President Bush is planning to drum up support for the war in Iraq the next few weeks. As usual, he will invoke September 11 over and over, conveniently ignoring the lack of connection between 9/11 and Iraq. And he will continue to ignore Cindy Sheehan and anyone else who disagrees with him.
Yes, Saddam Hussein was a horrible leader, and I’m personally glad he’s been removed from power, but I can’t forget that we attacked a sovereign nation without provocation. Bush wants to gloss over that inconvenient fact and stay the course, a course that appears to have been laid even in advance of the 9/11 attacks. He doesn’t want to listen to any counsel that contradicts his decisions. His aides call that steadfastness; others see it as stubbornness.
There are all sorts of psychological implications in Bush’s determination to invade Iraq. Having no professional credentials, I hesitate to delve into them, but I will point out that Bush’s family dynamic seems very similar to the one invoked by the “ex-gay” people who insist that sexual orientation is a reaction to one’s relationship with one’s parents. Clearly, not every man with a distant father and a domineering mother ends up gay. However, I can certainly see where a man in that situation would feel he had something to prove — to his parents and to the world.
W has been trying to impress his father during his entire career, following in his footsteps as a businessman, but without any real success. I wonder if he ever took the time to reflect on his own talents and consider what he wanted to do with his life. It appears he let his family’s ambitions push him along into a role he was never suited to fulfill. I think there’s a good reason that the United States doesn’t have hereditary leadership. Children shouldn’t be forced into metaphorical boxes from the day they are born. When we start a Presidential dynasty, we are asking for trouble. And now we have it. The United States and the world are paying the price for the blindness of the voters who put W in the White House for eight years. I wonder how long it will take us to recover.
