One plus one is three.
Oops. I didn’t mean to hit the ‘send’ button.
George HW Bush not using a condom, giving us W.
These are mistakes.
In today’s media, and even in many leftist and ‘progressive’ outlets, we are seeing a very disturbing accounting of America’s mood on the war. The majority of Americans believe the war to be a mistake. The first definition of that term, using www.dictionary.com, is “an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.”
That would describe the 3 scenarios above. But why do so many see the war as a ‘mistake’? It is because we are losing. With over 3500 troops dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis murdered, towns like Fallujah wiped out, and corporate profiteering on Viagra, to say that this is a mistake is deadly wrong.
Mistakes are usually miscalculations. Yes, many mistakes were made in this war. “We will be greeted with flowers as liberators.” IED’s have replaced the bouquets. “The insurgents are in their last throes.” Vive la résistance! “They hate us for our freedom.” Yeah, like they strap bombs onto themselves and detonate in the middle of a group of mercenaries yelling “Death to shopping malls and KFC. Allah is great.” No, this war is not a mistake. It may have been poorly planned, but it was an illegal war of aggression from the beginning. The purpose was clearly world domination through control of natural resources essential for an industrial world power. If the economic forces have total control of oil, then that pushes our economic rivals, notably China and Russia, into a second tiered position in relation to us. In the Middle East, only Iran stands against our imperial designs, so naturally, they are the next ‘conquest’. The mistakes will be that Iran will not go peacefully into that Wall Street night.
If Iran is attacked, or invaded, people all over the world will rise up against American aggression, from Venezuela to Indonesia. We would be lucky if we are labeled just a ‘pariah nation’. Through the neo-cons own reasoning, we will be giving justification to attack American interests anywhere in the world. Perhaps the biggest mistake in language use is ‘opposition party’.
Fortunately, that term has fallen by the waste side, even by many Democrats. There is no viable opposition party in America. The Green Party is still way too small and ineffective to change either electoral outcomes or policy. However, to many, they are becoming the only
alternative to those who once thought they were ‘left’ enough to be Democrats. The continuing ‘mistake’ is the belief that the Democratic Party is fundamentally different than the Republicans. As Greens often run on how similar the two parties are, this claim is gaining credibility. Madam Speaker Pelosi, Congressman ‘Kowtow” Conyers, and all others in leadership have given ample reason for reasonable people to see their mistake in relying on them for progressive and anti-war, anti-fascist leadership.
Mistakes do happen. What’s important is knowing the difference between a mistake and poorly organized mass murder supported by both parties.