Moving On

by digby

I keep hearing from the right wing talking heads today that it’s time to put all the arguments about how we got into Iraq behind us, that even though it’s now official that it created more terrorists and made the nation less safe, we need to look to future and figure out where to go from here, not live in the past.

That’s very compelling. But there’s just one little thing we need to do before we move on. We need to figure out which people we should trust to lead us as we move forward to fix the mistakes of the past.

The Republicans were in office when 9/11 happened and Islamic terrorism emerged as the nation’s greatest external threat. The entire country and the world rallied around them. They then lied the country into an unnecessary war in Iraq on the basis of an illegal, immoral military doctine. They threw away billions of dollars and created a massive training camp for jihadists to learn how to fight Americans and recruit converts from all over the world while degrading the constitution at home and demonstrating for the world that our ideals are disposable. That’s the record on this issue.

Sure, we have to figure out where to go from here. Everything is a huge, huge mess. But it would seem obvious that this is an administration gravely in need of some oversight. Another two years of undivided government will just lead the Republican congress to give our president more of the bad advice and cover he’s been getting. This country needs a new congress if we’re going to figure out how to get out of this mess. The American people need to decide if they are going to continue to put all their trust in the guys who fucked up and continue to fuck up — or see if the other guys might have some ideas. It’s that simple.

Update: I probably should point out that “solving the problem” will require some very specitic actions for the new guys. Since the Republicans have been so secretive, they new congress will have to force the administration to submit to the constitutional oversight the constitution requires. That means investigations and hearings. In order to fix the mess, they really have no choice.

It’s all about problem solving 101:

1. Define the problem

2. Look at potential causes for the problem

3. Identify alternatives for approaches to resolve the problem

4. Select an approach to resolve the problem

5. Plan the implementation of the best alternative (this is your action plan)

6. Monitor implementation of the plan

7. Verify if the problem has been resolved or not

Just as it is in any business or organization, if in the course of this problem solving it becomes evident that certain people have committed criminal acts or gross acts of malfeasance, then they will have to be dealt with. There’s no moving forward unless the proper lessons are learned and the entire organization is shown that there are repurcussions for bad acts.

It’s not about playing the blame game, oh no. It’s just a matter of making sure that our government runs efficiently and that everyone understands the rules and regulations. Accountability. Nothing political about it.

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