For my 4th government assignment, I was tasked with crititiquing a Texas blog. I came across this gem from TexasFred.net written today, March 7, 2013. The article entitled "Too Much Money spent in Iraq For Too Few Results" was essentially a waste of my time. The article is pretty weak, devoid of any real substance, and is really just a bandwaggoning on an AP report posted on CBS News found here. Thankfully, this blog entry was short and not too cerebral, making my assignment a little easier.
TexasFred.net is aka Fred Witzell. Not much is available on Mr. Witzell per search engine results other than the predictable ancestory.com and linkedin.com results. Mr. Fred is a self-described ultra conservative. Being that his moniker is "Texas Fred", that comes as no surprise. Unfortunately, I have come to find ultra conservatives as a special breed of stupid so Fred is already at a disadvantage in my book. At the risk of derailing this assingment and finishing before I die, I will not veer off course and list all of the GOP's transgressions in the last 15 minutes, but I will state that the "right" has become synonymous with scandal, hypocrisy, and an absolute refusal to compromise even in the face of putting their constituents in harm's way.
Mr. Witzell's point about the CBS article is that he is upset that the AP never making any mention about the dead and injured soldiers and Dubya's personal issues with Saddam Hussien; it's just too bad that the CBS article was on the irresponsible spending, financial mismanagement, and lack of oversight on Iraqi infrastructure so Fred kinda veered off topic. Granted, Fred's blog is his own and he can say what he wants, but he doesn't really contribute anything to the conversation other than basic martyrdom bandwaggoning and anecdotal drivel. Let me clarify myself - a single life lost was too high a price, so please do not infer any disrespect on my behalf to the soldiers lost and injured. It seems that Fred is using their blood to bang his drum - my opinion.
Fred then goes onto his soapbox and states he was fine with invading Afghanistan in pursuit of Al Queda, then wanders off-topic about his irrelevant knowledge of uranium and Sarin gas, then teeters off to his finest bit of ridiculousness with his statement of "we went to Iraq because George W. Bush was pissed off at Saddam Hussein over threats Hussein made against George H.W. Bush, nothing more, nothing less".
Fred pretty much discredited himself with that lone statement. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure we invaded Iraq due to Hussein's human rights violations, torture of the Iraqi people, his fascist regime, and his threats of pursuing nuclear capability. I have a hard time believing the POTUS would arbitrarily invade a country, without the vote of the US Congress (constitutionally mandated unless by executive priviledge) on a personal beef. I think that is a bit of a stretch. I do believe that Dubya had possible credible information linking Hussein to Al Queda and/or WMD's but hindsight found that to be not the case. For those reasons i can see starting a war, but not because of being butt-hurt over empty threats.
Fred then cut-n-pastes points regarding misappropriations for Iraqi infrastructure projects that are all too well known, detracting from his point. He then declares how money was wasted but then restates his anger at the lack of acknowledgement of loss of life. Fred then furhter discredits himself by speaking about how the soldiers deaths and exorbinant costs of the misappropriation is what caused our nation's economic recession. I would remind Fred that deregulated financial institutions, expansion of junk holdings to inflate stocks, creation of artificial economies, and the governmental intervention into the economy is really what caused our current situation... that, plus 2 wars, and the $11 trillion dollars in consumer holdings. Just sayin'.
I will take a moment to applaud Fred on not willy-nilly unconditionally supporting his party regardless of their action - i.e. his statement about Dubya taking in into Iraq in the first place. It seems too often that, in my perspective, people will side with polital affiliation rather than what is morally/ethically right, regardless of the issue. 10 gallon Hat's Off to Fred for that, but unfortunately the rest of his commentary is kinda silly - ergo, his moniker of "Texas Fred" lumps him into the same fold as I, yet I don't want Fred speaking for me. He makes us Texans look kinda stoopid, and Rick Perry is doing enough of that already.
No comments:
Post a Comment