Here are the questions I think Americans need to ask themselves and each other:
1. Are you at risk?
2. Is War with Iraq an intelligent response to the threats which face us?
3. Is the War with Iraq the best way to spend our limited money?
Hop over the hedge and let me expand on those. And there's a Bonus -- my seven pecks to deflate the giant over-inflated ogre bush.
1. Are you at risk? George Bush and his loyalists yap "9/11, 9/11, 9/11" all day long -- has anything much
actually changed between 1999 and yesterday?
Has anything changed in your neighborhood? George Bush has certainly made us much more fearful (the National Alert System has
never gone to either of its lowest settings, green and blue). Has he made us in any appreciable way
safer? It's time for Americans to step outside, breathe the air, shake the hand of their polyglot American neighbors and ask each other: why are we
terrified? Ask ten Americans you meet today: are you terrified? Why? Who is terrifying whom here?
We need to rate and codify the threats which actually face us in America.
2. Is War with Iraq an intelligent response to the threats which face us? Iraq is a small far-away now-hostile country. It had nothing to do with the attacks or the attackers of September 11th, 2001. NOTHING! What do WE gain by occupying Iraq?
We need a detailed accounting of what OUR goals are for this occupation, and specific, verifiable claims about how achieving our goals will make America more secure.
3. Is the War with Iraq the best way to spend our limited money? The United States is a rich country, but it is, after five years under the direction of spendthrift George Bush and his loyalists, deeply in debt. It's December, and America can't pay cash for Christmas presents. We have been borrowing money since May, and will have to earn a lot of money next year and the next twenty years in order to pay off the debts and interest which we have incurred under the direction of George Bush and his loyalists. We have NO cash at hand. Is continued War with Iraq, at a burn rate of at least 4 BILLION DOLLARS each month, wise -- even affordable? There must be better ways to secure our freedom than trying to occupy a distant, armed, dangerous, and insurgent foreign country at enormous financial cost. Mr. Bush: Why should I work so hard so you can collect my wages and spend them killing people in Iraq? It doesn't make sense.
We need to decide the BEST way to spend our limited tax money.
Here are my bullets for George to dodge.
- George Bush likes to torture: he is immoral.
- George Bush wastes our money: he is irresponsible.
- George Bush picks fights: he is bad leader.
- George Bush refuses to accept responsibility for his actions: he is childish.
- George Bush has our military bogged down in an unwinnable War against a stateless enemy in a far-away, hostile land: he is a bad Commander-in-Chief.
- George Bush has sent thousands of our children to their deaths with nothing to show for it: he is an untrustworthy father.
- George Bush keeps his actions and his papers secret: he is a coward.