Bush Lied, Really should be worried now?

Say what you like about George Bush, but no one can accuse him of following the crowd. When everyone from the American electorate to the US military brass, along with a rare consensus of world opinion, cries out with one voice to say “enough” of the war in Iraq, Bush heads in the opposite direction — and decides to escalate. When his army chiefs complain of desperate overstretch in the war on terror, he takes that as his cue to open up another front. And that’s just this week.

On Sunday night the US military launched an air strike — not on Iraq or Afghanistan, but on southern Somalia. Some reports last night claimed that the bombing has continued ever since. If you didn’t know that Somalia was on the enemies’ list — if you’re finding it hard, what with Syria and Iran and North Korea, to keep track of Washington’s foes, don’t blame yourself. These days the axis of evil is expanding faster than the European Union, with a couple of new members added every January.

Not that we should mock. At first blush, the Somalia raid (or raids) looks like just the kind of action that a global war on terror should entail, had it not been diverted by the unrelated nonsense about WMD and Iraq. After all, the Americans say they aimed their fire on Sunday at Al-Qaeda bigwigs, thought to be responsible for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Zapping bad guys like them is exactly what the war on terror was supposed to be about.

But Sunday’s operation carried serious risks. There is the propaganda coup — with the jihadist enemy represented by the US, once again, bombing a Muslim country. If the Americans have bungled, and civilians have been killed, then the recruiting impact for Al-Qaeda and others will be even greater. And the precedents suggest such raids from the sky are horribly inaccurate. This time last year a US Predator drone thought it had Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, in its sights when it hit a Pakistani compound near the Afghan border. The attack killed a reported 17 people, including six women and six children — but not Zawahiri. Africa hands I spoke to yesterday were doubtful the Americans had done any better this time: their chief target, Al-Qaeda’s top man in East Africa, is said to be a master of disguise and constantly on the move. (And, if they really did have him in their grasp, wouldn’t it have been better to capture him and find out what he knows?)

It hardly helps appearances that Washington’s partner in this adventure is the government of mainly Christian Ethiopia. For this was not just a simple police operation, but part of a wider US intrusion into a messy, complicated conflict.

A fortnight ago the Ethiopians entered Somalia to topple the Islamist forces who had just taken Mogadishu. Americans dislike that Islamist movement, fearing it has the makings of an African Taleban, so they backed the Ethiopians to take it out. According to Patrick Smith, the editor of Africa Confidential, the war on terror is fast becoming a cold war for the 21st century, with the US finding proxy allies to fight proxy enemies in faraway places.

Of course, Bush himself doesn’t see it that way. He doubtless hoped that a neat, self-contained air strike in Africa could remind Americans of the bit of the war on terror they like — hunting down the baddies — just before they hear some news they don’t. For tonight, President Bush will go on television and tell his fellow Americans that he is preparing to send upward of 20,000 more troops into the graveyard that is Iraq. His people are calling it a surge. Anyone on nodding terms with the English language would call it escalation.

It’s a neat twist on democratic accountability. In last November’s midterm elections, Americans sent a message as clearly as they could, short of hiring a plane to spell it out in skywriting above Pennsylvania Avenue: We want this war to end. Bush promised he had heard them — and is promptly doing the very opposite. One New York Times editorial wondered if he had even watched the 2006 election night results or whether he had just curled up in front of a videotaped repeat of the Republican victories of 2002.

The Republicans have form in this area, of course. In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected on a promise to end the war in Vietnam. Instead, it intensified until another 55,000 US troops were dead, along with an estimated 2 million Southeast Asians. But Bush’s showing of his middle finger feels more brazen, if only because it is not only the American public he is ignoring, but people you would think he might respect.

Only weeks have past since the Iraq Study Group, led by his father’s consigliere, James Baker, recommended a face-saving extrication from Iraq. That plan is now binned. So too are the senior military leaders who counseled against sending more troops to fight a losing war. Gen. George Casey will no longer be in charge, while Gen. John Abizaid has been relieved of his post running Central Command, or Centcom. Both men opposed the “surge”, calling instead for a gradual US withdrawal. The Arabic-speaking Abizaid had the audacity to say as much publicly: “The Baghdad situation requires more Iraqi troops,” not more Americans, he said.

So now we know what the much-vaunted new Bush strategy for Iraq amounts to: throw more gasoline on the fire. It’s conceivable that Bush is, in fact, planning an eventual withdrawal, but hoping that one last push will give him something he can call victory as a finale. Psychologists spot similar behavior in compulsive gamblers who, when in trouble, increase their bets, hoping for a win that will allow them to leave the table with dignity. They have a word for such thinking: delusional.

