Bush Enemies Avoid Capture - Embarassment!

The recent heavy casualties in Iraq pushed the U.S. death toll to well over 1,800 soldiers, and another 10,000+ have been wounded. Had President Bush explained to us when he started the Iraq war that we would suffer this much, and more, to secure victory, I doubt that congress would have gone along with his costly plan. As a former army officer, I now feel that the main problems in Iraq are the fragmented political scene and the endemic corruption. Bush's premise that "everyone everywhere wants freedom" has turned out to be wrong...the fact is that everyone in Iraq wants to have their own way, whether it be a religious way or a tribal way or a criminal way. Without a semblance of unity in Iraq we are doomed to failure over there, and the situation may well be worse five years from now than when Saddam was in power. Some rather smart people in the State Department and other world-wise organizations made this prediction before we fired a shot, and they are looking pretty smart right now.

Perhaps the most telling component of our apparent failure in the "war against terrorism" is the survival of Abu Musab al-Zarkawi and Osama bin Laden. They command large organizations, they make video tapes of threats, and they are murderous fanatics. They are also at large, which Bush does not mention too often. Despite all the U.S.'s technical prowess and the financial inducements aimed at capturing or killing these guys, they have become the Energizer bunnies of terrorism - they go on and on and on. So far, George Bush has been as successful in dealing with them as he has in making Iraq work. I suspect that the reason we've not caught them is closely related to the reason our casualties are much higher than expected - the administration just didn't understand the level of support and loyalty that the terrorists would maintain, nor did they figure the terrorists could sell their message better than Bush could sell his. These kinds of errors in judgment are not what we elect presidents to commit, but I pray that the experiences outlined above will encourage men and women of influence to exercise much more control over GWB during the remainder of his unfortunate term in office.

Yes, it's been a hot summer in a lot of ways!