My favorite segment of the 1940 Disney film Fantasia is entitled "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The story follows an apprentice left alone in the castle. He decides to try some spells of his own, and succeeds in animating a broom, causing it to fetch water.The problems begin when the apprentice tries to stop the broom. He can't find the right spell. The broom just keeps fetching more and more water, threatening to flood the castle. In desperation, the apprentice smashes the broom into tiny pieces. This attack backfires, as each little piece becomes a full broom, and all the new brooms start fetching water. The castle is finally saved upon the return of the sorcerer who knows the spells to stop the brooms.
In our world, the Bush family is the apprentice, and the broom is Saddam Hussein. The elder Bush helped to give Hussein power, and helped to provide him with chemical weapons to use against Iran. Eventually, Hussein became inconvenient for George H. W. Bush, so Bush tried several ways to get rid of him. But he lacked the proper spells to stop the broom.
During the eight years of the Clinton presidency, rather than trying to stop the broom, we successfully contained it. Enforcing the embargo on Iraqi goods and patrolling the no-fly zone kept Hussein from rebuilding a viable army or acquiring chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. As a result, Hussein was never a threat to us.
Then along comes "Apprentice, Jr." in the person of George W. Bush. For some reason, he is desperate to get rid of the broom at any cost. So he lied in his State of the Union address and sent his chief diplomat to lie to the United Nations, and then he invaded Iraq. And he succeeded in smashing the broom to bits.
Unfortunately, he failed to stop the broom. Instead of making the world safer, President Bush has made the world more dangerous. I know this because the President's Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, says so. Thanks to Bush's lies and arrogance, people are signing up with terror organizations around the world. Those little pieces are becoming full brooms. Some are attacking the American invaders/occupiers every day. To date, nearly 600 Americans have died in Iraq since the start of the invasion, almost 3,500 Americans have been wounded, and there is no end in sight.
And the brooms are spreading. Attacks in Bali, Spain and Uzbekistan have killed hundreds. We know more attacks are coming; we just don't know where, when or how.
We need a sorcerer.
We need a President who understands international relations. We need a President who can put together a real coalition. And we need a President who, when he says "mission accomplished," means it. The way to stop the broom of terrorism is not with arrogant force, but with humble diplomacy. Diplomacy is the spell that can stop the flood.
The problem is, Bush and the Republicans just don't get it.
The question is, will America get it before it's too late, before America gets hit again?
Copyright 2004, Dan Jacoby
For a PDF version of this document, click here.
To contact Dan Jacoby, click here.
Return to the Main Menu