My newspaper column for this week: He forgot Poland! (xpost)

[flowomo]

Real leaders set a stronger example
By Rich Lewis, August 04, 2005
published in The Sentinel (Carlisle, PA), Aug. 4, 2005
available online at:
www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/08/04/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


Do you remember Poland?

One of the sublime moments in the first presidential debate last September came after John Kerry slammed George Bush for taking us to war against Iraq with the support of only a handful of allies.

"When we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States," Kerry noted. "That's not a grand coalition. We can do better."

To which Bush made the now-legendary reply: "Well, actually, he forgot Poland."

Overnight, Bush's lame retort was transformed into the mocking phrase "You Forgot Poland," which promptly appeared on T-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers across the country. The phrase also spawned a number of websites, including, of course, www.youforgotpoland.com/yfp.

Interestingly, and somewhat overlooked at the time, was that six months before the debate, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski had expressed his unhappiness at the way American officials had persuaded Poland to join the invasion: "They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true," Kwasniewski told a group of French journalists. "We were taken for a ride."

Six months after the debate, the Polish defense minister announced that his country will bring home its 1,700 troops in January 2006.

And Polish officials weighed in again this week, making it clear they are no happier with the Bush administration's handling of the post-war phase in Iraq than they were with the way Washington lured them in.

On Monday, Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka, speaking at an international forum in Sweden, said the U.S-led attempts to rebuild Iraq into a functioning nation have "failed totally."

The Associated Press report of Belka's comments said he accused planners of mistakenly basing the reconstruction of Iraq on the same model used for Germany after the Second World War.

"Many mistakes, major mistakes, have been committed," Belka said.

But you wouldn't know it to hear the president speak, or to review his upcoming schedule.

Just yesterday, Bush addressed a largely conservative crowd in Grapevine, Texas. He called the war a "noble cause," but, as usual, gave no hint that anyone was "taken for a ride" or that "major mistakes" have been made.

Looks like he forgot Poland.

Bush's speech came on the same day that 14 Marines were killed in a roadside blast near Haditha, Iraq, which came one day after an Army Reservist was killed by a sniper near Baghdad, which came one day after six Marines were killed in a firefight, also near Haditha.

CNN reports that 43 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq in the last 10 days. A total of 1,822 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began.

If you were in charge of a war and one of your staunchest allies was convinced your policies had "failed totally," and your soldiers were being killed at a rate of more than four a day — wouldn't you spend every waking moment desperately trying to come up with a new and better plan?

The president apparently doesn't think such an effort is necessary.

On Tuesday, Bush left the White House for his Texas ranch to take what the Washington Post described as "the kind of break most Americans can only dream of — nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time."

This relaxing junket to clear more of that annoying brush, spend a little quality time with the family, and schmooze with political friends is "the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years," the Post observed.

At this rate, Bush will easily blow away the modern record for presidential R-and-R, set by the notoriously sleepy Ronald Reagan. In his eight years as president, Reagan spent all or part of 335 days at his ranch in California. With more than three years to go, Bush already has logged 319 days at his retreat in Texas.

Thinking about the current president happily frolicking in Crawford calls to mind the actions of another president embroiled in a war.

On March 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson — tormented by the mounting loss of American lives in Viet Nam — stunned the nation by going on national television to say he would not seek re-election.

"With America's sons in the fields far away...(and) with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day," Johnson said he refused to devote "an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office."

Johnson could have been re-elected, but he gave up the presidency itself so that he could invest all his time and energy in trying to end the war in Southeast Asia.

Is it too much to ask that President Bush give up a little fun on the ranch in order to do the same for the war in the Middle East?

Even assuming the president will conduct some official business during these next five weeks, the symbolism of the trip west is appalling: The commander-in-chief taking off on a vacation — a vacation! — while American soldiers risk and lose their lives in a brutally violent conflict thousands of miles from their homes and families.

Maybe President Bush never learned that a good leader shares in the sacrifices asked of those he commands.

Or maybe he just forgot.

Rich Lewis' e-mail address is: [e-mail]

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Bravo! Kicked and recommended.

[rodeodance]

2. you should have it reprinted in some polish newspaper (english or

translated)---would show that we --the people care--(if not our President).