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Edited on Fri Mar-23-07 07:18 PM by jtg33
Imagine, if you will, the scene I am about to describe to you.
If is sometime during the summer of 2007. President Bush's "New Way Forward" is well underway, and Iraq is still in chaos. Nothing is working, and the President is on the verge of losing faith in his master plan for democracy in the Middle East.
One day, as the President is sitting in the Oval Office, a team of scientists enters, escorted by the untouchable Karl Rove. They bring the exciting news that they have perfected a top secret time machine that will allow the President to travel back in time to stop the Iraq war before it ever began.
The President, of course, jumps at the idea. He's wanted to fix this mess ever since it turned into a quagmire when... Well, basically when it started and President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished." The President dresses in his favorite flight suit, steps onto the glowing platform at the secret underground base outside Washington, D.C., and he is instantly transported back to February, 2003.
When the President reveals to the nation that he has come from the future to prevent the disaster of the Iraq war, the country celebrates his wise choice and his approval ratings soar. The President responds to this universal goodwill and praise the only way he knows how.
He plans an invasion of Iran, attacks in July of 2003, and sends approximately 150,000 troops in on the ground, citing the fact that Iran will have developed capabilities for nuclear weapons in the future if they were not stopped now. The president's grammar is technically correct, though it is very confusing to listen to him explain it.
This action, however, opens a rift in the space-time continuum. By never invading Iraq in the first place, there was never a need in the year 2007 for the President to go back in time to 2003 to stop the Iraq war before it started. As the war in Iran rages on, the universe begins to collapse in on itself - existence is literally unraveling.
Panicked, the President addresses the nation on the crisis he has created. He pledges to go back and time and stop himself from ever preventing the Iraq war by traveling into the future to stop his past future self from going in to the past and changing the timeline, thus opening an inter-dimensional rift in the space-time continuum that is causing the universe to unravel.
Before the President can outline his plan to send a surge of over 30,000 additional troops into the inter-dimensional rift in the space-time continuum to protect the people of the world, the universe completely collapses and existence as we know it ends.
...
Okay, so what's the point of this rambling, nonsensical tale of time travel? I'm doing my best to convey my view of the situation in Iraq and the President's new strategy there - there are no easy answers. The President can't just go back in time and fix his mistakes, and he can't secure the safety of Iraq by making new mistakes there.
I don't have the answer for Iraq, but i DO know that the President doesn't have it, either. If the surge is working, the effects are barely beginning to show themselves. American men and women are dying almost every day, and the violence continues to rage on in this shattered Middle Eastern nation. The politicians in Washington, D.C. need to work together to find a way to stabilize Iraq as much as we can before pulling our troops the hell out of there. Sure, it's not a perfect solution - but sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, admit you were wrong, and be humbled before a large audience.
Personally, I would use the time machine to send Al Gore back to the year 2000 to run a more aggressive campaign to prevent Bush from ever coming to power.
Sure this would bring up a whole new temporal paradox to deal with, but Gore could handle it - as Vice President of the United States under Bill Clinton, it was Gore's duty to protect the space-time continuum.
Come on. Read the Constitution, people!
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