Been a long time since I’ve blogged. Been busy working on finding a day job, working on Web projects, and running a family. =)
Anyway, two topics today: More recent thoughts on Bush and the Iraq war, and current Presidential hopefuls.
First, if you’ve read my early blogs, and perhaps my article on the original celticbear.com front page, I very much supported the war in Iraq. Would have preferred complete UN agreement, but based on what we knew about Hussain and what we were being told about WMD, I believed war no matter what to get rid of that dictatorship was necessary.
Well, I still do. We know more now than we did before of what murderous, sociopathic, evil men Hussain and his two sons were. They needed to go before their murder of innocent people reached hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands.
But, if I hated the Bush administration before, now in my opinion they’re only a step above Hussain. (OK, that’s exaggeration: I mean, Hussain murdered dozens of men with his own hands when he was a hired killer for the Iraq organized crime, and even as leader enjoyed getting his own hands dirty with the torture and killing of innocent people. Bush is a complete @$$hole, and may be responsible for the needless death of hundreds of soldiers, but that still doesn’t quite match Hussain’s bloodletting.)
Anyway, part of my being so adamant about going to war to get rid of Hussain had been based on the “evidence” of mobile chemical labs, purchasing of uranium, stockpiles of anthrax and nerve toxins…. Iraq DID at one time have all of the above and has used horrible chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds as well as Iraqis themselves, but they didn’t have anything at the time we went in. The Iraqi’s are almost as obsessive about record keeping as the Nazi’s were, so on the one hand we have mountains of proof that the Hussain regime is responsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity since the Ton Ton Lacoute (sp) and maybe even the SS themselves…but we also know without doubt they had no WMD. So while Hussain and his sons needed to get arrested/killed and the Iraqi people need a new government representative of themselves, I feel betrayed, even by an administration I hated beforehand, for having lied to me about something so incredibly large and important.
We needed to have toppled the Iraqi government, yes, and with military force, yes. A decade of UN pleading and sanctions had done nothing to change the Iraqi government, and so as the UN’s police force we’re obligated to handle things with force when reason doesn’t work…but it needed to be done properly and not as what it ended up being: Bush’s revenge and a mega-corp opportunity for lucrative contracts. It sickens me. And the idea that we’re continuing to try to control the rebels nearly on our own. As long as we’re still over there, there will still be bombings and terrorism. We need to get the heck out of there and pass off the responsibilities for rebuilding Iraq to other UN members.
That was all ranting, so I apologize for the probably lack of clarity of writing.
I’m not a Democrat, I’m a Libertarian. But since the Libertarian Party in general is too doped up to get going on a Libertarian nominee, I’m going with the best non-Bush candidate. No way I’m going to “waste my vote” this year by voting on a 3rd party nominee, I’m voting Democrat no matter if it’s Kerry or Dean or Charlie Brown.
Bush and his megalomaniacal, arrogant, self-righteous, Religious Reich affiliated, blind to everything but big business, lying @$$ needs to get out of the White House ASAP. Hear the State of the Union speech? He claimed “jobs are up!” Yeah the worst unemployment since the Great Depression has indeed improved over the year…because thousands of people have stopped trying to find work and have dropped off the rolls and no longer being counted as unemployed…although they didn’t find a job. He claimed the “tax relief you passed is working.” Huh, funny, the middle and lower class are worse off than before…oh, but corporate CEO and administrative positions have gotten higher average pay over the last year! The tax breaks the rich and corporations have are working a LOT better for them. Oh and he claimed the “No Child Left Behind” initiative is going strong. For an intensive care patient, perhaps. Schools across the country have had large cuts in funding, his own initiative he gave only 10% of the funds he promised. All he simply did was require more testing, more regulation and thus more money needing to be required yet schools and teachers are getting less then they were before Bush. Brilliant.
Anyway, I’m supporting Kerry. In addition to being a decorated war veteran (Silver Star, Bronze Star, THREE Purple Hearts, and thus more believable when he says he’ll support the military as opposed to Bush’s saying HE does and yet turns around and gets rid of medical benefits for reservists and cuts benefits for active servicemen,) he doesn’t seem like a career politician like Dean for example. Dean’s a politician through and through, and not a bright one either. He’s constantly having to take back something he said in the past or defend something he said more recently that was simply meant to gain support. All he says seems to be empty sentiments, changing depending on what group he’s talking to. Kerry is a Senator that voted to give Bush the ability to go to war if necessary, not expecting the power to be so abused like it was. Kerry has convictions and he seems to stand by them.
OK, I’ve vented enough tonight. Gotta get some work done. Later.
CelticBear’s Musings
