Johnny could only sing one note
And the note he sings was this
Ah!
Poor Georgie one note – and the note he sings is this: Iraq.
How in the world has it come to pass that, of the 193 nations in the world; of the dozens of countries suffering from starvation, malnutrition, disease; of the dozens of nations who are barely hanging on only by destroying what is left of our planet’s rainforests and fish populations; of the dozens of nations educationally deprived; of all this, that the Bush Administration is so completely obsessed with and mired down by one country.
History will record that for six of his eight years as president, George W. Bush spent most of his time and energy, and over $300 billion (experts estimate the bill ultimately will be $1.2 trillion) as a result of one foolish blunder. Historians will marvel at how the nation’s voters and its elected representatives, of both parties, allowed this monumental fiasco to occur and to persist longer than World War II. Historians sympathetic to the United States will note, with sadness, the tragic missed opportunities, the sins of omission, the squandered misappropriations of billions of dollars that have served no good end and only to fatten the coffers of war-industry profiteers. And all this in the service of invading a nation that did not have anything to do with its purported sins – namely, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
For over four years now, with two more in sight, every time we turn on the radio or TV or pick up the morning newspaper, there is but one predominant topic – Iraq! Not health care in America, but Iraq! Not global warming, but Iraq! Not guns and violence – 16,000 deaths in the U.S.A. by gunfire per year – but Iraq! Not the genocide in the Sudan, but Iraq! Not the early destruction of the rainforest, but Iraq! Not homelessness, poverty or criminal recidivism, but Iraq!
There are times when I feel like a character in the film King of Hearts, in which lunacy is the norm. The Bush Administration’s preoccupation with Iraq seems to me nothing short of lunacy. Think of the positive uses of $300 billion – $1.2 trillion – at home and abroad and look at the results of the dumping of billions down the Iraqi sump hole. Results – we are now far more hated in the Middle East than ever before; terrorism, having a clear enemy in its own backyard, is on the rise; Iraq itself has been thrown into chaos – a series of interlocking civil wars; and over 100,000 innocent Iraqis (37,000 in 2006 alone) have died along with over 3,000 American soldiers. These are the fruits of our mis-labors.
And now we are told that the way to rectify this calamitous mess is to send 21,000 more troops into the fray. At some point we the people and our legislators must say that when you clearly have made a colossal mistake, stop perpetuating and compounding it. Georgie one note needs to play a new tune. There are 88 keys on the piano, not just one.
