Bush's Failings

Bush's Failings

A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Iraq’s Al Mustansiriya University, which was published in the October 14, 2006 edition of the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet, should put the lie once and for all to any pretensions that George Bush is a uniquely wise and moral leader.

Using well-tested and scientific methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations experiencing conflict, the researchers concluded that in Iraq “as many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions.” When confronted with these findings, a seemingly indifferent and callous President Bush sniffed that “I don’t consider it a credible report.” Then again, how would Bush really know, as the U.S. has studiously (and quite tellingly) failed to keep its own tally of Iraqi civilian deaths. Bush & Co. are just too indifferent to be bothered.

A wise and moral leader doesn’t dismiss the suffering of others so easily. A wise and moral leader doesn’t recklessly risk American troops in an unjust war based on dubious “evidence,” nor tolerates the arbitrary arrest, abuse and torture of prisoners (“hazing” in the Orwellian speech of local Congressman Steve King). A wise and moral leader doesn’t stubbornly persist in following a failed wartime strategy (“stay the course!”), when a majority of the Iraqi people now claim they feel Iraq “is headed in the wrong direction,” so much so that they’re increasingly nostalgic for Saddam’s rule (WorldPublicOpinion.org poll).

Peace!
Historian