Posted on 03/22/2003 7:30:02 PM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
One day, after the smoke over Baghdad clears, George w. Bush will again have to hear the questions that he has so far refused to answer. And then, no matter what the answers are, it will be too late to backtrack. The damage will have been done.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, may be one of the questioners. During a conference call last week, he said that he and other members of the caucus had been trying without success to meet with Bush.
'We need some questions answered;' he told the journalists on the phone with him. And because he and his caucus represent approximately 26 million people, he thought Bush should at least agree to a meeting.
But according to Cummings, Bush never did. So he went with a plan B, reading his questions into the Congressional record:
"Have we received clear and convincing evidence that the President's decision will not destabilize the Middle East ...make our defense against terrorism more difficult ...and not undermine our ability to meet the compelling domestic needs of Americans here at home?"
"Where is the Administration's comprehensive plan for the political and economic stability of Iraq once hostilities have ended? "Where is the President's evaluation of the cost of military conflict and reconstruction? "Where is a the President's analysis of the impact upon our economy? Will both affluent and working class Americans share fairly in that sacrifice?"
In short, Cummings wanted to know what many of us also want to know. "What happens after the smoke clears? Will the United States and its Citizens be safer and more prosperous after sending its armed forces into harm's way? And will Iraq truly be liberated and better off?
Beyond rhetoric, no one in the Administration has given concrete answers to these questions. Maybe they don't have the answers-or maybe they do but know we won't like them.
So we are left to speculate. Cummings estimates that it might cost more than $1 trillion to rebuild Iraq.
That will buy somebody a lot of hummus.
But 1et's be compassionately conservative and say it will only cost $250 billion, one fourth of Cummings' projection. "Who picks up the tab?
So far, it looks like we will. And by we, I don't mean those among us vying for those tax cuts Bush is championing. I mean those who can least afford to pick up the tab -those children, elderly and poor persons who depend on our tax dollars to help them survive the wars they fight every day here at home.
And who stands to benefit from the billions it will take to rebuild Iraq? Recent reports suggest that U.S. corporations will. They have already begun lining up to do business in a Saddam-free Iraq.
If l were a cynic, I'd say that this was an egregious case of wealth transference –except that the Americans likely to suffer the most aren't wealthy. But I'm not a cynic. I'm merely a skeptic who doubts that Bush or his team will ever give us answers –meaningful or otherwise -to Cummings' questions. Instead, I expect we will learn the answers firsthand, as we watch some of our fellow citizens struggle without hope in an economically decimated, socially aggravated, security-threatened America.
We will embrace the young men and women of our fighting forces as heroes when they return, but many might not feel like heroes if the America they return to feeds off of its weaker members to satiate the powerful. It is for them that Elijah Cummings wanted to put his questions to Bush. And to his slate of questions, I'd like to add one more.
What will we do if the smoke that clears Baghdad comes floating to our shores?
David Persons e-mail:davidpe@htimes.com
What I think I should do is buy stock in dog food companies, cause obviously that's all the elderly will be eating because of this war and Bush's tax cut.
But the most insidious point is where Cummings and his caucus represent 26 million people, Not the rest of the US.
Let's hope it does.
The ME has been stabilized in a very negative mode for decades. It needs to be destabilized.
The Democrats still treat minorities like slaves imo.
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