TBR News.org – August 31, 2006
“We have had a number of incompetent Presidents but beyond any doubt, George W. Bush is the worst. Aside from his compulsive, and easily exposed lies, let us consider Bush’s failures of his global war plans.
Note: Portions of this material have previously been published on the Internet and in the foreign press but rarely addressed in the captive American media.
Five years after Bush ordered Afghanistan invaded and, true to form, smugly announced a complete U.S. military victory, US, and a very small number of ‘Allies” allied forces are struggling on a daily basis to defend their bases and supply lines against rising attacks from a growing number of Afghan resistance groups. The war in both Iraq and Afghanistan costs the American taxpayer $1.5 billion monthly. As an added bonus, US-ruled Afghan now produces over 80% of the world’s heroin. The US just quietly deployed thousands more troops to Afghanistan to hunt al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in a desperate attempt to save Republicans from heavy losses in November mid-term elections.
Remember Fat Karl Rove’s grotesque "Mission accomplished!" in Iraq? President Bush’s war in Iraq is clearly lost, but few dare admit it. The US has spent over $300
billion in taxpayer’s money on Afghanistan and Iraq, with nothing to show in either theater but chaos, civil war, body bags, and growing Iranian influence in Iraq and western Afghanistan. The Bush/Cheney "liberation" of Iraq has now cost more than the Vietnam War. So much for the "cakewalk." Iraq is likely the biggest American foreign policy disaster in living memory – even worse, in many ways, than Vietnam.
Down in the strategic Horn of Africa, another dangerous fiasco is unfolding. The White House had CIA and Pentagon have spent tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer’s money bribing Somali warlords to fight Islamist reformers trying to bring law and order to their strife-ravaged nation. The Islamists whipped CIA-backed warlords and ran them out of Somalia. Following this defeat, the US has encouraged and financed ally Ethiopia – shades of Lebanon – to invade Somalia, thus raising the threat of a wider war between Somalia, Ethiopia, and its old foe, Eritrea. Meanwhile, growing numbers of US Special Forces and CIA teams are getting drawn into obscure tribal mêlées in the Horn of Africa and the Saharan regions.
Lebanon is, of course, the fourth major American military disaster. Bush and Cheney encouraged Israel to launch the hugely destructive but militarily fruitless war in Lebanon as the first part of their long-nurtured plan to militarily crush Hezbullah, Syria and Iran. The Bush Administration brazenly thwarted world efforts to halt the conflict while giving Israel the green light to tear apart Lebanon. Now, just over a month later, Bush announces he will send $230 million to "help rebuild" Lebanon – the same Lebanon blasted apart by US smart bombs rushed by air to Israel by a sycophantic Bush. That the UN has condemned the use of these bombs is, of course, of no interest to either Bush or his opposite numbers in Israel
To Washington and Tel Avis’s, horror, Iran, and Syria emerged the war’s victors. Hezbollah is now the Muslim World’s new hero after battling Israel’s mighty armed forces to a humiliating draw. Even Syria’s President Bashar Asad, who played dead during the Lebanon War in fear of an Israeli attack, is now thumping his chest and crowing that Syria played a major role in the unexpected Arab victory.
Hezbollah’s triumph thwarted, at least for the moment, Bush/Cheney plans to attack Lebanon, Syria and Iran. The US and Israel have become so used to smashing nearly helpless foes armed with obsolete weapons – like Iraq, Taliban, or Palestine – that they were stunned to meet a force that had modern arms and could actually fight.
No sooner had bombing stopped than Hezbullah bulldozers were busy clearing rubble, and Hezbullah social workers resettling refugees. Perhaps President Bush should ask Hezbullah to take over rebuilding New Orleans and resettling all its refugees.
Israelis have now turned from fighting Arabs to furious finger-pointing. Politicians and generals are blaming each other for the Lebanon debacle that killed over eleven hundred 118 Israeli soldiers and 41 civilians, cost at least $6 billion, ruined the summer tourist trade, and, after a burst of initial sympathy, brought worldwide condemnation. And no captured soldiers – this war’s supposed objective – have been yet returned.
By turning a routine border skirmish into a big war, Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert showed he had no more grasp of military affairs than those other amateur warlords, Bush, Cheney and Tony Blair. Lebanon also showed that the western leaders learned nothing from their debacle in Iraq.
Now, some Washington hawks are wondering if invading Iran may not be the "cakewalk" that pro-Israel neoconservatives blithely promised. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards helped train and arm Hezbullah’s victorious fighters. Suddenly, neither the Israelis nor the Americans look so invincible. As Napoleon said, in war, the moral is to the physical as three to one.
America was the big loser in the Lebanon war. From Morocco to Indonesia, each night 1.5 billion Muslims watched the carnage in Lebanon on TV and blamed America. Even the poorest shepherd in Uzbekistan heard the US was airlifting the precision bombs and deadly cluster munitions to Israel used against Lebanese civilians.
Any hope of damping down the Islamic World’s surging hatred of the US, Britain, Australia and Israel (now add Canada) was killed in Lebanon. Even the interestingly-timed airport hysteria in London over alleged bomb plots failed to divert attention from the latest US-British Mideast policy disaster.
Yet the White House still keeps listening to absurd military advice from the same fanatically pro-Israel neoconservatives thirsting for conquest, oil and Muslim blood. Undaunted even by the fiasco in Lebanon, the Bush/Cheney White House is now heading into a full-blown crisis with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program.
As far as the civilian, domestic disasters, one need only mention the hurricane Katrina that clearly showed a total lack of interest (except for pro-Bush businessmen who reaped rich rewards) in the fate of poor New Orleans blacks. And of course we have the constant hyping of the fear factor to keep the electorate in line and supportive of the Republican’s murderous and short-sighed policies.
www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2492.htm
See our Inside the White House archive:
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/category.asp?id=41
A Complete Copy of the Voice of the White House from TBR News April 18, 2004- December 29, 2005
Last updated 04/09/2006
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