Tuesday night, in the same tradition that has been carried on by every president every January since the days of Thomas Jefferson, President George W. Bush gave us the State of the Union.
The problem is, he really didn’t. There was precious little substance, only vague puffery about how to fix the nation’s problems. That, of course is to be expected, as every president uses the State of the Union to “float” ideas.
But the reason most people said they watched the speech was to hear Bush’s justification for war with Iraq. We listened for that reason as well, and what we heard further convinced us that war is the wrong path for America to take.
Media hype and Ari Fleischer’s statements to the contrary, there was no further “building of the case” from the president. There was no new information, not even a crumb from the dossier that the administration is rumored to be releasing this week. Instead, we heard the same hyperbolic propaganda. It was, for all intents and purposes, an “off the rack” patriotic speech that could have come from any country on the brink of war.
We were actually taken aback by Bush claiming divine providence and guidance for the United States in a imperialist war against Iraq. It dredged up too many examples from history — “manifest destiny,” “divine right of kings” and “Gott mit uns” to name a few.
Bush’s speech also left us with too many unanswered questions.
Why, exactly, do we need to remove Saddam Hussein by force now? Have the inspectors failed and we don’t know it yet? Actually, they haven’t even been given the chance, and bombing will be counterproductive.
Where are Saddam’s weapons? How will bombing stop the weapons from being used? How will killing innocent Iraqi civilians liberate them or make U.S. citizens safer?
What is the end plan after Hussein is out of power? Why is removing Hussein from power even on the table? How is Hussein a greater murderer than the butchers behind the civil wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Congo? Regime change is not what the world — and the president, sometimes — have said they are looking for. Why did Bush subtly conflate the two agendas into one?
We haven’t heard any answers from the president, nor do we expect to, as we are skeptical that he even has them.
The times do not call for rhetoric about war — not when the game is disarmament. The world wants Iraq to disarm. America wants Iraq to disarm. Certainly nobody in their right mind would want to see Hussein with a nuclear bomb. However, unilateral action is not legal, necessary or helpful.
Instead, here’s the plan: The United States should give some proof of the existence of weapons, then get U.N. approval and send in international peacekeepers to protect the inspectors — whose numbers must be increased substantially — as they do their job. The world will find the weapons and destroy them, and the agenda of disarmament will be accomplished.
That isn’t what we heard Tuesday night, however. All we heard was more propaganda about war — a war Bush wants to portray as Hussein’s fault even as he does the mongering.