Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (42073)	4/10/2004 12:23:48 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 89467

COLUMNIST MAUREEN DOWD: Face it, Mr. President: Everything's going wrong WASHINGTON - Maybe after high-definition TV, they'll invent high-dudgeon TV, a product so realistic you can lunge through the screen and shake the Bush officials when they say something maddening about Sept. 11 or Iraq or when they engage in egregious character assassination. It would come in handy for Condoleezza Rice's Clarke-riposting 9-11 commission testimony. And I was desperately wishing for it Wednesday, when Donald Rumsfeld held forth at a Pentagon briefing. Even though the assumptions the Bush administration used to go to war have now proved to be astonishingly arrogant, naive and ideological, Rumsfeld is as testy and Delphic as ever about the fragility of Iraq. "We're trying to explain how things are going, and they are going as they are going," he said, adding: "Some things are going well, and some things obviously are not going well. You're going to have good days and bad days." On the road to democracy, this "is one moment, and there will be other moments. And there will be good moments, and there will be less good moments." Calling the families of more than 30 young Americans killed this week in the confusing hell of Iraq must be a less good moment. Our troops in Iraq don't know who they're fighting and who they're saving. They don't know when they're coming home or when they're being forcibly re-upped by Rummy. Our diplomats in Baghdad don't know who they're handing the country over to in June. And Bush officials don't know where to go for help, since the military's tapped out, the allies have cold feet, the Arab world's angry, and the rest of the globe is thinking, "You got what you deserved." The Marines had to fire rockets at a mosque in Falluja used by the Shiite followers of the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and the hospitals are filled with civilians. Instead of playing soccer with kids, now the Marines have to worry that the kids are the enemy, spotting targets or wielding guns. Paul Wolfowitz assumed that the Shiites, tormented by Saddam over their religion, would be grateful, not hateful. Wrong. It isn't a cakewalk; it's chaos. Every single thing the administration calculated would happen in Iraq has turned out the opposite. The WMD that supposedly threatened us did not exist. The dangerous dictator was deluded and writing romance novels. The terrorism that would be thwarted has mushroomed in Iraq and is feeding Arab radicalism. Rumsfeld thought invading Iraq would exorcise America's Vietnam syndrome, its squeamishness about using force. Instead, it has raised the specter of another Vietnam, where our courageous troops don't understand the culture, can't recognize the enemy and don't have an exit strategy. And the administration spins the war every day. Rummy also thought he could show off his transformation of the military, using a leaner force. Now even some Republicans say he is putting our troops at risk by stubbornly refusing to admit he was wrong. Dick Cheney thought fear was better than weak-kneed diplomacy, that if America whacked one Arab foe, all the others would cower. Wrong. The Iraq invasion has multiplied and emboldened our enemies. Cheney and Rumsfeld thought America should flex its hyperpower muscles, castrating the United Nations and blowing off multilateral arrangements. Now the administration may have to crawl back for help. The hawks thought they could establish a democracy that would produce a domino effect in the Arab world. Wrong. The dominoes are falling in a scarier direction. The president thought he could improve on the ending to his father's gulf war. Wrong again. grandforks.com