On Hatred, Responsibility and Patriotism.

[NOTE: On yesterday's post entitled "More stomach wrenching. More disgust...", someone posted a reply saying that he or she felt that my hatred of Bush made me attribute responsibility for the horrible events described in that post TO Bush. I began writing a reply, and it got longer and longer and eventually I decided that it was too long to post as a reply to another post, but deserved to be posted as a separate entity unto itself. However, since it is intended as a response to that comment, I have not modified it from the form in which I originally wrote it. --Liam]

No, not particularly. In fact, in the first posting on this topic I specifically said that I didn't think this was something that necessarily went any higher than the men involved.

However...

There are aspects of this which are important to consider. First, we are in a war for no defined reason. There were no WMDs, there is no link between Saddam Hussein and the events of September 11, 2001. There are far more oppressive and evil regimes on the planet right now if we're there for humanitarian reasons. Iraq only became a central front in the war on terror (to the extent that it is one) when we destabilized it and when our continued inept occupation bred increased hatred for us in the region.

Having foolishly spent our armed forces resources on this ill conceived war, instead of actually capturing Osama bin Laden and taking apart his al Qaeda network entirely, we now have the prospect of an increased war on terror (without the support of the world) instead of a limited one (with that support), and our armed forces are getting tired and worn down and new recruits are not joining in anything like the numbers they once did. In order to combat this, the Armed Forces have had to lower their requirements for who they will accept. Many people who would previously have been considered too unstable, too unintelligent, or too old (such as myself) are now eligible under the new guidelines, and that makes for increased possibility of situations like Haditha and this one happening, as people who are either unfit for following orders, or too weak emotionally to withstand the rigors of war without cracking end up in situations they really shouldn't be in.

And so now, instead of staying out of a war we shouldn't have been in, OR going in with sufficient personnel to start with such that we could actually have kept the peace and rebuilt the country in a timely fashion, we have a civil war going on, and we have atrocities like these going on, we have a situation so unbalanced that we can't HELP but breed more and more people ripe for being taught that we are the “Great Satan” and that there is no more noble calling than to martyr themselves in holy jihad against us.

I don't know your situation, but for me, I imagine how I would feel if it was my daughter, or the daughter of one of my friends, that was brutally raped and murdered by members of an occupying armed force. My first reaction wouldn't be “these must be a few bad apples in an otherwise noble force”, my first thought would be “these [unprintable] come into our country, depose our leadership, and now they're raping and murdering our daughters. I'm going to fight them to the last breath of my body, and will raise all of my children to resist them to the ends of THEIR lives”.

So, do I think Bush (or Rumsfeld or the Generals) are directly responsible for this? No. But they do have us in this situation, one which I never agreed with from the start. They continue to bungle it, refusing to either get us the hell out and let the country sort itself out OR send in the number of troops needed to really control the situation on the ground.

Oh, and by the way, you refer to my hatred for Bush, as others have before, as if I am motivated by some blind, irrational hatred without justification. You need to understand, I didn't come by my feelings regarding the man and his administration (I don't believe “hate” is exactly the right word, “fear” might be closer, or a mixture of fear and disgust) due to his politics or anything else preordained. Initially, when he was elected, he was set to be what Jimmy Carter was: An inoffensive President who didn't get much done, but who let us all heal from the tumult of the preceding Administration. I didn't vote for him, but only because I strongly believe the country is safest when the President and the Congress are checking and balancing each other, and I don't believe that properly happens when they're from the same party.

But at some point, Bush and those he surrounds himself with got the idea that they could ignore the Constitution, grow the government (with the support of the party of smaller government), increase Presidential power (with the support or at least acquiescence of the Congress who is thus diminished), and seize and hold power with Orwellian double speak like “No Child Left Behind” (a program which leaves a lot of children behind) and the “Clear Skies Initiative” (which allows far more pollution than was previously allowed).

He brings up political hot topics to divide us, such as gay marriage, flag burning and immigration and mixes in a healthy dose of fear mongering (how many more times can scary things happen just at times when they're most needed to bolster sagging approval numbers before people wise up?) and then tries to define anyone who engages in free speech and dissent as unpatriotic. He relegates dissent to “free speech zones” at his appearances, as though this Constitutionally protected right is something to be regulated or controlled when it is inconvenient. He and his party suggest that certain outlets of the press are treasonous and should perhaps be punished when they report news which may be politically harmful to the President, as though a free press keeping tabs on our elected officials weren't vital to our nation's continued health.

Let us remember that he “won” initially on the basis of fewer votes than Mr. Gore had, not only nationwide, but it's been determined that Mr. Gore actually won Florida, too, on every recount that's been done. One particular group recounted the ballots something like nine different ways, using each of the different proposed standards for determining who the vote was intended for, and in EVERY SINGLE CASE, Gore won the popular election. And then in 2004 he again “won” under extremely suspicious circumstances. Read the RFK jr. piece in Rolling Stone from a month or so back, or most of what's been on the Brad Blog over the last couple of years for a documented list of irregularities, any small number of which might be explainable, but which taken together are hard to dispute as an organized (and successful) attempt to steal a Presidential election. I believe George W. Bush has not been a legitimate President of this nation at any point.

What I don't get is how ANYONE can continue to support the man. Conservatives should abhor his record level spending and insane record setting deficits, as well as the growth of government when at heart conservatives are for smaller government. Constitutionalists should be very frightened of his flagrant disregard for the laws of our land, eschewing the veto as the legal method for disagreeing with a Congressionally passed law for the political equivalent of crossing his fingers and saying that it doesn't really count, thus taking away from Congress the ability to override his veto (since he never made one) and to force him to follow their will as the only government body Constitutionally empowered to pass laws. Environmentalist should note the extent to which he, virtually alone among anyone not in charge of a major company, refuses to accept that we have to do something about pollution and global warming, and indeed has taken us in the OPPOSITE direction in a number of ways. Those who want us to be safer from terrorism should cower in fear at the level of animosity he has built up since the near-universal good will in the aftermath of 9/11, as he has directly been a better recruiting tool for al Qaeda and anti-Americanist groups than anything those groups themselves could have done.

The ONLY people who should like this guy are the leadership of large corporations and perhaps the uber rich, a group of people who together make up far less than 1% of the total citizenry. Our nation should not be run by, or for the benefit of, 1% of us all, and its core principles and values should not be entirely dismantled in the service of those 1%.

There is almost literally no one who should like the job this guy is doing nor the damage he's doing to our country, our name, our reputation, our planet and our future. The sooner he (and those he's thrown himself in with) are out of power, the sooner we can start healing as a nation. Honestly, it seems so very quaint that less than 10 years ago we were all hot and bothered because someone had an ill conceived affair, something that really only affected himself, his wife, and the object of his improper affection. All of that justified impeachment, but yet dismantling the Constitution piece by piece, deficit spending us into ruin and just ignoring any law that doesn't suit him is just fine?

So, does all of that add up to hatred? Or does it add up to honest, patriotic concern? If I try to take a child away from an abusive parent, is it because I hate the parent, or because I care for the well being of the child? Our nation is that child, desperately needing rescue from a most unfit parent, and it is my love for that child which makes me speak out as I do, not some preconceived idea that the parent was a bad person, until his own actions with regard to the child proved him to be so.

Liam.