A wartime president would give us some answers

The planning committee for the Republican convention must have missed the memo. Somebody forgot to tell them that the September 11 Commission found no evidence of a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that, in short, there was no justification for the U.S. to invade that country. That's the only explanation. That must be why were treated to hours of emotional programming juxtaposing September 11 and the proud duty that our soldiers are doing in Iraq fighting the on-going war on terror.



Clearly enough, the Republican party wants us to once again suspend our disbelief and rally round George W. Bush as a "wartime president" (and politely ignore Bush's burbling this week that the real problem is that the invasion of Iraq was a "catastrophic success," or his ominously Orwellian warning that "we can never win the war on terror" but must fight on anyway).



Well okay then. If George W. Bush wants to be a wartime president, he owes us a few things, and we ought to be listening for them when he accepts the nomination to be wartime president Thursday.

A wartime president has a responsibility to explain how his war is going and to articulate a clear strategy that he will pursue if he wins a second term.



A wartime president must explain why his war, which he told us was meant to contain terrorism has instead created more terrorism.



A wartime president ought to explain why most of the new terrorism is in Iraq itself, which was supposed to be the beneficiary of our gift of freedom and our platform for combating terrorism but instead has become a magnet for terrorism.



A wartime president owes us a clear explanation of why, after nearly 1,000 Americans have been killed and thousands wounded, Taliban-like Sunni fundamentalists now control western Iraq and why, when our Iraqis allies try to work with us to fight off these insurgents, they are killed by their own fellow citizens.

At this point we don't know Bush's war plans because he hasn't told us. On Thursday he can provide some answers, or he can stand before the afterimages of the Twin Towers, insist that we are safer, and beg us to trust him.



Washington Post: For Openers, Recalling The Past to Win the Present