And where do we Britons fit into this downward slide from purgatory into hell? Tony Blair is still on the old script. In an essay in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, he says we are not winning the war on terror “because we are not being bold enough ... in fighting for the values we believe in”. Elsewhere, though, optimists see signs that we are gradually inching away from the calamity: they note Gordon Brown, our presumptive next prime minister, condemning the execution of Saddam Hussein as “deplorable.” Perhaps that was a pointer to better things to come.

But once he’s in No. 10 he will have to do better than stating the obvious about the barbarism of life in today’s Baghdad. He will have to make a clean break from this most terrible chapter in British and American foreign policy and set out a new, radical strategy for the war against jihadism, one that understands that you don’t catch the terrorist fish by machine-gunning them from the sky, but by draining the sea of grievance in which they swim.

That work will be long and slow and require enormous political brainpower. And it is the polar opposite of everything George Bush stands for.
http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/bush-is-fuelling-a-new-cold-war
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Russia It's gotten so bad that an increasingly Stalinistic Vladimir Putin has started accusing us of provoking an "arms race" and conducting "imperialism" in global affairs.

In response to Bush's insistence on creating a missile defense shield, Russia has begun testing "a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads." Yep, that means a single Russian attack will have multiple times the destructiveness after our defenses fail to work and all the warheads get through.

It's not just war with the Russians themselves we have to worry about: Russia has ties to many groups and nations we aren't too friendly with. For example, they made a nuclear deal with Iran in 2005 and may have leaked our Iraq war plan to Saddam. Our enemies will feel compelled to join the new global arms race, and Russia may well be all too happy to help them.

President Bush has been forced on the defensive in response to Putin, insisting that he has no intentions of attacking Russia and that Russia should not be trying to counterbalance our missile defense shield. But that's just another case of Bush's "do as we say, not as we do" arrogance, and you can bet Putin sees right through it.

Even Condoleezza Rice - whose primary specialty in academia was Cold War Russian policy - seems to be making things worse. Is there anything she's good at in real life?

Regardless of how cool Bush thinks a missile defense shield might be, or more importantly how much money it can make for his friends, the reality is that the system will provoke far more attacks than it is likely to stop. As much as Bush has decimated our military through Iraq, the last thing we should do is piss off Putin and the Russians any more than we already have. http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/218
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Now china are friend want to start with nucluar weponds, but they say there still are friend, what does this all sound like?

Post your thoughts


Ps Bush also said Russia is not our emeny.

 

Bush is an idiot.

Also, a man [Forgot his name], who hosted a radio talk show, was bribed by the Bush Administration to support the No Child Left Behind Act. It was in some Time magazine, if I find it, I'll type up the whole article

 

China and the U.S. are only friends through trade.

But in reality they hate each others living guts.

May I say more?

 

It's popular in america to hate bush, like a cultrural fad. People need to get their own opinions

 

I'm going to have to agree. For all his faults, I think he does a pretty good job overall.

 

Bush isn't evil, he just can't accept defeat.

 

Very true, However wehave a peace treaty, kinda like with japan. They promise nothing bad, but look what happened.However this time they control most of the united states goods.

btw name some things he has done right please?

 

He's done a OK job running this country. It could be alot worse.

 

We have a treaty with Taiwan, and only a treading treaty with china as far as i know.

But anyway with Taiwan treaty

Meaning if china trys to take over Taiwan the united states must enter the war.

I can't really explain it, but look it up if you want more Info.

 

Please do if you don t mind.

By the way all thought are welcome here.

 

If you wanna be a conformist and say he did everything wrong without any backup, that's cool too, but if we had some liberal president, the iraq war would now be about being Terrorists bitches, and theyd take a much more passive approach. Sure Iraq costs lives, but it keeps americans safe too.

 

Ok There are some reason other than this why i dislike him some are the way he handle Hurricane katrina. personally saw him fly over mississippi to go to texas and come back 4 days later.

look it could be worst, but i rather be going after bin lading,then nothing. Just no one really explain this iraq war to me, thus why i never like it.

 

Well at this stage, Americans are whining because they see no IMMIDIATE results. Naturally, being the small minded opinionated americans some of us are, that is all we care about, what we can see. So now because they dont see results they complain that bush is doing it all wrong with no suggestions other than "pull out the troops, blah blah blah" which will just encourage terrorists.

 

jeze he still isnt outa office its been long enough hasnt it?? jesus eny 1 know how much longer he will be in there?

 

jeeze all our good presidents got shot why cant he ? :/

 

And to think I almost read all of that But yeah, ill be glad to see him gone

 

meza hatza bush

 

True, and they'res also people that doesn't care, hence me. etc etc.