Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 15, 2026.
It’s 38 F outside with bits of blue sky and an overwhelming gathering of gray clouds. We’ll again see a high in the low 50s as we march on toward Spring.
As I read the news last night and today, I was reminded of President George Dubya Bush’s declaration on an aircraft carrier, “Mission Accomplished”. Oh, what theater as the commander-in-chief landed a jet on an aircraft carrier and emerged in a flight suit. Republicans swooned.
Bush said that he was declaring that the military objectives had been achieved in his invasion of Iraq, and not necessarily that the war was over. His speech came on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the invasion began. The war grew and kept going, with the U.S. in there for eight more years.
I’m thinking about that now because the Trump administration is a diluted version of the Bush/Cheney administration. Bush/Cheney worked in secrecy and cherry-picked intel to support what was happening. One of Bush’s administration compared their plans for war to the marketing campaign for a new product to sell the war. Ignoring what UN weapons inspectors had been saying about Iraq’s weapons, Bush managed to put together a coalition of military forces from allies around the threat of WMDs
Trump did none of that. He just attacked, going in without a plan. Now Trumps thinks he can just declare it over whenever it suits him, just as Bush tried to do.
In the end, the Iraq invasion and war was a costly, disastrous mistake. Less than a quarter century later, and we wonder, how much of what Trump has begun will end with history repeating itself?
In comments on news articles about the war, some were saying, “I’m a Republican and I don’t support this war.” They go on, the timing is wrong, there is no plan, etc.
The thing is, their comments mean little to me at this point. Polls show that Republicans are mostly supporting Trump’s Iranian War. Few Republicans have stood up against anything Trump does, undoing a lot of the checks and balances in our government.
Trump and the MAGA movement co-opted the GOP. But the GOP allowed it to happen. The guiding principles and policies for the GOP are now, “Whatever Trump says.”
I think they made a mistake.
In the same sense, I was thinking of the problems with Mom. We saw what was coming years ago and tried to negotiate with her to improve her situation long before a crisis was reached. She refused, blaming her partner, Frank. But when Frank died, we saw that it was Mom as much as Frank that refused to see the truth and plan for what was happening.
It’s understandable. Many of us go into denial. But looking back, I still shake my head and think, what a mistake.
Not surprising that The Neurons have a song by Men At Work, “It’s A Mistake”, playing in the morning mental music stream. The anti-war song was written during the cold war and reflects worries that nuclear war might erupt.
Hearing it in my head makes me ruefully chuckle. How many times have I told others, “It’s a mistake?” Likewise, I think I was told multiple times, “It’s a mistake, but it’s your life.” I sort of smile because one of them was marrying almost 51 years ago. Dad said, “I think it’s a mistake.”
Sometimes the mistakes work out.
I hope your day goes well, with the mistakes kept to a minimum and of the minor variety, like, “Eating at that restaurant was a mistake. That food just wasn’t very good.”
Onward into another day.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 