IF YOU BUY THE IDEA THAT IRAQ IS AND HAS BEEN CENTRAL TO THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM, PERHAPS YOU WOULD ALSO LIKE TO BUY SOME STOCK IN A FEW OLD DOTCOM STARTUPS.
As a kid growing up, I was exposed to the advertising slogans designed to sell me something or other. Not much has changed in the intervening years except that advertising slogans have been used by this administration in order to sell the American people policies that perhaps are not in our best interest.
Our sons and daughters have been, killed and wounded and continue to put in harms way, our treasure drained, and our constitution violated for the expediency of "the war on global terror." It did me no harm to be convinced that "there is a Ford in my future," or that "Wheaties is the breakfast of champions." There is the selling of things, and there is THE SELLING OF THINGS. They are at times not the same.
A usual digression:
I returned to Columbia Pictures in 1970 leaving CBS/Viacom. The inept management of Columbia had lead this once glorious motion picture company into very near insolvency, and there was absolutely no reason to believe that the guys responsible for this "sinking ship" were in any way equipped to re-build the company. This was in 1972.
As Columbia was poised to collapse, I attended a management meeting when they unveiled their production slate of movies that were in various forms of production which was followed by a screening of their best hope of redemption, a musical version of their classic film, Lost Horizon. Following the 120 minutes of pain watching the movie, I wondered how I would pay the rent when Columbia Pictures slipped into oblivion. The shareholders replaced the management, and in the intervening years, the company has prospered.
The management of The United States of America have screwed up big time, and until the recent mid-term elections, the American public has had no opportunity to express their displeasure with this administration.
The defenders of our government continue to espouse their mantra that Iraq is "The Center of the Global War on Terrorism," or "TCGWOT."
If there was a place that could be considered to be TCGWOT when we went into this war that it was not Iraq? Iraq might not have been the finest of democratic nations, but at least it was a stable country.
Will one of the broadcasting or cable news people ask the administration spokespeople to give America a time line and an explanation of just when, why, and how Iraq became TCGWOT. I would adore it if David Gregory would ask Tony Snow this question during a press briefing. I would like to see Snow try and worm his way out of it.
I do understand my naiveté in saying this, but it would be the right thing to do for this administration to take responsibility for having gone to war for the wrong reasons, and followed this up with the inept pursuit of regaining stability in a nation that was stable and without terrorists when we invaded it.
Our President and his people decided that they wanted to make omelets. They broke the eggs, put them in a bowl, and used an egg beater to scramble the eggs. They now find themselves in a position of no longer wanting the eggs this way, so they have their minions running around complaining that the Democrats have no plan of returning the eggs to their original condition.
The administrations failures in Iraq are significant. It would be a nice thing if the government that was responsible for creating what we are now faced with would just RESIGN.
We have become an aggressor nation who violates its own constitution and laws, spies on its people, tortures and becomes upset at other nations that to take issue with our policies.
The President has "cut and run" and has escaped to a conference in Asia. It is funny in a strange way that our President did all that he could to avoid service and going to Vietnam during the war, and he now goes there willingly, almost 40 years later.
Our kids are dying and being blown apart in Iraq TODAY, and he is at a conference.
Good Grief!
Norman Horowitz