"Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over!" - The Onion, Jan. 2001.

I wonder if George Bush is being reckless or canny? I wonder, for a moment, if he has war lust or if he is playing the biggest game of chicken since the Cuban missile crisis. No one believes that Saddam has a chance against the forces of the US and Great Britain. Is Bush's plan really to secure a capitulation without firing a shot? Or is he as intent as he sounds on using our own weapons of mass destruction against the Iraqi people?

Either way, the issue is only partly the vile Saddam. It's obvious that the over-riding priority is George's sense of machismo. Whether or not he fires a shot- - - wait a minute! He's never fired a shot and never will. Whether or not he commits American kids to firing a shot, he has strutted the world's stage. He's made it clear that he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Bush is no dummy, however much it hurts to type that. He's picking on the little guy who can't do a hell of a lot in return, like Reagan and Grenada. On the other side of the world, however, is a scarier, crazier despot who treats his people just as badly, is just as much of a renegade as Saddam. But he has the means to nuke a lot of people, including US Forces in South Korea. It is telling that Bush isn't as belligerent where North Korea is concerned.

Bush thinks he can't lose in Iraq, war or not. But I think that having Americans run a temporary government on Arab soil will so inflame moderate as well as radical Muslims, that we will be paying the dues on Bush's union card for decades to come. Terrorists acts against Americans and US allies at home and overseas will continue to be one of the dominant themes of the first half of the new century.

I believe GWBush will go down as one of the worst presidents in history. He will also be one of the most influential. His ascendance to power by subverting the electoral process was the opening shot against civil liberties. His policies and priorities are a part of the aristocracy into which he was born: the powerful helping the powerful. He has moved American foreign policy from support and containment to a first-strike pre-emptive - a my-way-or-the-highway diplomacy. Already, many people around the world rank the U.S. as the biggest threat to world peace. The economy is a shambles. We're back to deficit spending, once anathema to Republicans. Ecological concerns take an even farther back seat to corporate interests.

The Twentieth Century was truly the American Century. But that was yesterday. And yesterday's gone.
8:34:28 AM    Comments?()