The American voters have registered their dissatisfaction with the failures of the Republican-led Senate and House to do their jobs. Both branches of Congress have failed miserably to hold George W. Bush and his lackey advisors accountable on the American invasion of Iraq, and the administration’s subsequent arrogant refusal to admit that they knew Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. The American invasion of Iraq is nothing short of the worst American foreign policy in the history of the Republic.
No longer do I wonder why some people on this planet hate America, which enjoyed a well-deserved reputation built by a deep commitment to diplomacy and human rights – until Bush took office in January 2001. The only thing I consider more morally bankrupt than the American military’s torturing of Iraqi prisoners of war was Bush’s failure to take responsibility for these abominable actions and to condemn them. The president, for his part, initially reacted by declaring that the American soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi combatants at the Abu Ghraib prison “did not represent the America I know.”
Excuse me, Mr. President. You are the commander-in-chief of the strongest nation in human history. Do you really think you can act as though you were not responsible for ensuring that your administration obeys international law?
Mr. President, I would sure like to know what does represent the America you know. Perhaps it involves the invasion of a sovereign nation based on the false declaration that its leader possessed weapons of mass destruction and that this leader was planning to attack another nation with those weapons. Perhaps it also involves the subsequent occupation of a nation for more than three and a half years, the destruction of the nation’s infrastructures, the facilitation of a civil war, and the unparalleled hubris displayed by your administration in your haughty refusal to concede your sheer failure in Iraq.
The only inkling of optimism I am able to glean from Bush today stems from his stated desire that he intends to work with the incoming Democrat-majority House and Senate. If Bush fails to live up to his word, I sure hope that Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid, the incoming Senate Majority leader, will do their jobs to check his power. The Congressional Democrats are immensely important in moving America forward in what will surely be a long road to reclaiming its moral righteousness and commitment to diplomacy that translated into its status as a beacon of freedom and human dignity in the international community.
