I have a theory. The popularity of superhero movies proves how much Americans like comic books, but it also suggests Americans are especially fond of waiting around for somebody to save us. We carry bumper stickers proudly proclaiming that guns don’t kill people. We overmedicate our children to the point of paralysis. Our politicians’ speeches are long, resplendent and devoid of facts. Apparently there is contentment in complacency. As long as there’s a football season, the national populace will be quite comfortable in the position of damsel in distress, passing and passing and passing the buck.
Our children’s children are already burdened with the dinner check of an Iraqi war. The elections in Iraq were a great success with higher turnout than expected, and hopefully all those ink-stained fingers raised in celebration will be part of an emerging democracy that will become both peaceful and prosperous. I was one of the few in Eugene who originally supported the Iraqi war on the basis of human-rights intervention. The rape rooms left me shuddering. The Kurds and the Shiites were vulnerable to systematic mass murder. U.N. sanctions had left the rich privileged and the poor starving. I was also an unabashed Colin Powell groupie: How could the near-peacenik of the Bush administration let us down? I still think toppling aggressive dictators who commit chemical genocide is the right thing to do, although I prefer it to be done in a different manner — better organized and involving international forces. And, oh yeah, avoiding that whole torture thing would have
been nice.
Unfortunately, our policy on intervention doesn’t extend to such places as Sudan. Plus, the cowardly and illegitimate U.N. Human Rights Council refuses to label Sudan a genocide. The unwillingness of other nations to intervene with the very limited amount of money and military aid necessary to stop a Holocaust convinces me that Americans aren’t the only ones who love to stand around waiting for
Wonder Woman.
But the Bush administration does seem to be moving toward a Persian excursion: a military strike against Iran. The president’s inaugural speech trumpeted liberation, laying out justifications for further intervention for the sake of freedom. The United States has also actively absented itself with European-Iranian negotiations over weapons inspectors, almost as if hoping they
will fail.
How could the Bush administration invade anywhere new, one asks, with our troops being overextended and all? The answer is that the Wolfowitzes of the world can funnel money to other nations and let them do the assaulting. Donald Rumsfeld casually mentioned he wouldn’t be surprised to see Israel invade Iran. I’m sure they’d have at least one ally in their star-crossed attempt. After all, our air troops are almost useless in the guerilla war in Iraq, and
heaven forbid we let all those planes just sit around. We want them out and bombing all those gosh darn
Islamic threats.
The Republican embrace of a foolish policy seems to know no end. President Bush is gripping his sword of justice by the wrong end if he thinks now is the time to move into Iran. At this fragile time in Israeli-Palestinian relations, when some kind of peace between the two decades-old enemies might actually be possible, how dare the Pentagon choose to publicly bully the Israeli government into doing President Bush’s dirty work. If Israel did invade, not only would it become a full-blown calamity as hordes of haters poured over Israeli borders, but the peace process would be savaged, and Israel would be left militarily vulnerable to invasion. The result would be United States troops diverted away from police action in Iraq early, leaving a quagmire to become a wasteland. Luckily for the Ayatollahs, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is too smart to invade Iran. By even suggesting it, Bush may have destabilized Sharon a little, hurting the upcoming peace process. If we step in and mess things up, there really will be no one to come to the rescue.
The locals in New Orleans determine how successful their Mardi Gras celebration was by weighing their trash. If the same standard is used by the Bush administration, I can only applaud their overwhelmingly splendid success. Unfortunately, those of us who would prefer not to live in a world of landfills are only left with one prayer: “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”