Washington Week . Student Voices

COLUMN: Catching up with what has been going on
in the world of Bush
By Andy Barnes
The Daily Athenaeum (West Virginia U.)
07/17/2003

(U-WIRE) MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Well, it's summer and most of you are baked, in one way or another, and can't think past the next five minutes or tonight, much less this coming fall. It is understandable that many of you might not keep up with what is happening in our nation and world currently.

So it is the purpose of this column to get the reader up to speed on where we are in the world and so that our exasperated professors will not have to grade on a curve for your current events class next semester. Set an example and read this column.

Though many have already forgotten about our little war in Iraq (didn't that end on an aircraft carrier or something?). The biggest story of the summer is no doubt Iraq and what our administration told us before the war, not to mention the postwar bungles.

Not finding any WMD's in the last two months doesn't help the administration. Admitting they used forged evidence about Saddam trying to buy uranium from Niger in Bush's State of the Union address, then saying it wasn't fake, then blaming the CIA (they approved it!), then the Brits (it was their intelligence!), and finally saying it really wasn't a big deal, doesn't help either. The administration's constant assigning of blame on everyone but themselves gives Americans a good idea who is at fault. This problem becomes worse when another of our proud, overworked, and exhaust ed soldiers die in Iraq, even though we had an "official" end to hostilities.

The administration took the American public's goodwill to push through falsehoods about Iraq's nuclear threat and its ability to attack the United States. Oh, and one must not forget the Saddam-Osama link. Apparently most Americans believed there was one. Where it came from I don't know, but the administration certainly exploited the public's ignorance on that one; for the record, there is NO link between Saddam and al Qaeda. The administration also made Americans believe that they had a big plan to make a bastion of democracy for the Middle East. Just add oil and stir, right? Our plan is inching (at most) towards that. But Iraq will not be as simple as an easy-bake oven recipe. Was the American public lied to? In a word: yes. The fact that the intelligence that the administration used to boldly claim knowledge of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction seems a mere fib, in comparison to the lies it perpetuated as to how long it would take to rebuild Iraq and how hard it would be. No plan? No problem.

Liberators have it easy. Iraqis will do everything themselves. Oh yeah, we'll pay for it with oil! For awhile, pre-war complaints just seemed like Democratic whining and footdragging, even unpatriotic.

Now it is valid criticism. A little honesty and world involvement was all that was asked for by the Democrats and many Americans. It appears they got neither (don't kid me with the "coalition of the willing," this is no laughing matter.)

Bush went to Africa! In a grand trip aimed at promoting his compassionate agenda of fighting AIDS/HIV quickly turned into pleas for help in war-torn Liberia, then into questions about the intelligence about uranium from Niger, which the administration used to rush into war with Iraq (see previous rant.) "Liberia?" you might ask, "where is that? Who cares?" Well, it appears that our anti-Clinton president has adopted a Clintonesque foreign policy where humanitarian concerns are cause for our intervention. Kudos, for at least considering the world, Bush. Wow, somehow at this point, Bush would have been better off to stick with Clinton's strategy of using the United Nations to help keep the peace and pay for reconstruction in Iraq. Many of our proud and patriotic families would be thankful.

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