Doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then the president and his cronies are definitely ’round-the-bend bonkers.

I’ve been avoiding the issue of national politics for some time now. The situation has gotten so ugly and so mired, and I’ve been disappointed and angry for so long, I just haven’t had the energy to deal with the daily barrage of manipulative partisan mudslinging that has seemingly become the hallmark of most mass media and nearly all national politics. But although it will undoubtedly be kicked back and forth between Democrats and Republicans for a long time, the issue of the war in Iraq is not really a partisan issue; it is now an issue of sanity.

President George Bush’s speech last week has woken me from that numbness, though its mantra-like chant of “stay the course” was dulled to a subliminal whisper designed to lull the American public back into something approaching an actual approval rating, instead of the record-breaking long-term disapproval rating Bush carries.

It didn’t work. National polls after Bush’s speech show that the public regards their president virtually no differently than before he called for 21,500 more troops to be placed in Iraq, with two-thirds disapproving of the president’s actions. In fact, in some areas, his ratings fell slightly, though the difference was within the margin of error and therefore not statistically significant.

What happened? The public didn’t buy it. There are only so many times one can say one thing and have another happen and still be believed, and that line has obviously been crossed. Clearly, the public no longer buys the line about Iraqi terrorists wanting to “destroy our way of life.” I guess no one ever told the White House spin doctors there are only so many times you can successfully wag the same dog before it eventually threatens to bite you.

It takes serious gall to call for more troops years after you’ve stood on an aircraft carrier announcing “mission accomplished” and even more gall to do so about a week after the deposed ruler of the country you’ve invaded has been publicly hanged (not to mention his two closest associates being executed a few days later). It takes a stupendous amount of gall to ask more American soldiers and their families to put everything on the line when nearly every qualified expert and study group, including Iraqis themselves, have stated the solution to the violence in Iraq will not be a military solution but a practical and diplomatic one.

“Success will take time,” Bush said. Well, yes, but how much more time do we have? What and who will define what is “success” in Iraq? Is it when they stop shooting at each other? Is it when they stop shooting at us? It is when we have some sort of verifiable proof that every last potential terrorist is definitely and verifiably dead? And how should we accomplish that, and what is the timeline?

“Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.” What is and who defines failure in this case? If we bring troops home, have we automatically been “lost” the war? By that logic, can we ever get out of Iraq? Does he expect to officially defeat someone and have them surrender to him? Who? The “insurgents”? (The word literally just means “rebel,” by the way.)

It’s not like we’re fighting some sovereign nation or highly organized group with a ruler or general that can act as a figurehead and ceremoniously say, “You win—we give up.” Saddam is dead, and the United States effectively installed the current government in Iraq, so obviously we’re not at war with them, even if we are fighting a war in their country and killing their people. And for all the talk of al Quaeda, we’ve heard precious little about the presumably still-alive Osama bin Laden, who was the administration’s excuse for the war in the first place. (Did you forget about him?)

The president’s speech talked a lot about ‘law-n-order,’ a common theme with him both at home and abroad, but his administration seems entirely disconnected from reality and what constitutes a desirable order. One really does get the impression sometimes that the leader of the free world might just be more comfortable playing cowboys and Indians—or more frighteningly, really is playing some version of that childish, outdated pastime, only on a global scale.

While the specific criteria for deeming success or failure in Iraq may be unquantified abstract concepts to Bush, that is probably not the case with the average citizen of Baghdad. I heard the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. comment live on Bush’s speech on National Public Radio less than an hour after it was broadcast. When asked what sort of things one would see in Baghdad in the next six months that would indicate the situation was improving, he cited things we, and most nations, take for granted. Regular postal and banking hours along with regular business hours resuming, children regularly able to attend school and a return of nightlife, and safe traveling conditions with no curfews after dark were the three things he specifically mentioned.

One could also presume things like potable running water and electricity for more than a few hours a day in the city might also improve the situation. Many parts of the city have been without either for literally years now. It seems like such long-term inconveniences might just add to the general discontent.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq, now half a decade ago, $18 billion or more was allocated for infrastructure replacement. In other words, our government promised the Iraqis and the American people that it would pay for what it broke. That promise was broken a long time ago, and no one really knows where the money (American tax dollars) went. (This is an easily verifiable fact, though it has been obscured by so many other scandals of deservedly larger headlines, such as what constitutes torture.)

Now, the only reference to actually fixing the country’s infrastructure is the president telling us we will make them pay for it.
“To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs.”

The gall is in never-ending supply in the Oval Office, it seems. The above quote was part of a list of what the “democratic” Iraqi government will do, clearly because we literally have a gun to its head. If this is all about handing over sovereignty, shouldn’t we encourage them to actually exercise it?

But since this administration doesn’t appear to have such goals, or actually any clearly stated definition of what would constitute a sufficient success in Iraq that would allow us to bring our troops home or a timeline for any sort of withdrawal at all, and the president’s oft-rehearsed speech involves an all-brawn-no-brain approach, the one we’ve heard over and over again, it seems our nation is being led down the same path all over again. Only now he expects us to believe the result will be different, and disturbing hints that Iran and Syria might be theaters for similar U.S. military action in the near future were thrown into the mix.

It’s been said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Clearly, the Red King is off with his head.

(Originally published in The Easton News, January 18, 2007)