Pay the price!

Nicholas D. Kristoff writes in the New York Times about what we should do now that we are in Iraq. He admits that Bush misled the United States into war, but what's done is done. We're in there and might as well do what we can to make the best of the situation. Kristoff's position is that we should "pay for our occupation" and keep our troops there. Excerpt:

... [hold] our noses and [pass] the president's budget request for Iraq and Afghanistan."

Hold our noses. But nowhere does he talk about Bush paying a political price for his (mis)leadership.

Our position is that it's probably best to get out fast and leave the situation in the hands of the U.N., but we recognize that there is an argument for staying in there.

Those (like Kristoff) who say Americans should "pay the price" (financially and in lives lost) should also demand that Bush pay a price as well.

If Congress is going to pony up the $87 billion, they should at least include a provision that requires Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, and Rice to wear hair-shirts for the rest of his term. Real hair-shirts.

Or barring that, an official declaration by the administration that they were wrong about Iraq's connections to al Qaeda, the state of Iraq's nuclear program, the existence of chemical weapons, the decision to bypass the U.N., the use of bogus intelligence, and so on.

If Americans are going to pay a price, so should Bush.

posted by Quiddity at 10/16/2003 05:44:00 AM