President Bush has, this last week, said that Iraq resembles Vietnam in more than one way.
Really?
Meanwhile, a senior State Department official told the TV network al-Jazeera that the United States has been arrogant and stupid in Iraq.
Really?
That official, Alberto Fernandez, went on to say that Iraq is "not the failure of the United States alone, but it is a disaster for the region."
Really?
Apparently, Fernandez is able to see what is obvious to anyone who hasn't kept his head buried in the sand for the past year and a half. This, then, is the major issue with the GOP's leadership: they are serially dishonest.
To explore the ramifications of this claim, let us first define honesty. Clearly, dishonest behavior boils down to the intentional advocation, explicit or implicit, of a false claim - recall that a claim is a statement which is either true or false, but not neither. For example, if you were to tell your professor that you'd lost your homework, when in fact you knew you hadn't done it, you would be dishonest.
Similarly, the Bush Administration's continued belief that the United States is winning - when it clearly is not - is dishonest.
Perhaps the administration's behavior before the onset of the war may be excused because of ignorance - although launching a war on ignorant pretenses, let alone false pretenses, is contemptible at best - however, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the administration's response has clearly been incommensurate with reality.
What has this administration done, in the foreign policy arena, to deserve the trust of the American people? Nothing.
What have they done to deserve the suspicion and contempt of the public?
Wasting the lives of thousands of America's sons and daughters on a futile attempt to bring democracy to a country which doesn't want it; continuing to refuse to admit that their policy is wrong; continuing to ignore reality and logic in attempting to drum up public support for victory in Iraq - after, of course, conspicuously declaring victory in that struggle- and the bone headed adherence to a foreign policy paradigm - neoconservatism - which simply does not work.
Neoconservatism is wrong-headed simply because it proceeds on the presumption that everyone wants a liberal Western democracy, and that assumption is simply not true: freedom of religion is necessary for such a democracy, and clearly, by their inclusion of Sharia law into their constitution, the Iraqis don't want it. In fact, one could argue that the Bush Administration, because it depends on the support of the evangelical and fundamentalist bloc, who clearly want to roll back freedom of religion - teaching creationism in science classrooms, for example - doesn't want a liberal Western democracy in America.
I urge every person who trusts the Bush Administration to revisit your trust in light of facts.
We have killed over 100,000 of the people to whom we want to bring democracy, we have wasted the lives of over 2,000 of our sons and daughters, violence has increased every year in the country, and the result of this futile exercise is the enshrinement of religion into the constitution of Iraq: the very antithesis of a democracy.
Does the administration recognize the falsehood of its continued claims to victory? No.
Does it recognize the need to withdraw from Iraq to preserve American assets and minimize losses? No.
This continued dishonesty does not deserve your support.
Neal Coleman is a freshman mathematics major and writes 'The Bogeyman' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Neal at necoleman@bsu.edu.
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