Chad Marlow
You Reap What You Sow
It saddens me in that within a week of North Korea's missile tests, not a single leading newspaper has posited the observation that George W. Bush is at least partially to blame for North Korea's actions. President Bush, like the print media it seems, looks upon the world and can only wonder how things have become so bleak. Perhaps a short lesson in relatively current events might jog some of their memories.
When President Bush delivered his infamous State of the Union "axis of evil" remark, in which he singled out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the greatest threat to world peace (missed the United States, he did), the world was comparatively not so bad. Iraq was abiding by United Nations mandates not to restock its chemical and biological weapons stash and in no way was posing a military threat to its neighbors. Iran had elected a political moderate as its President who, despite the de facto leadership of his nation by ultra-conservative clerics, had been moving Iran toward more normalized relations with the United States. North Korea, for its part, was still engaging in its on again, off again ranting about its nuclear weapons program, but had nonetheless avoided an major provocative steps while it remained engaged in the "six party talks" efforts to bring about a peaceful resolution to North Korea's interest in developing a serviceable nuclear weapon.
Of course, the leader of Iran had no chance to respond, as he was voted out of office and replaced by an ultra-conservative, anti-Semitic president who, let's face it, has a few screws loose. Now Iran is a greater threat to world stability than it has been in decades, and all our President can do is wonder, "how did the world get so messed up?" And in North Korea, they decided that they has better quickly develop nuclear weapons -- the world's greatest military deterrent -- before the United States could invade. And now North Korea is a greater threat to world stability than it has been in decades, and all our President can do is wonder, "why do these things keep happening to me?" The responses of Iran and North Korea, as much as we may not like them, are rational. And yet, not a single major newspaper has called Bush to task for creating the situation in the first place. No newspaper has had the integrity to print the simple phrase, "Mr. President, you reap what you sow."
To be sure, of the many lists of losses America has suffered during the militaristic Bush administration, the most curious entries are found on the missing in action list; a list that includes the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, among many others.
Who would have thought in late-September 2001 that five years later I would find myself longing for "the good old days" when newspapers at least tried to report the news and all we had to worry about was Al Qaeda?
Chad Marlow: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 5:03 PM, Jul 11, 2006 in
Foreign Policy
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