Bush Prepares for War – Third Time's a Charm

          Afghanistan was a snap. Those boorish Taliban learned who's top dog in no time flat. However, nation building is a total bore so Bush contented himself with securing Kabul for democracy and gave the rest of the country back to the warlords who had been so bad when they were in power they made the Taliban look good.

          America's boy president promised, in fervent terms, that Afghanistan would not be abandoned again, as it had so often been in the past, and then promptly cast its fate to the wind. It's just so much more fun spending 50 billion fighting a war than 5 billion putting a country back together. While he was at it he let Osama off the hook to prepare for the real prize; a much bigger, more important, more destabilizing war. So with a piddling amount to pay for reconstruction and the warlords back in power we now have an invigorated Taliban and establishment, or shall we say reestablishment, of Afghanistan as the world's primary supplier of opiates.

          Personally, I'm happy the Afghan people have a lucrative cash crop to carry them through the hard times and equally happy to see the neocons have helped to create one of their worst enemies; a rogue narcostate. As far as I'm concerned prohibition of drugs is far worse for society than the drugs themselves, besides one has to appreciate the inability of great power to annihilate lowly plants.

          It's also worth mentioning again that if Osama is a monster, the US helped to create him; in the 1980's it gave him $3 billion dollars to fight the Soviets and taught him a lot about guerrilla warfare. Anyway, it’s just so much more fun blowing things up than putting them back together. As a result, when the Soviet backed government was deposed we left the country to its warlords.

Now the news from Afghanistan keeps getting worse for the bushman. The latest incident (which, as I’ve heard, was underreported in the US media) was anti-American riots in Kabul, sparked by an out of control US military cargo truck that careened into a dozen vehicles, killing four and injuring many more. The American military - in a perfectly reasonable policy designed to save its own neck - drives through Kabul at high speeds to foil snipers, and often in the middle of the road to avoid roadside bombs.

According to US spokespersons, the truck in question, which as it happens was going downhill at high speed, experienced brake failure. Well yes, but... that’s what happens when heavily laden large trucks race downhill. It’s quite common for brakes to fail in those circumstances. Meanwhile, no matter how reasonable is may seem from the US standpoint, it looks like pure arrogance to the average Afghani. So no surprise that hundreds, maybe thousands of people created a ruckus and shouted anti-US slogans.

This came on the heels of the deaths of a number of civilians as part of a firefight between the US and the Taliban. It seems that the insurgents were firing from the rooftop of a residence. That, needless to say, did not stop the US military from using its big guns. The American response was that people should not let the fighters use their rooftops; which, as you can imagine, is easier said than done when a group of heavily armed men demand access.

The US also likes to bomb wedding parties, or so it would seem. All it takes, I assume, is a anonymous call to the US military suggesting a location where the enemy is hiding out. When it all goes wrong, being a ‘suspected’ Taliban base is the standard excuse. Note the word suspected. We don’t need to know before we take a chance on blowing innocent people to smithereens; suspicion is enough. This is war and ‘collateral damage’ is inevitable.

This all points to the difficulty, if not impossibility, of fighting a guerrilla war with a regular army, not to mention maintaining troops in a country that doesn’t want them. Before the US deposed the Taliban, there was much talk in the pundit class of the difficulty of controlling Afghanistan, based on their history of making life miserable for any country that tried to occupy them. The US seemed to have broken the curse, but no, it just took a little longer.

It could have worked out for the US . If just one month’s expenditure on the Iraq occupation – now about $8 billion – had been devoted to reconstructing Afghanistan , it could have built roads, electrical grids, water and sanitation systems, schools, hospitals, what have you. There would have been great progress and beaucoup good will. But no. While America spends billions chasing the elusive Osama, and terrorizing the population in the process, the country’s infrastructure remains in tatters.

          Not content to destabilize Afghanistan , and turn it into even more of haven for terrorists than it was under the Taliban, the bushman turned to Iraq . While many people feel the Afghan thing was justified, no one with independence of thought and half a brain thinks the same of Iraq . Even there, it’s possible Iraq could’ve worked out if the radical cabal running the US government had been capable of tempering its ideology – and greed for fantastic cost-plus contracts – with a little practicality. Instead, they’ve watched helplessly – because they’re incapable of rational thought – as Iraq descends progressively into the hell of their own making.

           Not content to merely incarcerate and torture suspected bad guys, American troops are now responsible for massacring women, children, 77-year-old men in wheelchairs. The deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians is, of course, nothing new. American troops are trigger-happy – understandably so - and will take out anybody who is perceived as the slightest threat. However, until the Haditha massacre, they had poor but plausible excuses. Certainly, news of additional, covered-up massacres will follow.

           So now the boy president can add massacres to his long list of accomplishments. Nothing like torture, indefinite detention without trial and Big Brother warrentless spying to define a presidency. And lets not forget, deceit, dissembling, destruction of an iconic American city and a mountain of debt for our grandchildren to pay off. But give him credit: Anybody who can steal two elections must deserve the office, no?

           But can he rest on his laurels? No way! Iran - according to John Negroponte, his national security advisor - will be able to produce nukes in as little as five years and he has less than three to go, so it must be stopped now. ‘Can he really send the bombs to rain on Iran ’, you ask? To which the only reply is, ‘Can there be any level of idiocy that he’s not capable of?’

           Ah, but the Democrats, the loyal opposition, those paragons of fortitude, they wouldn’t let him do that would they? HA HA HA HA HA HA AHA HA HA HA HA AHH. That’s a gut-buster. A majority of Democrats just helped to confirm Hayden as head of CIA. Here is a man who engineered an illegal domestic spying program being appointed to head of the most evil of government agencies. He should have been thrown in jail, not honored with such grave responsibility. As for the CIA - guilty of so many crimes against democracy and humanity - it should be totally shut down and a new untainted agency put in its place.

           The Democratic Party should also be shut down, put out to pasture, relegated to oblivion. Representative John Conyers hasn’t been able to get more than a couple dozen Democrats to sign on to an impeachment move against bush. Senator Russ Finegold has only enlisted a handful of Dems for a much weaker censure motion. This is not partisan politics or vindictiveness, it’s upholding the laws of the land and sending a clear message to future presidents that the constitution cannot be abrogated at will. It’s putting him on trial so that all the facts can be brought to light.

           Looking forward to the next election, it seems once again the Dems want to win by default. They plan to say nothing, ignore the wishes of their base, as well as the population as a whole, and hope the other side implodes. I wish them luck, but I won’t stoop that low again to vote for one unless it’s a Finegold, Dean or Kucinich. I don’t care who the opposition is. Most importantly, if the Dems aren’t even willing to fight for an honest election, they don’t deserve to take office.