Why George W Bush Might Go to Heaven

"Barack Obama! Change! Wooooo!" A recent episode of South Park featured Randy, Stan Marsh's irrepressible dad, celebrating Barack Obama's electoral victory by drinking himself into a stupor. The episode highlighted a certain trend lately of people blindly supporting the first black President. The flip-side to this, of course, is a massive chorus of scorn for the still-current president George W. Bush. The most commonly used slur against W is that he's dumb.

Dumb? Please. The man has an MBA from Harvard and a bachelor's degree from Yale. Call him a failure, misguided, a son of privilege or even a puppet, but 'dumb' isn't a term you can use for a guy who got himself elected to the White House. Twice.
Take a look at the positive side (yes, there is a positive side) of W for a moment. If there's one good thing to be said about him, it's that he kept America safe from further terrorist attacks. Yes, the cost was heavy. To achieve this goal, he employed several dubious and often illegal means such as mass wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, torture and two bloody wars. Nevertheless, the end result was seven terror-free years of security.

Even Bush's harshest critics cannot discount his leadership in the battle against the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. After witnessing the tragic horrors that the virus has visited upon the region, he backed up his words with cash - this year alone, he authorized $39 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS, on top of the $15 billion he authorized in 2003. Because of American investments, nearly two million people today have access to anti-retroviral drugs and millions of orphans have received life-saving treatment and care. The United States is the leading donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This is all W's doing.

On the timely issue of immigration, W went against the most fervent, xenophobic elements of the Republican Party and opposed the detention and deportation of millions of illegal immigrants in the United States. Instead, he offered a path to citizenship and integration into society for undocumented workers. Though the bill was defeated in Congress, his stance on the issue saved the country from a potentially disastrous attempt to deport over twelve million people.

At the least, W returned basic dignity to the office of the President. Bill Clinton's philandering had besmirched the institution of the Presidency when W came to office in 2001. Many of us can recall the incessant jokes about interns and the President on late-night TV.

These days, while it's oh-so-hip to be an Obama-lovin,' W-hatin' leftist, in politics, there is always more to the issues than one-sided ideology. The awful truth is there had to be a George W Bush before there could be a Barack Obama. Don't mistake my position. From Iraq to the Patriot Act, climate change to Palestine, there's just no defending most of his decisions as President. My point is though you may never agree with George W. Bush, one day, you just might forgive him.

=//Turnquest

No Decency

In the fifth year of Gulf War II, following massive upheavals and regime changes, insurgencies and surges, Saddams and Rumsfelds, Fallujahs and Hadithas, Coalition Authorities and democratically-elected parliaments, Mahdi Armies and Ba'ath loyalists, we still end up with a picture like this.

Oh for sure there are worse pictures out there for those inclined to such levels of abhorrence. And indeed, there are better. Who can forget the image of the anonymous hijab-wearing woman happily displaying her newly-stained purple fingers in a peace symbol signifying her having voted? Pvt. Jessica Lynch after being "saved" from certain death by heroic U.S. soldiers? Or the cheering men as Saddam snapped his neck in the fall from the gallows?

Much can be and indeed has been written about this defining event of the 2000s. The focus of this column is the fact that after so many years, hundreds of thousands of deaths and wounded and refugees, so much money (nearly $500,000,000,000 USD) and so much politics, n-o-t-h-i-n-g has changed.

You still can't walk around much of the country without getting shot, bombed, kidnapped, tortured, maimed, raped, disappeared or arrested. Your house and property are not safe. Your religious affiliation defines which neighborhoods you can and can't live in. You probably can't find a job, and if you do moderately well, you become a target. You've either got soldiers outside of your house or milita thugs. You can't let your children go out and do anything, less they end up like our subject up at the top of this page. If you want to send them to school, you've got to pack your own ammunition and do it yourself. That doesn't guarantee however that there won't be fighting outside of their school and that they will have to go home. Your power doesn't work because the circuit boxes have been shot up. Going to Friday prayers is riskier than cruising Queensbridge projects on a Saturday night. You and everyone you know knows people who have been killed and/or kidnapped by violence.

A couple key events that one can point to as being aggravators of the situation. One, and in my mind the primary event, was the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. A blunder of democracy if there has been one. You can blame that on John F. Kerry's incompetence and the overall fallibility of the American public. If the Democrats won in 2004, or if a competent Democratic leader had emerged, the U.S. might have ended this black comedy already.

Another key event was the dissolving of the Ba'ath party in June 2003. What is happening now in terms of the civil war and insurgency can be traced back to this event. When thousands of otherwise skilled workers not only lost their jobs but indeed were barred from future work in government, many turned towards the insurgency and became important figures in planning the campaign of violence. A month before this, the *entire* Iraqi Army of 375,000 soldiers was laid-off, providing the manpower and expertise required for the guerilla war that has drowned the country.

Other less specific factors that have lead to the current situation include the long-delayed resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, the complete and total mismanagement of intelligence before the war, and post-war planning on the part of U.S. planners. Not to mention perhaps the main non-Bush administration culprits, the American media. It is they, as much as any Shia militant or U.S. Marine, who have blood on their hands for the way they hyped up and glorified this crime of crimes.

I demand justice for this little boy, for the thousands who have died and who indeed will die in the months and years to come. This must stop. Where is the political leadership? Where are the shaykhs who sit in their mosques and make du'a? Where is the media who should be blasting the horrors of this unholy mess in all of our faces till we grow nauseous and sick from it? Where are the Arab leaders making peace? Why, O Almighty, do we have this war in the year 2007/1428 and why can not anyone seem to stop it?

=//Turnquest