George Bush won’t accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace. Because of these failures, Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists, and our presence there is draining the good will our country once enjoyed, diminishing our global standing. It has made fighting the global war against terrorist organizations more difficult, not less.
- John Edwards
Imagine this- a politician who has the cojones to admit that he blew it by voting for the war in Iraq. Three simple words: I WAS WRONG. No, it doesn’t bring back more than 2000 dead American soldiers, but at least someone, in this case former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, has had the moral courage to come out and admit that he made the wrong call.
Americans do not necessarily expect perfection from their elected representatives. We can handle than imperfect human being will on occasion make imperfect decisions. What we have difficulty accepting are those times when our elected representatives make decisions that play fast and loose with the lives of our loved ones. Virtually everyone in this country with an ounce of honesty recognizes that the war in Iraq was based on intelligence that was either a) gross misinterpreted or b) outright fabricated. Still, the White House continues to repeat the Big Lie: that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism. No, the reality is that we find ourselves embroiled in a Vietnam-like quagmire, with no exit strategy, no way to save face, and no real hope of anything resembling victory.
Still glad you voted for Our Glorious Leader??
I WAS wrong.
Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told — and what many of us believed and argued — was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.
It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn’t make a mistake ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ the men and women of our armed forces and their families ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ have performed heroically and paid a dear price.
The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.
While we can’t change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America’s moral leadership is acknowledging when we’ve made mistakes or been proven wrong ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right.
The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ and that I was being given by our intelligence community ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ wasn’t the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.
The problem here, of course, is that Edwards is no longer a member of the US Senate. It’s great that someone who was part of the process in 2002 now recognizes and is willing to admit that he was duped and made the wrong decision. Would that a few current Senators could display the same sort of moral courage and resolve. How many more Americans will have to die because our elected representatives lack the courage to admit to reality and demand that something be done to end the pointless slaughter? Until and unless we demand that our Senators and Congressman deal with the reality on the ground in Iraq, we can count on more young Americans coming home in flag-draped boxes.
WE DESERVE BETTER…and so do our men and women in uniform.
