They Made it This Way

Context for Journalists as we approach our American National Holiday.

It is with great lack of context that those who call themselves journalists report on this boondoggle in Iraq. Journalists are increasingly reporting on how Al Qaeda operatives -- and the whole Al Q network -- are beginning to use Iraq as a terrorist training ground. Furthermore, several British lawmakers in parliment contend that Al Qaeda is effectively using Iraq as a propaganda tool to advance their reach into the hearts and minds of the young in the Middle East. And, of course, many of us 'netizens have been screaming about this -- its just that we don't have red enough or blonde enough hair or big assets to get any coverage from the mainstream media.

But let's us take a pause from the red faced faux news at Fox, or the increasingly conservative CNN, or the mealy mouthed newies on the former big broadcast networks and consider something they the members of the mainstream media refuse to embrace, regardless of the facts.

1. Bush created the context for Iraq to be used this way by Al Qaeda.
2. The failure is not with the women and men who serve in the millitary.
3. This debacle has nothing to do with the American people.
4. It did not have to be this way.

Bush and the neo-conservatives sought to punish Saddam and create a beachhead for U.S. foreign policy in a pivotal region of the Middle East. And they failed… completely, utterly, in almost every way imaginable. And it did not have to be with way.

The only outcome that Bush has managed is to bring higher and higher levels of economic and political instability to Iraq. They created through their incompetence and misunderstanding a crumbling infrastructure to Iraq.

And Iraq had one of the best-built infrastructures in that region (although that was accomplished through tyranny, death, and destruction but ask the Native Americans in North America about that in the American neck of the woods).

They have created senseless death and slaughter to thousands of Iraqis, shameful treatment of American soldiers, reckless disregard to years of foreign policy and coalition building, and the death of the American image abroad. I could go on and on... And it did not have to be this way.

Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney, and all the others created this context. They made Iraq like this. Not Saddam -- who was a bastard to say the least -- But Bush made it this way.

So journalists, do your job. Describe the context that they created. Examine the implications for the future of U.S. foreign policy now and into the future. Take apart the bullshit neologism of preemptive military action and behold the context it creates: Schools for terrorists. Discuss the impossible job that our soldiers who acted in good conscience based on real heartfelt patriotism have been given.

This current administration of the American ship of state under Bush made Iraq this way. Do not hide from the facts because they do not fit some pre-determined political or economic or military philosophy. They created the opportunity and environment where terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 could get stronger, gather more followers, and make the entire world less safe.

If that does not describe abject failure, I do not what does. And it did not have to be this way. They made it like this.