The Wake

It’s puzzling to try to picture what that guy was doing in a spider hole, issuing orders to kill Americans when he knew he could not win. But Saddam Hussein did not become a bloodthirsty dictator through rational strategy. Had he wanted to, he could have called Karl Rove.

No, Hussein most likely got his military intelligence from ancient religious prophecy. Aside from Dubya, that’s hard for most Americans to imagine. But we have right-wing fundamentalists here too, mainly in the South. I’m not sure what’s worse: Saddam’s lack of intel or Bush’s indifference toward the best intelligence network in the world, the CIA.

America needs a regime change of its own, after Mr. “C-Average” put Americans in harm’s way on a false pretense, changed the story and pissed off our friends and allies. Then he threatened our national security further by running an irresponsible deficit that is going to get worse this election year. Once creditors default on their loans, we will be unable to fund the Department of Homeland Security – which Bush hasn’t adequately funded to begin with, ever since he reluctantly created it. And we can forget about those hundreds of billions of dollars it would take to reconstruct Iraq.

This election year is strange. Bush’s Democratic challenger will not only provide a better alternative in empowering capable Americans from all backgrounds and care for the needy, as always. He will also be more fiscally responsible and have a better foreign policy. If we vote regime change this November, we will not have to fear creating any more 9/11-style, anti-American terrorists, nor alienate the international community when we need them most.

If the Iraq predicament blows up in Bush’s face in November, it will be his own doing. Not the result of domestic nay-sayers, and certainly not because Saddam was playing mastermind. He has absolutely no reason to want to be under United Nations control anyway.

I would not give Hussein so much credit as to assume he looked past his religious fervor to assemble much of a strategy, especially when the centerpiece of such a theory is the notion that the United States is more capable to establish democracy in Iraq than the United Nations.

Ever since that false premise first prompted us to take arms against a non-threatening enemy, certain voices in American politics have tried to stifle that free flow of thoughts that is so important to any democracy. If we want to build one in Iraq, we first need to protect our own.

No American should censor a political thought out of fear that it will damage morale for any party. Because one difference between the left and the right is, conservatives think the truth might confuse people. Liberals trust Americans to reject bad ideas and accept good ones. But only if they hear both can we truly have a free market of ideas.

Especially during wartime, a democratic public must be diligent in its critique of policy decisions. This is why during Kosovo we had to tolerate the constant immature cries from people like Sean Hannity, claiming that Clinton was incapable, even while our brave men and women were in harm’s way. We need the same freedom now.

Despite what we see on television from the White House, we are almost alone in Iraq. True, 30 countries have some kind of presence there, but Micronesia and Togo each sent exactly one soldier. When Iraqi families lament the recent increase of violence in their communities, they blame “the Americans.” It will be better for everyone, especially the American taxpayer, when we finally let the United Nations assist.

The isolated idea for our pre-emptive attack on Iraq is illustrated by the fact that this “coalition” was not backed by the United Nations.

I would be interested to learn how America could be better than the United Nations at facilitating democracy in Iraq. The negative sentiment toward the United Nations we get from the right has a lot in common with the instinctual feelings third grade children feel against their “oppressive” teachers.

To consider the United Nations less capable than the world’s superpower at creating a democracy outside of that superpower’s borders is bizarre indeed. The international body – along with Secretary General Kofi Annan – earned the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize in its dedication to “the promotion of peace and security, development and human rights around the world.”

Conservatives try to keep government out of business not outlined in the constitution, right? Well, two can play this game. We, the people, formed the United States “to secure the blessings of liberty to OURSELVES and OUR posterity,” not to funnel our tax money into military adventure abroad under the loose premise of spreading democracy. It’s not that America is overly selfish in its mission to serve its own. It’s just that national governments exist for their own citizens.

We created the global body to pursue noble overarching goals for humanity, like democracy and free trade. As we become a global community united by lower trade barriers, we need international governance to protect democracy and create a consistent business environment.

The only reason to give such tasks to the United States instead is political. Dangerous men in Washington need the public to be captivated by foreign demons so we vote out of fear instead of our own free choice. These same men happen to have the resources needed to hire the best spin doctors in the business, so we all are naturally more sympathetic to their ideas than we would be if we had a better view of what’s really happening in the world.