Bush's Sacrificial Sham on Iraq
In one of the least surprising revelations of the New Year, the BBC on Tuesday reported that President Bush's coming new Iraq strategy will feature his ill-advised "surge" of U.S. troops as its centerpiece. What is even less surprising is Bush's cynical plan to proclaim "sacrifice" as the theme of his address to the nation.
As I originally wrote in 2004 ("The War President?"), the defining trait of George W. Bush's wartime leadership since 2001 has been precisely his refusal to call on Americans to sacrifice in the fight against Al Qaeda or the war in Iraq. In response to Bush's pompous February 17, 2004 pronouncement "I'm a war president," I noted that:
There's only one problem: wartime presidents call on their citizens to sacrifice. From Lincoln ("until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword") to Churchill ("I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat") and JFK ("ask not what your country can do for you", "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship"), true war leaders call on their people to sacrifice lives, livelihoods, personal freedom, and national treasure to bring ultimate victory in a long, painful struggle over the enemy.
In contrast, President Bush did not call on Americans to mobilize resources or make any sacrifices in the war on terror. Instead, in the aftermath of the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, the President of the United States courageously and forthrightly called on the American people to "go shopping."
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. As we've detailed elsewhere, Bush's "Opt Out" philosophy encourages American citizens to turn their backs on their country, their communities, their schools and each other. As a result, Bush cannot exhort the country to make shared sacrifices abroad in the name of the common good and the public interest when his program at home tells Americans to fight it out in a Hobbesian struggle of each against all. This, combined with the administration's staggering political cowardice, ensures that Americans will be asked to give up nothing, contribute nothing, and sacrifice nothing, except perhaps, their civil liberties.
In the end, the only sacrifice President Bush speaks of is needless sacrifice. Bush's call for sacrifice will paid only in American treasure and the blood of our fighting men and women in Iraq. Unable to define the objective or even what constitutes victory in Iraq, President Bush is simply asking 20,000 or more Americans risk their lives for his political survival.
For more analysis of Bush's failed wartime leadership, see:
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