Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Friday, December 01, 2006

In another slap at the environmental movement, President George W. Bush wasted precious jet fuel traveling to Jordan for a useless meeting with his Iraqi puppet, Prime Minister "Who will remember my name in five years" al-Maliki. I've seen this puppet in action, and believe me, he is no Kermit.

In a statement that ought to scare the hell out of Maliki, Bush lauded him by saying, "He's the right guy for Iraq." The puppet must have heard echoes of, "heckuva job Brownie," before the hapless FEMA director got the axe.

The leaders met for breakfast, and Wheaties was surely not served, as there were no champions in this room - just the bewildered and the beleaguered. The puppet promised his "troops" would be ready to fight by June, which no one believed, and Bush promised to keep the troops in the desert indefinitely, which no one wants.

"This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever," said Bush, warming the hearts of Americans with his firm grasp of reality.

You know what scares me? America is training "soldiers" in Iraq that hate us. They are part of sects and militias that are dedicated to our demise. Yet, we give them military expertise and powerful weapons that will one day be turned against us. The last time we trained our "friends" was in Afghanistan, where we helped a rag-tag bunch of fanatics band together to fend off the Russians.

After the war ended, they morphed into Al-Qaeda. This is a lesson that no one seems to remember, as we train and arm a new sketchy group in Iraq that often seems more intent on destruction than democracy.

It is time we leave this mess behind. Yes, we created it, but that does not make it justifiable to throw away the lives of our men and women who are honorably serving this country.

3 Comments:

If I were Boy George, I would take al-Maliki at his word and announce that we will be witdrawing troops over the next six months. All of them. The "Iraqi" army and police are rapidly disintegrating into ethnic and religious militias with nice uniforms. There is no more Iraq to save, and our forces can no longer do anything but serve as target practice for anyone with a grudge and a gun and/or bomb.

I have no expectation that this will happen. George will heroicly and idioticly persist in his deep purple dream to the end while we kill more "Iraqis" and they kill more of us.

The end, of course, will be the last and greatest fiasco of all. Remember the American evacuation from South Vietnam in April 1975? While Nixon was virtually incapacitated from mental stress and physical illness; Kissinger, then-SecDef James Schlessinger, and then-Chief-of-Staff Alexander Haig had to arrange a panicky evacuation that was a virtual rout.

When crunch time finally comes, George will be incapacitated too, by the abrupt shattering of his illusions and his invincibly stupid inability to admit error---even to himself. I'm serious; I think he will end up being as helpless as Nixon was. Robert Gates and Condoleeza Rice will get to repeat history all over again.
posted by Anonymous, at 12/01/2006 2:00 PM

I doubt that George W. Bush is still drinking, but his personality is still that of the "classic addict". Denial, delusion, avoidance; it's all there. As of late, it's interesting to see the embarrassed faces of his fellow republicans when George W. starts to speak. Am I the only one noticing the uncomfortable glares? I am starting to become a tad concerned about this man's mental health.
posted by Anonymous, at 12/01/2006 2:16 PM

Mental health? Read Bush on the Couch by a prof of psychiatry at george washington u (i forget his name). 2009 cant get here soon enough! It will be interesting to see how profilers in the future psychoanalyze W, just like they do now with a whole rogues gallery of ex-politicians.
posted by Anonymous, at 12/01/2006 9:13 PM