(no subject)

[grysar]

Went to Mayakka state park again today. I'd gone a few years ago, canoeing in Florida, coming within 5' of the gators. That was a lot of fun, my parents weren't feeling like that this time for some reason :P but we still had a good time. Did an air-boat tour (think cross between pontoon boat and a bus) which was fun, got a few digital pictures that'll be online later.

Otherwise, saw the movie "Spell bound." Documentary on spelling bees, particularly the national competition. Incredibly suspenseful and rather fun. Got a 5.

It was well put together, followed the stories of eight different contenders from different regions with different outlooks. Moreover, it is just excrucitingly tense to watch those kids try to spell the words, particularly the tough ones that I didn't know.

If you think you could enjoy a full length documentary about spelling bees, then this is definately worth watching.

State of the Union: 2.5
Weird to see a short one of these. Nothing impressive but no real gaffes. As prep for war though, it wasn't enough. Even for when Powell breaks out impressive evidence in front of the security council. Didn't prepare the nation for sacrifice, didn't talk about a democratic Iraq.

I'm listening to the democratic response now. Pretty good.

Comments

[unreason.livejournal.com]

Eh, I didn't think the speech was that bad. It seemed better with domestic issues than iraq, though. I think Bush is waiting to bust out the real nasty evidence. Personally, I have the paranoid suspicion that he's waiting for as many democrats as possible to voice doubts about Iraq so that they'll look bad when the evidence comes out that Saddam Hussein has Nukes/Tortures Americans etc.

Incidentally, was any one but me scared that the guy left out to form a new government in case of terrorist-related disasters was Ashcroft?

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I didn't really care about the domestic portion, nothing all that knew and I'm counting on the Democrats to sabotage on foot drag on it any ways. :P

Secret evidence, agree, see my last post. 'Cept I don't think he's gonna be able to play the Democrats on this one any more. The dem positions are adequately hedged to easily adapt to new Bush positions.

I stand by his handling of Iraq as a screw up though. I will however, support my position, and provide an alternate explaination for how I could potentially be wrong.

I think Bush's failure to adequately address nation building after Iraq is a problem for a few reasons.
1) He'll be caught. It's highly doubtful Iraq will be exceedingly cheap or easy to run right after the war is over. Iraq may actually be ready for Democracy as a unified country but given the it's current situation, even that won't be cheap. I'm not going to fully defend this proposition because I think it's fairly self-evident. Feel free to disagree.
2) Bush opponents will have a fairly easy time making political points off our occupation of Iraq. Americans aren't big on occupying other countries, particularly hostile ones, even more particularly ones not in Europe. This may mean necessary resources for the rebuilidng we be denied or a change of policy with a new administration. Some Democratic leaders will see that this is against the national interests, but then many Democrats think President Bush is against the national interest and that may take priority. Even in the best case, Bush will probably have to pay a political price for an expensive not short-term occupation.
3) Establishing that we will rebuild Iraq as a democracy is key for the legitimacy of invading and occupying Iraq. For those nations in the region that do not care about democracy, at very least they need an intact Iraq that is not a problem spewing failed state. The administration's primary goal is regime-change, not disarmament, despite occassional statements to the contrary. For this to be legitimate, for the death the policy entails to be more than a sacrifice to U.S. consumption. To answer the charge of imperalism, we must commit ourself to not simply establishing a puppet government. President Bush seems to realize this, but he does not emphasize it.
4) Other countries realize that President Bush is not spending political capital to prepare the country for the occupation. This puts in doubt whether Bush has the political will necessary to do the job, see: Afghanistan which we're being half-assed about. Reason #2 means other countries will doubt whether America is capable of following through on rebuilding Iraq. Reason #3 means foreign audiences have good reason to continue to be wary about what the U.S. will actually do once the war is over.

Alternate explaination time:
I can think of two good reasons for President Bush to not do what I recommend in the speech.

1) To allow for an Iraqi coup that does not establish democracy but establishes softer authoritarianism. I think I've been more than clear on my exclusive admiration for democracies in the past, but for the moment, this is a preferable outcome over war. If you'd like to wage war to build democracies, there are better places to start than Iraq, where the population has not been particularly supportive of our efforts. The fact that we betrayed revolutionaries after the Gulf War may have something to do with that, oh well. Note: If this new government is a puppet regime, even without a war, than this is not a good alternate explaination. Middle Eastern puppet regimes will prolong the war on terrorism and work against the goal of helping citizens of the Arabic states to realize that their governments are the problem, and that fundamentalist governments are no solution.

2) President Bush may be planning a multilateral occupation which is diplomaticly advanteous to keep secret at the moment. It may be possible to copt skeptical countries by giving them a role in the rebuilding, or giving a role to the U.N. This isn't to the Bush administrations tastes, but neither is nation building.