Our Ahab-In-Chief

How like Captain Ahab is our Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush. Ignoring all counsel, all protests, and all misadventures, he drives on, obsessed with the quest of his White Whale.

What is his White Whale? He calls it “Terror”. It’s not a specific terrorist group. It is “Terror”. His pursuit of it is a “Global War”. For when “Terror” burned the World Trade Center it figuratively scarred his face and chewed on his leg. Now it must be hunted down and slain, regardless of the cost to our Ship of State and to the lives of those who depend upon it.

And there have been costs, dear costs:

• Thousands of our soldiers have lost their lives, and thousands more have grievous wounds.
• Millions of innocent civilians have been killed, injured, and forced to flee their homes.
• Our military has been ground down, to the point that its readiness has been compromised.
• Our financial future has been gambled, to the point that our currency is worth less and less.
• The price of oil has skyrocketed, and remains at the mercy of mostly hostile foreign powers.

For all of this, his “Terror” has not been eliminated. So our Ahab-in-Chief insists we stay the course. He demands continued funding, its use to be subject to his whim. He demands respect for his captaincy, to the sacrifice of all restraint and reason, even though he has shown poor judgment time and again. It’s not “defeatist” to say this will lead to ruin. It is prophecy based on bitter experience.

Alex Budarin