The above link is an interactive to 'dress Georgie for APEC. The article below is from Slate magazine, it primarily illustrates the reality of Bush's loss of focus to his presidency as a Lame Duck. Better said, the reality of Iraq and it's lack of sovereignty has resulted in Bush's lack of grip on his presidency. He is floundering to make Iran more of an enemy to the USA than Osama bin Laden in order to continue the genocidal occupation of Iraq. More tomorrow.
The waning power of the War Myth (click here)
As Iraq dies, Bush is falling back on his old standby: Patriotic blackmail. But this time it won't work.
By Gary Kamiya
...The inescapable truth is that Bush's war of choice has destroyed an entire nation -- and there is no way for the United States or anyone else to control what happens next. The increasingly shaky plight of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shows just how unstable Iraq's cobbled-together political system is. U.S. dreams of replacing him with a secular strongman like Ayad Allawi are delusional. The war is not winnable, and there is thus only one possible rationale for continuing it, the one Bush raised: preventing an even more apocalyptic blood bath than we have already caused. ...
Debating Iraq and the Middle East in relation to the current administration is a waste of time. The Bush White House has failed in Iraq. They have also failed in securing our nation from any terrorist network to date. The war in Iraq has produced more enemies to the USA, including what were considered allies when September 11, 2001 occurred.
The current president has failed to defeat al Qaeda and September 11th will be experiencing it's sixth year with Lower Manhattan's skyline and Memorial still in the balance. I can't help believe the ambivalence regarding rebuilding, although linked with funding, is somehow a bit defeatist because the enemy that caused the destruction of Lower Manhattan is still virulently aggressive and intact. The Bush administration and their past majority House and Senate are to blame and the nation has been a spectator in fascination of failure. To that the nation propagates it's own problem believing somewhat that the enemy is where the war is and not where it has always been, at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
London and Madrid have since experienced terrorist attacks in their major cities since September 11th originating from Pakistan/Afghanistan. Can there be any doubt where the war actually is?
The querry brought to their war propaganda, now four years since before March 19, 2003, is the fact a civil war has spawned in Iraq with the most recent events including a burgeoning conflict in Northern Iraq with Turkey and Iran sharing a common enemy in PKK. These events occurred directly because Bush invaded Iraq illegally without the consent of the entire global community and the majority of the USA. Iraq is a mercenary's war, including the exclusivity of the USA military in it's lagging enlistment and chronic redeployments.
The USA military, it's private contractors and coalition have suffered stunning defeats in every corner of Iraq, with skeptical successes the USA General Petraeus is claiming in An Albar while he has yet to prove an autonomous Iraqi police and military in that region.
The Bush Surge has produced no increase in the evidence of a sovereign Iraq and to that end the country has invading militaries from neighboring nations in order to secure their own borders. There is every estimation Turkey and Iran will either be allies in defeating PKK or enemies to each other while claiming the common enemy. Regardless, the Iraqi National forces do not exist and hence by every measure of sovereignty the current Iraqi puppet government to Bush has; cannot control it's borders and it's internal security now four years out of which one was a year of documented occupational government under Bremer.
Today, Iraq is not a sovereign country and do to the violence within it's borders neighboring countries are forced to deal with this anarchy at their borders including invading forces now engaged in Northern Iraq. This reality is being parlayed by Bush and Pataeus, in propaganda, as an escalation by Iran. That isn't the case and Iran stands ready to stabilize Iraq when the USA military is deployed out. The readiness of the Iranian military to establish a permanent presence in Iraq maybe a stabilizing event to those people and with every estimation Iraq's sovereignty will disappear as well.
Bush's impetus to war escalation with Iran are the pending Iraqi oil contracts which spawned the illegal invasion in the first place; without Iraq sovereignty the contracts are not enforceable by the USA.
The USA military has killed vast amounts of people in the region and if the Iranian military can secure the borders of Iraq then it should proceed. There is no justified killing in Iraq of the people there as Bush and Cheney entered the country without due cause and have occupied without success it's land while it's people are estranged from their culture and right to sovereignty.
Iraq is not and has not been an enemy to the USA as it has been disarmed of any weapons including WMD for decades under UN Charter. Iran has a right to it's sovereignty, therefore has a right to take any and all measures to secure that sovereignty including measures already in play in northern Iraq. Turkey can make the same claim as any neighboring countries can.
To escalate the conflict in Iraq past Iraqi borders as the current USA Commander and Chief and his Vice President is demanding of the USA Legislature is to launch into a global war of which Russia would be the least of the parties involved. It is not prudent to escalate any Middle East war to the extreme as these countries are not and have not been a threat to USA National Security. However, with a Neocon administration in the White House and at the helm of the USA miltiary, there is every reason for any other country to consider the USA a threat to their national security. Bush has been defeated in Iraq, it is time he recognize the reality staring at him and deploy the USA troops out of Iraq to avoid escalating tensions into a world war.
We don't belong in Iraq.
We never did.
Oppose the draft.
Troops out now.
