Of Impeachments and Hangings

I suppose it's my turn to offer yet another blogger perspective about dear old Saddam Hussein. First, let's get one thing straight: Saddam is no martyr and he should not be viewed as one. Mao and Stalin weren't revered in this light and he sure won't get his due on this front. The truth is that many Arabs viewed him with suspicion and distrust. He was a secular and destabilizing figure in the region.

Hussein is gone. With him goes bad karma. One can only hope Charon is taking him to the River Styx where the former dictator will meet with Satan.

With so much to be done in Iraq, we could all be excused for thinking it's a colossal waste of time. It's that overwhelming. However, when the tough gets going....you know the rest.

Is this the time to pull out troops and impeach a President during such a precarious period? It seems to me that advocating this position only considers the short-term aspect of what is now a long-term project. I think most reasonable people would conclude that Bush and his administration did not a) convey to the public effectively their plan and b) plan the aftermath of the invasion properly. We could add a "c" here for the moral relativists among us: that before our eyes he morphed into a modern day Hitler. Not going there. Ain't gonna touch that one. Not worth it. Despite this, it does not mean the over arching idea was wrong. If anything, now is the time for true enlightened ideas to shine through.

Iraq is a great experiment in a region that has no experience with the concept of democracy. It's a region that never really had to insert notions of cooperation and compromise in its geopolitical engagements. Iraq was literally stripped of a bloody dictatorial regime and replaced by fragile democratic institutions hastily pasted together. It should not surprise anyone that violence has been used as a diplomatic tool.

Harping on this is obvious and pointless. Iraqi's need America more than ever. Only Americans can decide if they have the will to see this through. My only suggestion is that Americans think about the larger scope of their decisions. That they remove themselves from the domestic angle and consider it from an Iraqi's perspective. I'm not sure this is being done on the tables for some pundits or in the halls of body politic.

On a wider scope, I think America's problems are deeper than George W. Bush. It seems to me Bush's alleged indiscretions are not that far off from many past Presidents - Clinton included. He's not threatening democracy - Americans in general are. In some ways, the country needs to impeach itself - and by this I mean all the people who deliberately profit from ensuring America remains culturally and politically divisive. Pinning it on Bush is not going to solve anything.

The funny thing is that here I am, a Canadian telling Americans to purge themselves. What nation on earth leaves itself open to so much scrutinizing? Certainly not Canada. Imperfect America is always staring in the mirror and wondering. If only some countries would do the same.

Iraq finds itself in a grave predicament but it's far from being lost. Iraq can succeed. It will only become another Vietnam (though there is little comparisons to be made between the two) if Americans make it so.

As I have said before on my blog, we do stand at a crossroads in world history. How we cross it will be determined by how we choose to look at the glass.