Localization and Lunacy

In the news business it's called "loacalization." We've all seen it, a national tragedy or natural disaster occurs and every reporter in the state is out trying to find some New Mexican who knows someone who knows someone who knew one of the people who could have been involved. The result is usually some tangential relation to the story that often makes little sense and comes off looking silly.

What really drives us crazy is when local political officials get into the act trying to "localize" a national policy issue, especially when that local official or governing body can't keep its own house in order. Such is the case with the councilor from Albuquerque's district 3 Isaac Benton, who has introduced a resolution to end the Iraq war.

Never mind the fact that the resolution R-07-293 reads like a leftist propaganda piece and that the council is in no position to prove or disprove any of its assertions, Benton and the council have no authority whatsoever to affect national security policy and further, they are not privy to any of the classified information required to make informed decisions. You'll notice that even the Congress controlled by Democrats who largely ran the last election on an anti-war platform, have not introduced legislation to de-fund the war and withdraw our troops immediately.

We tend to believe that if Democrats in Congress who know that there will be hell to pay with the far left wing of their party aren't clamoring to pull the troops out immediately, then there's probably a pretty convincing reason for them not to act. After all, most of them ran on an anti-Iraq war impeach Bush platform and their failure to act is driving the Kozheads and MoveOn-ers absolutely nuts (that could be redundant)!

The funniest part of Benton's whole resolution is that he mentions "$383,900,000" dollars of Albuquerque taxpayer's money that has been spent on the war. We don't know where he got his numbers but even if it's true, this is the same councilor that wont' bat an eye to spend $240 MILLION (realistically more like $300 MILLION) of our money on a trolley that will serve a couple thousand people, max.

At the very least the money spent in Iraq has benefited millions of Iraqi's (believe it or not living under a dysfunctional democracy is superior to living under a tyrant), protected our national interests, and made the world generally safer by making our terrorists enemies fight us where they live instead of where we live.

In the final analysis it doesn't matter whether or not you are for or against the war, or for that matter whether you were for or against the war. It is a waste of our time (since city councilors work for us their time is ours) for the council to be debating resolutions that have absolutely no impact on policy. Benton will create a media circus and he'll fill the council chambers with radical lefties but NOTHING will be accomplished; only a lunatic would believe otherwise.