Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go

The proverbial sledge hammer has been hitting us over the head virtually on a daily basis lately. One never lacks for topics about which to write. Today brings us a real winner from the LA Times. An article by Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer, proclaims a stunning development. A group of 26 ex-diplomats and military leaders, several appointed by Reagan and Bush 41, plans to issue a joint statement on Wednesday which will argue that President George W. Bush (Bush 43) has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November. Wait a minute! I thought we were safer now. What? We aren't? Is George fibbing? I'm sorry to say I think he is. No, he definitely is. Our president is fibbing. OK, let's say it: George Bush is LYING to us.

In case you're thinking that this group of 26 people is a bunch of liberals, I'm sorry to tell you: These people are Republicans, Democrats, and even Independents. Several have never spoken out before, but now feel they must do so now. (Many of us can relate to that!) These are people who worked for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as well as Carter and Clinton. They are extremely concerned for our safety. It is almost unheard of for so many former high-military officials and career diplomats to come together for the express purpose of putting together an overtly political message during a presidential campaign. Could it be that we are lemmings about to run off the cliff? Maybe we better look into this one.

The signers of this document are saying the work they have done in their various roles over their lifetimes in trying to build a situation in which the US was respected and could lead the rest of the world was now undermined by this administration- "by arrogance, by refusal to listen to others, the scorn for multilateral organizations." One doesn't have to be a distinguished diplomat to understand this. Wasn't it a first or second grade expectation that we "work well with others?" Jack F. Matlock, Jr., who was appointed by Reagan as ambassador to the Soviet Union said,"Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the US has built up alliances in order to amplify its own power. But now we have alienated many of our closest allies, we have alienated their populations. We've all been increasingly appalled at how the relationships that we worked so hard to build up have simply been shattered by the current administration in the method it has gone about things."
Shattered. Not just compromised or poorly handled. The word is shattered.

The Bush people are scrambling around to dismiss this statement as completely invalid. We're becoming familiar with that tactic, so much so that we can see it coming from miles away, can we not? We're not as easily fooled anymore. As a matter of fact, sadly, if their mouths are moving, we have to assume that they might be lying. They are saying that there is the coalition and the latest UN resolution, that this argument is obsolete since Bush is leaning more on the international community for help in Iraq. They are saying this is just a collection of resentments that have built up. They are saying that this group is just upset because Bush is going in a new direction in foreign policy, that Bush is making a huge doctrinal shift. (Well, no debate there!) So the Bush people want us to believe that this is all sour grapes and that these 26 people are taking this personally as a criticism of the work they did in the past. Aren't we all completed tired of this kind of rhetoric?

In fact this group collectively represent years of experience and expertise on a global level, and they are multi-partisan. They have been working on this statement for months. They are saying that even the recent signs of cooperation do not reverse a basic trend toward increasing isolation for the US. According to Phyllis Oakley, deputy State Department spokesperson during Reagan's second term and an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, Bush has neglected the war on terrorism for the war in Iraq. May I just say HELLO? Haven't many of us been saying that for a very long time? My friends, we are out in the garden eating worms. Nobody loves us. Everybody hates us. (apologies to those who don't remember that song!)

America, please listen! Please think about these things as if your life depended on it.
IT DOES!

There is hope for us at the ballot box in November. I have never been so anxious to get to that ballot box in my life. Run, don't walk! And one more thing! Vote for the guy whose initials are JFK!