Confucius said, “May you live in interesting times.”
Growing
up in the 70s, I thought I lived in what were pretty boring times. The
world seemed kind of tired from the whirlwind of the 60s. Fashions were
hideous. Pop music was terrible. TV was horrible. Our president seemed
to be a world weary tired man. The economy and the entire country were
in something we called a “malaise.”
The Ronnie Reagan got
himself elected and things seemed to change overnight. We, as a
country, seemed to gain hope and began to look inward and work hard to
improve ourselves. A massive economic turnaround began, making many new
rich people that we came to call “yuppies.” Unfortunately, there were
also many that were left behind, and the problem of homelessness grew
to proportions not seen since the Great Depression. But most Americans
were too wrapped up in themselves at the time, gathering material goods
like it was our civic duty. We spent an entire decade pissing our
wealth away at malls and our brains away with cocaine. We gave the
government free reign to deregulate entire industries, which according
to how you look at it, either spawned the first economic boom (DOW all
the way to 2700!) or caused unmitigated disasters in the banking
industry and in the environment- two messes we're still cleaning up
today. Anyway, despite all that, Ronnie made America stand tall, and
despite the massive debt that it caused, the military buildup of Star
Wars and other defense programs, ultimately caused the relatively
peaceful fall of the Soviet Union.
The nineties seemed to
bring a consolidation of the wealth, probably due mostly to
demographics more than anything else. All those single or
dual-income-no-kids (DINKs) Yuppies who had plenty of cash to burn in
the eighties all came to discover marriage and kids and mortality. They
stopped spending on themselves, and began spending on their own
families– bigger houses and kids mostly, (Pergo and Prego Syndrome I
like to call it). This and the scaling back of military budgets, rising
incomes and growing tax rolls gave us an economic expansion, this time
with some compassion where some money was spent to help at least try to
clean up the messes left from the eighties.
We were so fat and
happy and bored that our President pretty much had to do nothing but
stay out of the way of the economy, but even this wasn't enough for
Clinton's enemies. Since they couldn't raise a popular opposition to
his unadventurous social policies or relatively benign foreign
policies, and with the economy cranking along, the Republicans were
forced to resort to embarrassing the President with his sexual
misadventures. Clinton ultimately became an embarrassment to the
Office, and while he only had himself to blame for what he did, his
opponents delight in his downfall was no less embarrassing than his
actual peccadilloes.
Unfortunately, between this dark chapter
and the Newt Gingrich-led blanket opposition to whatever Clinton or the
other Democrats tried to do, the political climate of the country has
become as fractious as it has ever been. Prior to 9/11, George W. Bush
was portrayed as a bumbling fool who could barely speak. A man who got
to be president by accident of hanging chads and a Supreme Court
decision. Basically an un-elected President to many, especially
resentful Democrats. Whether any of this is fact will never be known,
because as soon as those 2 great buildings crashed to the ground on
that fateful day, GW Bush became, like him or not, our Supreme Leader.
Unfortunately,
having the mantle of leadership handed to you doesn't necessarily make
one a great leader. In the early days of 9/11's aftermath, Dubya did a
fine job, making all the right moves. he showed strong resolve in
naming a Homeland Security Department and in quickly identifying Al
Qaeda as our newly sworn enemy. The American War Machine spooled up and
did a swift and credible job in Afghanistan- albeit without finding Bad
Guy Number One, Osama Bin Laden.
Unfortunately, since Osama
was still at large, this gave GWB free reign to go a-hunting wherever
he pleased. And WHERE exactly did he now please? Why yes,
coincidentally, in the same place that that harbored The Man Who Tried
To Kill My Daddy- Iraq and Saddam. But just how to make a case for
revenge? Why, spread the word that Saddam has Bad Bad weapons and that
he's an Imminent Threat to US Security. That he's been harboring Al
Qaeda terrorists all along and that he (gasp!) has treated his people
horribly.
Unfortunately, the only part of the preceding that
is remotely true is the part where he's treated his people horribly. If
this was a case for going to war, then the US would never stop battling
on foreign soil anywhere on the globe. But it's not a case for going to
war, and every other reason we were given prior to entering Iraq has
since proven to be false. There are no Weapons of Mass Destruction. The were
no major terrorist organizations in Iraq prior to our invasion. Iraq
was a closed society, secular in nature and an anathema to Islamic
terrorists. An Islamic terrorist presence in Iraq is something Saddam
would never have tolerated, as he would have seen it as a threat to his
own secular power. The Imams of Iraq were tightly held under Saddam's
rule. As for WMDs- well there's about 100,000 of our troops that have
been scouring the country for the past year or so, and so far what have
they come up with? Nothing. Nada, Zilch.
This war was never, and
never will be, about terrorism and WMDs. Actually that is incorrect,
because since we took over Iraq, the terrorists HAVE moved in and NOW
and forever it will be ALL about terrorism. It will be about whether an
illegitimately installed government (at least in the eyes of the
everyday Iraqi) can control a country without US might behind it. Can
it, over the long-term, ever gain enough control over the terrorists
that WE have allowed in without our help? I doubt it.
No,
unfortunately, we will be in Iraq for a long, long time. And we will be
intimately involved in the flash-fire quagmire of the Middle East
because of GW Bush's insane policy of vengeance. We have lost the
respect of close allies and we have lost the trust of tenuous allies.
Our enemies have been vindicated in their beliefs that we are an
Imperial Superpower who will foist our way of government on others no
matter what the cost.
Unfortunately, I believe that we are at
the beginning of a downward spiral of The American Century. We ascended
to greatness for the first 80 years, from WWI and WWII, to helping
raise the world's standard of living, to growing beyond our provincial
beliefs of bigotry and hatred, to overcoming the great split of
Vietnam, to witnessing the fall of The Evil Empire. And now, our
political system is a fractious mess, where true leaders cannot rise to
take us forward, and I fear that the promise of this country has ended.