Indeed, the nation as a whole has been incompetent, incompetent of being a united nation. Not the administration alone, not the contractors alone, have been inept. Much of this simply lies at the feet of division. When one fraction of the nation is busy making life as difficult as possible for the rest of the nation, clumsiness is an inevitable result.
It doesn't matter whether the challenge was the right one or not, whether it was a good decision or based on half-truths or misunderstood/prejudiced intelligence, it really doesn't matter what we have been trying to do or why we have been trying to do it. We may be trying to reduce drug use, eliminate HIV, establish democracy in Iraq, create a transportation system that uses less energy and produces less pollution, eliminating criminal aliens... it doesn't matter, we are all stepping on each other's toes. Lawyers are deep in the muddle, politicians, the press, they all spend their time obstructing the work of others; calumny and accusations, an attempt to derail any success and trumpet any hardships, the willingness to forgo any benefit of cooperation to pull the other person away from their goal.
Of course no nation can trust the US as a friend. At best they can only get half the country, and when they do, they invariably end up with an enemy at least as strong. Colombia, Poland, Israel - as soon as one side tries to support the nation, the other side tries to fight it.
We need a clear victory within our nation before we can hope for national survival.
