Political Whispers: A Look Into Today's World of Dark Politics

BUSH DESIRES A REPEAT OF LEBANON

By Schuyler Thorpe
Author and Political Activist

Oddly enough, Admiral Fallon’s departure represented not just a shift in US foreign policy, but another example of how rational minds are no longer wanted within the US government of high-rollers and shakers.

To disagree with Bush is inviting getting your ass fired in a relatively short order. The President has made it clear to everyone that he doesn’t brook dissidents within his own administration.

Many have questioned his policies and paid the price for it. Many prominent figures within the administration like Colin Powell have left because of such disagreements.

And what was replaced? Neoconservative war hawks whom belie the administration’s continued beating of the war drums.

In this day and age, this administration has made it their mission to wreck as much havoc and misery on other countries in the name of freedom and democracy; jingoistic propaganda that would’ve sounded great during the days of the Cold War–where we actually had an enemy, and adversary, a clearly defined threat.

But where is the fire now? Where in the world can the United States still call itself a superpower by standing up against such evil despotic countries suppressing their people and their rights to such freedoms and Western-style democracies and ideals?

Unfortunately, the world today is not the same as yesterday. The USSR that I grew up with is gone–to be replaced by a Russia that no longer has the reach it has.

As such, there are very few countries which could threaten us militarily.

Whatever possessed our President to invade Iraq on fixed intelligence and a distortion of the facts–we may never know for awhile yet. But the end results were not what the Bush war machine envisioned: That Iraq would be a Western bastion of democracy and freedom.

Instead, Iraq is not even a shadow of that. The country is continuously wracked with violence.

The government we helped install doesn’t seem to get the Bush idea that it’s supposed to rule in the traditional democratic fashion. Since 2005, the Malaki government has shown a severe disinclination to speed up reform and institute a democratic rule of law. As a result, there has been no democracy, no freedom, no “Hail to the Chief”-type patriotism. Just a lax of enthusiasm, a sense of urgency, or anything that would normally instill a recently created government body.

In short, the Bush administration had sold its soul on the idea that–if–it could remove such despotic regimes by force, democracy would soon follow.

Sadly, history has been against us every step of the way.

And the bonofide mess in Iraq was the result of such grandiose visions. But do you hear Bush harbor regret for dragging one of the world’s most powerful armies in the world through one of the worst blunders in modern civilization?

Nope.

The way Bush tells it, we should be glad that we removed Saddam. We should be glad that we wasted a soon-to-be record $3T dollars, thousands of American troops, and even more innocent Iraqi lives–just so we can have an endless war, and endless occupation of a country that is about the size of California and posed virtually no threat to this nation.

And have no democracy or resolution in sight.

But it gets better.

How?–you ask?

With the departure of Admiral Fallon, it pretty much clears a path to Iran’s door.

A war that’s been in the making since 2001.

With Iraq under US occupation and both our troops and their equipment wearing out past the breaking point, Bush and Cheney have tried their hardest to paint Iran as a growing and visible threat to the US.

Last year, they ramped up the “World War III” rhetoric–implying that if we did nothing now, we could be faced with Iran raining nuclear missiles down the United States.

Would be more credible; had the Bush administration not lied about the threat that Iraq posed to the US and the world.

With Fallon out of the way, there is little to stop Bush from launching a third Middle East war with a crippled military. However–before anyone gets excited over that prospect–maybe we should time-warp ourselves to the summer of 2006; where Israel tried to take out Hamas using only airpower and very little ground support.

As a result of that botched conflict, Israel came away deeply embarrassed and in no better position to do anything about that entrenched terrorist organization then it was when it first attacked.

The word on the grapevine is that Bush wants to launch punishing air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities–in hopes that it would spur the overthrow of Ahmadinejad’s democratically-elected government.

But didn’t Israel try something similar against Hamas in 2006?

Just makes me wish that Bush had been paying more attention to what was going on in 2006 instead of trying to cement his failed war legacy in 2007.

Or 2008.

Then he would’ve seen how much a fruitless exercise it would be to try and take out Iran with such limited resources at hand.

Given how he's reacted to imaginary or realistic threats to our national security, my guess would be...?

A resounding no!

Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.com

Labels: Admiral Fallon, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, President Bush, war, World War III

posted by Schuyler Thorpe @ 11:00 PM