Is it just me?

Here is my primary beef with Bush: The guy directly and obscenely contradicts himself, often in the same breath. He is intellectually dishonest and a hypocrite of the greatest magnitude.

Before I get any knee-jerk reactions to that last comment:

• No, I am not a major lefty Democrat. I voted Democrat this last election because the Republicans have screwed the pooch so badly these last 8 years and I felt I had to "vote the bums out."
• I have voted for Republicans in the past.
• I know many politicians will contradict themselves, but rarely do they do it so blatantly and in the same breath.
• Yes, I have specific examples to provide...

Just last night in Bush's Farewell Address he said the following (a verbatim quote):

And with strong allies at our side, we have taken the fight to the terrorists and those who support them. Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored Al Qaeda and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school. Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States.

This was done by means of invasion and war. In both nations there have been innocent civilian casualties. No one knows for certain, but the lowest, most conservative estimates I can find on the Iraqi civilian death toll are in the 60,000-90,000 range (and those estimates are months old).

Now I understand that the enemy over there often fires RPGs and mortars from within homes of terrified civilians. I understand almost all of the combat is taking place in urban, close-quarter conditions. I do not in any way condemn our soldiers for doing a very hard job with exceptional professionalism and bravery. I place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the country's political leadership of which Bush is the Commander in Chief.

Not five minutes later in the very same speech Bush goes on to say (another direct quote from the transcripts):

As we address these challenges - and others we cannot foresee tonight - America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

So what exactly did we do by invading a nation like Iraq to advance the ideology of freedom? Was the cause of peace advanced through a war of choice? Did we not kill innocent civilians by the thousands? Is that not the inevitable and utterly predictable outcome of any war?

Afghanistan is different - they actually attacked us whereas Iraq did not attack us nor did they have the WMD that the Administration said they did. They willfully bent intelligence to sell this war in order to advance the ideology of freedom in the Middle East and killed thousands of everyday Iraqi citizens in the process. So, by Bush's own logic: "Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere" is he not condemning the actions he himself ordered?

I fail to see how dropping a 500 lb bomb from miles in the air and killing civilians to promote the ideology of freedom is so different from a car bomb killing innocents to promote any other ideology. It is all murder by Bush's own logic. Meaning well doesn't make the families killed in either form of attack any less dead. It doesn't make the survivors mourn the loss of loved ones any less. It doesn't engender any less hate.

And this bit:

As we address these challenges - and others we cannot foresee tonight - America must maintain our moral clarity.

Moral clarity like Abu Ghraib? Moral clarity like Guantanamo? Moral clarity like secret prisons and renditions? Moral clarity like tapping the phones of your own citizens?

Regardless of where you come down on these issues you have to admit that they are morally murky at best. You have to admit that patriotic Americans of the best intentions and of all political stripes can have honest disagreements about the morality (and legality, for that matter) of the above actions undertaken by this Administration. That is the very antithesis of "moral clarity."

And if you are of the mindset that the "world is grey" (and I would tend to agree), and that moral clarity is at best elusive, then why would you make absolute statements like the ones Bush made in his speech? The contradictions and hypocrisy are built right in by his very own actions as President!

Trouble South of the Border

Mexico has popped up rather prominently on the Joint Operating Environment 2008 report. This is a report published by the United States Joint Forces Command, the military command in charge of almost all conventional forces in the continental U.S.

This report warns of the possible rapid collapse of our neighbors to the south. Currently, towns on the border between the U.S. and Mexico are riddled with violence. Battles between drug cartels and between these cartels and government forces have left these towns in a defacto "failed" cities with little actual authority being exercised from Mexico City. "Failed" being the more palatable word for "anarchy."

Daily security for Mexican citizens is a nightmare in these failed towns. Kidnapping, political corruption, and common crime are nearly unchecked. Given Mexico's 2000 mile border with America and the proximity of the epicenter of this crisis to that border, it is not inconceivable that a refugee crisis could emerge in the near future sending thousands and thousands of Mexican nationals to America seeking safety.

Add this strain to an already historically weak U.S. economy and you have the potential for a crisis to which the government may not be able to effectively respond. If Mexico as a whole fails, this will almost certainly require U.S. intervention. What form this intervention could or would take is uncertain.

What is certain is that any U.S. intervention that involved ground troops, even if only utilized as peacekeepers, would spark grassroots resistance. This resistance may even take on a criminal aspect as the drug cartels would probably prefer a weak Mexican government to any sort of peacekeeping operation with its checkpoints and US/UN soldiers milling about. The prospect of such a hostile environment towards drug running may cause various cartels and criminal gangs to unite.

