of Congress, however we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.

First of all, note the rhetorical sleight-of-sledgehammer: any criticism = call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. No, no, no. Not true. Stop saying that. Some people are actually capable of believing both that the administration should be held accountable for its actions and that we need to work out the best possible plan for our involvement in Iraq, all while maintaining the utmost reverence for the men and women who daily risk our lives on our behalf.

Bush has a lot to answer for. A majority of Americans "believe [Bush's] administration deliberately misled the public about Iraq's purported weapons program before the U.S. invasion in 2003" according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released last week. The stark, willful illegality of the NSA wiretaps grows more obvious by the day. We are holding prisoners with neither due process nor the protections of prisoner of war status. We torture many of them, and cause many others to be tortured. We've bombed and shot an untold number of civilians. We don't have proper equipment for our troops, many of whom are in harm's way long beyond the term of service to which they agreed. I could go on.

The assertion that even so much as a Congressional investigation into whether we were misled into war would meaningfully detract from our efforts in Iraq is absurd. It is more absurd coming from the head of an administration that insists that our armed forces and intelligence services are more than equal to the challenge in Iraq. It is still more absurd coming from the head of an administration that insists that the war does not meaningfully impair our ability to respond to serious security threats elsewhere in the world. It is especially absurd coming from a man who promised to bring accountability back to the executive branch on the back of the movement that impeached his predecessor over a blowjob.

I've got news for the administration: If we frog-marched the lot of you out of office and into Leavenworth for life, we'd still be able to finish the job in Iraq. Hell, we'd probably do a better job without you.

Imagine if the man who caused a huge toxic chemical spill through arrogant negligence said something like, "Look, we can go round and round about why this happened, but the fact is, we've got a lot of bodies to bury, and a lot of repairs to make. Don't you understand how serious this is?"

That's about as dumbfounded as I feel right now.

posted by David at 1/31/2006 10:31:00 PM ::

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