W. Tyrannus

I think this administration needs to learn a lesson in accountability. I will turn to classical literature for an answer to this jarring question: should the president be held accountable for basing a war on faulty intelligence? Now, I will give the president the benefit of the doubt and say that it was an honest mistake. He thought Iraq had WMDs, and with that, decided that the U.S. should step in, take action, and pull Sadam from the seat of power, overhaul his regime, and install a new, America-friendly democracy. In other words, should President Bush be held accountable for making a decision (that put American and Iraqi lives on the line) based on incorrect information, assuming he really was ignorant of the truth.

In case you are not familiar, I will quickly recap the story of Oedipus Tyrannus, the 5th century B.C. play by Greek tragedian Sophocles. The king and queen of Thebes have a child and go to the Delphic oracle for a prophecy about their baby. The oracle says that the child will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Without skipping a beat, they hand the kid over to a servant who is given the charge of killing the child. The servant takes pity on the child and hangs him from a tree from his ankles (thus Oedipus, or "swollen feet") instead of quickly relinquishing the child's life. A shepherd finds the child and takes him to king Polybus of Corinth, where he is raised as a prince. As a young man, Oedipus finds out about the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Not realizing that the king and queen of Corinth are not his natural parents, he flees the city to avoid the fulfillment of the prophecy. On the road to Thebes, he squabbles with a group of travellers and end up killing Laius, who, unbeknownst to both of them, is his father. He went on to solve the riddle of the Sphinx and, as a reward, was made king of Thebes and given the queen to marry. In this case it was his mother, Jocasta. Mind you he has no idea that he has killed the king of Thebes. He also has no idea that the king of Thebes is his father, and neither does he know that the woman he is to marry is his mother.

During the course of Sophocles' play, Oedipus discovers that he was the cause of all this misfortune: the murder of his own father, the incest with his mother, and her subsequent suicide. Despite his not knowing he was fulfilling the tragic prophecy dealt by Delphi, Oedipus takes out his own eyes in anagnorisis, or recognition of his sins, and as punishment for his ate, or spiritual blindess. He is holding himself accountable for his mistakes, instead of throwing up his hands and saying "jeez guys, I had no idea," whilst a plague is ravaging the city of Thebes because the murderer of Laius has not been brought to justice (starting to sound familiar?).

That having been said, I would like to go back to my initial question: is George W. Bush accountable for the war in Iraq? The answer is a resounding YES! Regardless of whether or not he was using intelligence to fill a policy gap (which more and more seems to be the case), Geroge W. Bush is responsible for the deaths of more than 2000 American troops and countless thousands of Iraqi civillians. It seems to me that this administration has been hiding behind the veil of "oh dear, we really had no idea. Oops." Quoting John Kerry, "how do you tell a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Seems like we're heading deeper and deeper into another Vietnam.

Oedipus was ignorant of his sins. He committed two of the most heinous crimes you could committ in Ancient Greece: he killed his own kin and he was in an incestuous relationship. And Oedipus was lucky. The gods unleashed the furies on Orestes when he killed his mother is Æschylus' Oresteia. Bush's incompetence (if that is indeed what it is) is bordering on the criminal. I am tempted to say that there should be some kind of law that makes leaders accountable for their erratic and irresponsible behaviour, but Bush would probably sign it into law amidst much pomp and circumstance, and then file a signing statement saying he feels it is unconstitutional and impinging upon his power as commander in chief to be held accountable.