Bob Herbert is so damn good. Week in and week out he speaks truth to power. Today's column is a "must read." I don't say that lightly. It is that good. It should be read by every voter and every officeholder. It is a shame that it is behind the TimesSelect wall but here is a fair part of it:
The Destroyers
Most of the discussions in the media about the Bush administration and its allies center on how the president is doing politically. Is he up or down in the polls? Are the Democrats gaining steam, or will the Republicans make them look like wimps again when it comes to national security? How harsh is the song that Jack Abramoff is singing? And what about those pictures of Mr. Abramoff with the president?
Talk about focusing on the trees! The forest in this instance is the incredible mess that the Bush crowd has made with its policy blunders, relentless duplicity and outright incompetence. This sorry track record has resulted in, among other things, the horrible suffering and premature deaths of thousands of men, women and children.
More below
Herbert:
Yesterday The Times ran an extraordinary front-page article detailing the physical agony and profound emotional distress being faced by troops trying to cope with absolutely ruinous wounds suffered in Iraq. "The worst car crash is nothing in terms of what we see here," said a surgeon at an American base in Balad.
Here is a snippet from the article Herbert references:
Explosions have killed 1,123 American service members in Iraq and have wounded at least 10 times more, often with a devastating combination of injuries -- ruptured organs and severed spines, obliterated limbs and burst eyeballs.
Among the more than 16,653 Americans wounded in Iraq are 387 amputees, including 62 who, like Corporal Beyers, have lost more than one limb, said Lt. Col. Paul Pasquina, chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Walter Reed. The amputations, traumatic though they are, are often accompanied by painful complications. "It's not as easy as putting on even the most high-tech prosthetic and just walking off," Colonel Pasquina said.
Most of the amputees returning from combat zones have an infection, because a bomb blast can embed bacteria, dirt or pieces of clothing deep into the wound, Colonel Pasquina said. A severe infection could require further amputation or possibly be fatal.
About 20 percent of the amputees have had potentially serious blood clots that formed as a result of the initial trauma. About half of them experience a condition in which bone grows at the site of amputation, called heterotopic ossification, he said. In the worst cases, the growth can prevent proper fitting of a prosthesis or pierce the skin.
Herbert talks about Keith Maupin, an American soldier with a ten month old son, kidnapped in Baghdad in 2004 and never heard from since. No one talks about him anymore. Or about Marla Rucizka, the Californian aid worker who died in a burning vehicle in Iraq -- where our money is being squandered while insurgent attacks steadily increase.
He reminds us about Bernice Jones, a 64 year old women who had to break through her roof to keep from drowning in New Orleans. And, where are those trailers that tens of thousands of displaced residents were promised?
Then there was the Canadian who was abducted from Kennedy airport and "rendered" to Syria where he was tortured and caged for a year before being released. Of course, no one has shown any connection between the Canadian and terrorism.
Herbert concludes:
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Bush administration to rebuild Iraq or New Orleans. These are not the folks you'd call on to create a shining city on a hill. This is a crowd that's more comfortable with the destructive arts -- squandering money, wasting lives and undermining the potential of a great nation like the U.S.
Can you imagine what Republican politicians and conservative commentators would be saying if a Democratic president -- say Al Gore or Hillary Clinton -- had compiled exactly the same track record over the past five years as George W. Bush?
The worst administration in history. What are we going to do about it?