The "Blame Game"
It’s easy to blame Bush for everything that’s gone in Iraq, but as Moisés Naím the editor of Foreign Policy magazine points out, there’s a lot of blame to go around.
In his commentary in the LA Times today, Naim also shows that the media, Democrats, Republicans, anti-corruption groups, human rights groups, international leaders, Arab leaders, and others also share the blame.
He writes, “It is important to learn that whatever the threat — terrorism included — no government should be afforded the latitude enjoyed by the Bush administration. The media — both reporters and commentators — are among the prime culprits here. The promise that democracy would spread from a liberated Iraq, for example, was as poorly scrutinized as the notion advanced by the administration that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the war against terror.”
“It is not just that intelligence agencies were too willing to confirm the "facts" that their political bosses wanted to hear. Many Democrats were too frightened of appearing "soft on terror" and thus signed political and military blank checks to an administration prone to overdrafts. Blinded by partisanship, congressional Republicans were subservient to the White House's wishes even when these wishes contradicted age-old Republican values such as fiscal conservatism. Fearing irrelevance, U.S. diplomats were too quick to accept the notion that negotiated approaches on Iraq had run their course. Some journalists were so deferential to official sources that their reports seemed almost stenographic.”
He concludes by saying, “but perhaps the ultimate enabler was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. In the U.S., the shock and pain caused by the attacks fed the widespread notion that "business as usual" in American foreign policy was no longer an option. They also led to the renouncing of fundamental principles that never should have been abandoned. Many basic rights, including safeguards against indefinite detention without charges, were cast aside as obsolete notions for a nation fighting a global war on terror.”
This is a very good point. After 9/11 this country was in a state of shock, and this enabled Bush to get away with what he did, even to the point of undermining our basic fundamental values.
America is now slowly waking up and realizing that we’ve been had. Once again, people are starting to ask some very serious questions.
But what happens if (when) we have another terrorist attack in this country. Have we learned from our mistakes in how we reacted the first time?
Or will such an act result in a Bush re-election and the continued abandonment of our principles?
The answer to that question may come quicker than we’d like.
In his commentary in the LA Times today, Naim also shows that the media, Democrats, Republicans, anti-corruption groups, human rights groups, international leaders, Arab leaders, and others also share the blame.
He writes, “It is important to learn that whatever the threat — terrorism included — no government should be afforded the latitude enjoyed by the Bush administration. The media — both reporters and commentators — are among the prime culprits here. The promise that democracy would spread from a liberated Iraq, for example, was as poorly scrutinized as the notion advanced by the administration that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the war against terror.”
“It is not just that intelligence agencies were too willing to confirm the "facts" that their political bosses wanted to hear. Many Democrats were too frightened of appearing "soft on terror" and thus signed political and military blank checks to an administration prone to overdrafts. Blinded by partisanship, congressional Republicans were subservient to the White House's wishes even when these wishes contradicted age-old Republican values such as fiscal conservatism. Fearing irrelevance, U.S. diplomats were too quick to accept the notion that negotiated approaches on Iraq had run their course. Some journalists were so deferential to official sources that their reports seemed almost stenographic.”
He concludes by saying, “but perhaps the ultimate enabler was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. In the U.S., the shock and pain caused by the attacks fed the widespread notion that "business as usual" in American foreign policy was no longer an option. They also led to the renouncing of fundamental principles that never should have been abandoned. Many basic rights, including safeguards against indefinite detention without charges, were cast aside as obsolete notions for a nation fighting a global war on terror.”
This is a very good point. After 9/11 this country was in a state of shock, and this enabled Bush to get away with what he did, even to the point of undermining our basic fundamental values.
America is now slowly waking up and realizing that we’ve been had. Once again, people are starting to ask some very serious questions.
But what happens if (when) we have another terrorist attack in this country. Have we learned from our mistakes in how we reacted the first time?
Or will such an act result in a Bush re-election and the continued abandonment of our principles?
The answer to that question may come quicker than we’d like.
posted by Zack at 10:17 AM
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