2004 - A Retrospective

Ok, clearly, as I predicted would happen, any regularity in my rants has completely disappeared into oblivion. Thus, the title has been dropped. From now on, only expect a rant from me when some event or thought inspires me to write or when I have too much free time on my hands. In other words, not very frequently.

In this case, this rant is a result of a confluence of both prerequisites I just mentioned. Although "New Year's Day" is a fairly arbitrarily placed holiday, it does create a convenient opportunity for reflection, and I've decided to take it.

Quite frankly, 2004 wasn't the best of years, in my opinion. Primarily, there was the continuing quagmire (and yes, that's an intentional reference to a certain other modern conflict) in Iraq. It seemed that, any day I checked the news, there was another story about more US and Iraqi casualties from the latest ambush/suicide bombing/urban assault. And this from a conflict in which "major combat operations" supposedly ended in May of 2003. Here's how laughable that declaration is: before May 2003, about 140 US soldiers were killed; since then, almost an additional 1200 US soldiers have lost their lives. Furthermore, casualties on both sides are in the thousands. Technically, except for an incursion into Fallujah, major combat operations arguably HAVE ended, but when the "peace-keeping" phase of a conflict involves more casualties than the actual war, it's clear that something has gone wrong. At this point (and most of the international relations and political science professors at Lehigh agree), our mission in Iraq (to create a stable democracy) appears to be unsalvageable. While election day is fast approaching for Iraqis, the instability of the region and the concerns among Sunnis that they won't be fairly represented in the government will likely keep voter turnout low, thus rendering the elections illegitimate or irrelevant in the eyes of Iraqis. Without legitimate elections (as Ukraine recently showed), democracy can not succeed. In addition, even if the elections go off without a hitch, the violence won't stop overnight, just as it didn't when "sovereignty" was handed over in June this past year. I'll be pleasantly surprised if a stable and viable government emerges from the upcoming elections, but that's looking like a dim possibility.

And what happened to the president who got us into this miserable mess? Why, he got re-elected of course! North Korea and Iran could conceivably escalate in these next four years, and, if they do, I have no confidence in Bush's administration to handle such crises appropriately or responsibly. So, it's hard for me to be satisfied with a year which involved our country causing unnecessary pain and destruction to others and saw the majority of our electorate essentially condoning it (along with other undesirable Bush administration policies) and asking for more of the same.

What else went wrong in 2004? Well, our society's moral fabric, if the media is any indication, seems to still be falling apart. Reality TV has gotten out of control. For example, a concept that was simply a skit on Chappelle's Show became an actual show in the form of Trading Spouses. Now, what is the world coming to when a comedic concept is translated into a program that people take seriously? Plus, some of our hugest pop culture sensations are also the most immoral (Paris Hilton and Britney Spears immediately come to mind). Also, if you listen to the lyrics in much of today's music, you might be shocked by what you hear: graphic descriptions of sex and meaningless profanity are commonplace.

And how did this year end? With an earthquake that generated a tsunami which killed over 140,000 people and displaced millions. In other words, I'm not sorry to see 2004 go. While there's more I could say, I'm out of room. I personally had a decent year academically and socially, but it was not a good year for much of the rest of the world.