Can't Find Our Way Home

[kris10ep]

You gotta love any article that references Steve Winwood...


Published on Wednesday, June 1, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Can't Find Our Way Home
by Bob Burnett

As a member of the sixties rock group "Blind Faith," Steve Winwood penned the memorable line, "I'm wasted and I can't find my way home." Tragically, these droll lyrics now apply to America's occupation of Iraq: We're wasted and we can't find our way home. The smoking gun of this war, the transcript of a July, 2002, meeting of the British war cabinet, recently revealed in the London Sunday Times, noted the deception of the Administration, where "facts were being fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq. Those at the meeting foresaw a crisis of public confidence if no WMDs were found; they assumed this difficulty would be short-lived if the occupation went well. Three years later, what was expected to be a cakewalk has, instead, become a quagmire. As a result, 57 percent of Americans now disapprove of the George Bush's handling of the war.

The US lost its way because Bush, the "CEO president," failed: He did not tell the truth about his reasons for invading Iraq and he did not insist that there be a well-thought-out plan for the occupation. Now our chief executive refuses to acknowledge the mess we are stuck in. Rather than admit that we've lost our way and, therefore, must move to some alternative course of action, Bush argues that America must continue on its current path, no matter the cost. In the real world, CEO Bush would long ago have been fired for his lack of forthrightness, vision, and flexibility. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership is thrashing - to use techie slang for neurotic perseveration. On the one hand, they know that the US has lost its way, and on the other hand they continue to act as if asking for a change of course is unpatriotic or unmanly.

As a result, America is drifting into increasingly dangerous terrain; led by casualties of Bushie group think, politicians who have adopted the befuddled perspective of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, " When you've done something, how do you know when you've done it that you've done what you went in to do, and what is success, and what's your exit strategy? When does it end? Is there some point where it's over, or is it interminable?"

The US will not find its way home until our leaders begin asking the right question. The problem will not be resolved by asking, how do we win in Iraq? We cannot "win" this war. We cannot bring back 22,000 dead Iraqis and 1700 Americans. We cannot repair the damage done to our integrity. We cannot reclaim 200 billion dollars. We cannot, as LBJ once observed, "make chicken salad out of chicken shit." The problem will not be resolved by asking, why don't we immediately withdraw? We have wasted Iraq and, therefore, have a responsibility to repair at least some of the damage we have done.

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[Bellamia]

1. Nominated

'specially love the LBJ quote, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit.