by DemFromCT
We are reminded that the world is a more serious place than Republicans jockying for immigration positioning or running on a flag-burning amendment would make it appear. From the WaPo:
North Korea's long-range missile test Tuesday, although unsuccessful, was another reminder of the bleak foreign policy landscape that faces President Bush even outside of Iraq. Few foreign policy experts foresee the reclusive Stalinist state giving up the nuclear weapons it appears to have acquired, making it another in a long list of world problems that threaten to cloud the closing years of the Bush administration, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.
"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times where there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard N. Haass, a former senior Bush administration official who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it."
Do you feel safer after 5 years of B8ush in the WH? Why do we have far fewer reasorces? Iraq is the answer, and not just talking material resources:
Lawmakers have issued a subpoena seeking Pentagon information on a soldier who says he suffered retaliation for reporting abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.
The subpoena from the House Committee on Government Reform seeks all communications relating to information provided by Army Spc. Samuel Provance about the Iraq prison, where U.S. mistreatment of detainees caused an international uproar.
It also seeks information on the interrogation of an Iraqi officer there, identified by Provance as Gen. Hamid Zabar. Provance had helped interrogate Zabar's 16-year-old son and was later told the boy had been captured and abused to compel the general to give information, Provance said in testimony prepared for Congress.
There's no question that Iraq has poisoned the well:
But the events on the Korean Peninsula underscored how the administration has lost the initiative it once possessed on foreign policy in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, leaving at risk the central Bush aspiration of democracy-building around the world.
They also showed how the huge commitment of resources and time on Iraq -- and the attendant falloff in international support for the United States -- has limited the administration's flexibility in handling new world crises. "This is a distracted government that has to take care of too many things at the same time and has been consumed by the war on Iraq," said Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
Well not to worry. Republicans make their own reality. Forget about that stuff and let's concentrate on immigration. Hey, ABC/WaPo says that 13% of us think it's the most important issue we face (Iraq is only 26%). Let's beat up on the usual suspects - McCain and Kennedy and Bush - oops - hey, fellas, isn't there anything else out there we can hype? We need an issue, and fast. We can't be having discussions about national security and having voters look at reality. We're stronger than Democrats and everyone knows it. God forbid someone would actually try and prove it.
Well, there is a silver lining perhaps.... if the Democrat who is elected President is someone who roundly criticizes and completely repudiated Bush's policies, the mess left by Bushco may be easier to clean up --- the biggest cause of the mess is that the rest of the world knows that Bushco is insane and completely untrustworthy. Replacing Bush with someone who has been saying that consistently will make it easier to work with the rest of the world....
Posted by: p.lukasiak | July 06, 2006 at 08:36
hey p.lukasiak, that sounds good, but i suspect that most Americans will ignore the turd in the punch bowl
most people have figured out that george is a disaster, but they're ashamed to admit it
and thus cognative dissonance was born
even notice how george's administration resembles a Monty Python routine ???
"I just chopped your arm off"
"no you didn't, just a flesh wound"
by january 2009, America will be an armless knight resting on bloody stumps screaming "come back here you bastard, I'll bite your kneecaps off"
I could be funnier if I knew how to format text around here
Posted by: freepatriot | July 06, 2006 at 14:55