This is all gross speculation on my part, of course. I don't, however, think that what I have speculated about is beyond the realm of possibility. These days entering failed states (or entering a functioning state and toppling it) is messy, messy business. Iraq and Afghanistan are all the examples you need. Afghanistan had failed before we entered and Iraq afterwards. In both cases our soldiers there are mired down in a political, religious, and sectarian bog from which there is no clear-cut path to victory.

America must learn its lesson from Iraq. We failed to learn the lesson of the defeat we inflicted on the Soviets in Afghanistan during their invasion. The lesson is this: A low intensity, low-cost war waged by guerrilla fighters can bog down the world's best militaries, causing massive financial strain on the invading nation's economy.

This is how the Soviets were laid low and may yet be a very central contributing factor to how America is laid low. This relates to Mexico in that if we manage to extract ourselves from Iraq and Afghanistan without destroying ourselves in the process, it would be pouring gas on the fire to then go and repeat the same mistake in Mexico.

Annexation of Mexico wouldn't work for a variety of reasons. One of the primary reasons would be that if Mexico were made into a state or a series of states within our union, then there would be no restriction on travel for millions of poor and dispossessed Mexicans to travel north looking for opportunity. The infrastructure disparities between the two nations alone would be daunting.
West Germany had a much easier proposition in absorbing East Germany. While German Unification certainly was not easy, they at least had the advantage of a common language and culture from which to start.

No, a failed Mexico is a giant shit sandwich that America would be virtually alone in having to eat.

Bumper Sticker Logic (Cooler War Ammo)

So many people will only grasp and retain "knowledge" if the idea or piece of "knowledge" can fit on a bumper sticker. A classic example of this is the pro-Bush, pro-Iraq, pro-Cowboy Diplomacy argument that goes:

"Well, if Bush is such an idiot then why haven't we been attacked again?"

You could also substitute in "If Iraq isn't a part of the War on Terror then why haven't we been attacked again?" It's essentially the same "argument" (throw in exaggerated air quotes around argument).

Here's the way you respond next time a hawk drops that on you at the water cooler:

1. Make sure they prepare themselves mentally for a response that will take longer than 10 seconds to explain. ("Now you know I'm going to have to talk for longer than ten seconds to explain this to you. Do you think you can handle that without screaming Clinton got a blowjob?")
2. Then tell them that Osama binLaden was a mujahadeen back during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. You may have to explain to them what a mujahadeen is.
3. Next explain that the Afghani mujahadeen bled the Soviets dry economically in Afghanistan, eventually causing the Soviet Union to collapse.
4. Then, go on to explain that 9/11 was a provocation, more or less. binLaden wanted to provoke America into a Middle Eastern war (in Afghanistan). Around this war he could declare another jihad and try to bleed America dry in the same way the Soviets were bled.
5. Unfortunately, the attack was much more successful than he could have imagined. It horrified the world and everyone united behind America. It appeared that his plan had backfired. America, with the aid and backing of the world, would invade Afghanistan. It would not be possible to bleed America dry when calls of jihad would be largely ignored by a horrified Muslim world. In addition to the lack of support binLaden would be getting, America would be assisted by everyone and wouldn't bear the burden of pacifying and rebuilding Afghanistan alone. There was no way the Taliban could protect al Qaeda now.
6. Then, Bush granted a wish binLaden could never have hoped for: he derailed the Afghanistan train and diverted America's resources to Iraq which not only allowed binLaden to evade capture in Afghanistan (a la Tora Bora), but squandered the goodwill of the Muslim world engendered by the horrors of 9/11. It also served to isolate America from her European allies. America would have to go it alone in Iraq.
7. Now America could be bled out in a protracted struggle against a low grade insurgency in Iraq... just like the Soviets were in the 80's in Afghanistan and just like the French were in the 50's and 60's in Algeria.

That's only seven points and it basically sums up the entire case against staying in Iraq. We fell for an old ploy which has destroyed other Western nations in the past.

We cannot afford Iraq. Period. Whatever your ideology we cannot afford it. No matter what you believe or don't believe about this war the simple fact is that we cannot sustain these expenditures much longer. It doesn't matter if you believe the seven points above, either.

Our. Sagging. Economy. Cannot. Afford. This. War.

If we do not begin withdrawing in short order our nation will sink into an economic depression like we've never seen before.

That's my ray of sunshine for the day.