Systemic Failure
The most serious problem we are facing is a colossal failure of leadership. None of our other problems are insurmountable, not Iraq, not terrorism, and not the deficit. We have a president and a congress that have chosen to increase spending while reducing government revenue. It doesn't take a budget brainiac to see that this is a formula for ballooning the deficit. Then again, low taxes and easy entitlements always play well, so rather than showing the backbone to take a hard line on taxes, spending or both, we have a president who constantly declares rhetorical victories by beating the projections he has revised ever downward, while in reality financing his irresponsible policies by selling our accumulated wealth to the Chinese, and leaving some other generation to deal with the fallout.
The administration has bungled Iraqi reconstruction, leaving the middle east more unstable than if it had done nothing, and leaving us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. As badly as they have set back American interests worldwide through half assed, hair trigger policy decisions, it is still possible to fix their mistakes because the crux of the problem comes down to incompetence. The leadership, starting from the top, hasn't just committed to bad policy, they have made the worse mistake of compounding bad policy with incompetent implementation.
We need a Marshall plan for reconstructing Iraq and the Middle East, and instead what we have is systemic failure. We have an administration that failed to understand the cultural and political tensions and dynamics that exist on the ground, failed to provide adequate security to enact a reconstruction, failed to convince the Iraqi people to buy into the American vision for a new Iraq, failed to recruit allies, failed to engage regional governments and influence brokers, failed to stimulate the Iraqi economy, failed to provide basic services like health care, water treatment, schools and electricity, failed to finish the job they started in Afghanistan, exacerbated the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by being completely unprepared for the Hamas victories. I could go on and on.
It is completely possible to leverage our intellectual, capital and military resources to advance the cause of peace, stability and economic prosperity throughout the world, and in so doing, make ourselves safer, and spread American values. But it isn't easy, it can't be done overnight, and it requires well thought out policy implemented by competent leadership. Right now we are moving backwards, and this isn't due to circumstance, luck, unforseeable turn of events, or the failure of some poor broken populace half way around the world. We broke it, we own it, and now we need someone capable of fixing it.
The administration has bungled Iraqi reconstruction, leaving the middle east more unstable than if it had done nothing, and leaving us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. As badly as they have set back American interests worldwide through half assed, hair trigger policy decisions, it is still possible to fix their mistakes because the crux of the problem comes down to incompetence. The leadership, starting from the top, hasn't just committed to bad policy, they have made the worse mistake of compounding bad policy with incompetent implementation.
We need a Marshall plan for reconstructing Iraq and the Middle East, and instead what we have is systemic failure. We have an administration that failed to understand the cultural and political tensions and dynamics that exist on the ground, failed to provide adequate security to enact a reconstruction, failed to convince the Iraqi people to buy into the American vision for a new Iraq, failed to recruit allies, failed to engage regional governments and influence brokers, failed to stimulate the Iraqi economy, failed to provide basic services like health care, water treatment, schools and electricity, failed to finish the job they started in Afghanistan, exacerbated the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by being completely unprepared for the Hamas victories. I could go on and on.
It is completely possible to leverage our intellectual, capital and military resources to advance the cause of peace, stability and economic prosperity throughout the world, and in so doing, make ourselves safer, and spread American values. But it isn't easy, it can't be done overnight, and it requires well thought out policy implemented by competent leadership. Right now we are moving backwards, and this isn't due to circumstance, luck, unforseeable turn of events, or the failure of some poor broken populace half way around the world. We broke it, we own it, and now we need someone capable of fixing it.
posted by Daniel at 11:15 PM
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