Someone needs to tell President Bush to shut up. His credibility has reached the point that if he told me that sticking a fork in my eye would be painful, I would have to seriously contemplate that eyes were actually immune to pain.
Bush is now stomping through Europe attending the NATO meetings and is actively getting in his own way, by opening his lying yap. The two most contentious aspects of Bush’s goals would be getting more troops in order to secure Afghanistan, the place that actually had Al Qaeda, and getting the Eastern European countries Ukraine and Georgia -the country not the state- into NATO.
These are good things. Getting troops into the area that has terrorists and actually was responsible for the training of hijackers is necessary and one of the more responsible aspects of leadership that Bush has, accidentally I am sure, come across. But it comes across as he is an incompetent boob, that messed up Afghanistan by a premature invasion of Iraq.
The man who spurned advice, caution, and strategy is now asking for help to fix one of his many blunders. Now I understand that Bush is used to dealing with an inept and partisan driven Congress that would give him whatever he wanted, but that is no longer his audience.
“The Uniter” is going to have to rely upon his ability to persuade and convince our allies that this the important fight of our times and that success is only achievable should we be united. That of course would assume that Bush would have a personality transplant or be so doped up out of his mind that he becomes a decent human being.
The second aspect that he is fighting for is equally notable. NATO was founded on the principle of providing Democracies within the sphere of Europe collective security. To be sure that protection was against a militarily aggressive Soviet Union seeking to take advantage of post WWII Europe.
NATO has evolved with the times however and now provides collective security in an altogether sense. It is important to note that political freedom is directly correlated with the level of security that the government faces. Thus entry into NATO provides the necessary security blanket, that governments can allow the release of boundaries upon their citizens in order to achieve a more perfect type of democracy.
Even in our own history, when the fate of the Union has been threatened, rights of Americans have been infringed upon in order to maintain security of the state. What Bush, of course, is failing to understand is the deep seeded historical feelings that exist between Russia and NATO, and the sentiments of Russian and its former Soviet Satellite States.
Politics is about give and take. Bush can have his war, but he must pay for it – ok bad example. Politics should be about give and take. Keeping with the topics Bushmust decide which is more important to the immediate interests of the United States, and tone down the rhetoric on the other one as an immediate crisis.
This would be especially true if the CITIZENS of the said countries are no where near a consensus on if joining NATO would be a good idea. Since they are in the shadow of Russia they still have jobs, trade routes, family, WWII articles in common with mother Russia even if they hate her for all the abuse she handed out when they were growing up.
This would especially true of the Ukraine who had a great number of their troops be sent to Afghanistan when they were still part of the Soviet Union and got killed when Tom Hanks – Charlie Wilson- messed it all up by sending stinger missiles.
It comes off that Bush is expecting Eastern Europeans to bail him out of a mistake that hubris doesn’t win wars. I will give him credit that it does win him elections, but then the military doesn’t have to write letters to families of soldiers killed in elections. So Bush…Pick Your Spots
