Partisanship, Iraqi Style

The only difference between the sunni/shia conflict in Iraq and the Republican/Democrat conflict in the US is we don’t use weapons…yet.

Other than that, the partisanship in America is every bit as vitriolic as the partisanship in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament cannot do anything because of the partisanship. How is that different than our own congress. They can’t seem to get anything accomplished because the democrats blame Bush for everything wrong, and the Republicans blame Democrats for all that is wrong and they spend their time and energy throwing barbs at each other. The only difference between Washington and Baghdad is American barbs are mostly verbal and sometimes legal.

Time magazine this week is a prime example. The president’s daughter has written a book about a teenage mother living with HIV. So the question to her is about the Bush’s administration hindering HIV/AIDS relief. “Aids is the fault of the Bush Administration.”

In the letters section a letter writer from California is responding to an essay about Brian Belichick and the New England Patriot’s cheating incident. Listen to this brilliant statement. “Even worse, this same attitude has allowed the Bush Administration to commit crimes against the constitution and the world.” Any occasion, even a football scandal, is legitimate for throwing barbs at the enemy.

Later in the letters section a writer from Jordan says that if President Bush could be persuaded to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and stop Israel from abusing the Palestinians the problem of violent radicalism in the Muslim world could be stopped. Did terrorism begin when we sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan or did we send troops because of terrorism? Don’t let facts get in the way of our partisanship.

In the first 12 pages of Time Bush is accused of keeping AIDS from being cured, committing crimes against the world and constitution and causing terrorism in the Middle East.

Instead of seeing all of these as problems we could be working on together, we are content, and Republicans are as guilty of it as Democrats, we are content to just set back and blame the other guy. They do the same thing in Iraq except they are not content with verbal assassination, they practice the real thing.