|
Monday, March 03, 2003
Why Bush is a poor war president, even by GOP standards: As part of W's phenomenal screw-up of alliance building for this war, it seems all but certain that Turkey will not cooperate. Today's Papers provides a summary of the arguments against Bush:An LAT "news analysis" suggests that the administration royally messed up its negotiations with Turkey. Turkish legislators felt the White House was trying to bully them. "The Americans kept giving ultimatums and deadlines," said one legislator who broke with his party and voted against the U.S. The NYT has similar stuff, saying Turkish legislators complained of the U.S.'s "overbearing and sometimes petty approach" to the negotiations. (NYT's words.) Among the complaints, U.S. diplomats apparently refused to pay taxes on stuff they bought in Turkey. (In an unfortunate change, the LAT's early headline online, was, "TURKISH VOTE IS STUDY IN MISCALCULATION." That's strong stuff—apparently too strong for the LAT's editors. The final edition of paper blares, "THE REASONS TURKEY REJECTED U.S.") The problem is that this will cost American lives, as WaPo, joining others, observes: Militarily, while alternatives exist for placing U.S. forces in northern Iraq -- essentially by airlifting lighter Army and Marine units to key locations -- these options pose greater logistical challenges for American troops and carry heightened risks of U.S. casualties, officials and analysts said.
With each phenomenal screw-up by the Bush administration, we've kept saying that it doesn't affect our support for the war. At some point, though, is it possible that all these errors add up to one large problem that makes it wrong to support Bush's plans?
Steven I. Weiss 11:23:00 AM
|