January 10, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

Supporters of George W. Bush's war in Iraq, complete with a new "surge," must believe in magic. There is no rational reason to believe another infusion of U. S. troops will produce anything but more casualties. This column discusses the failure of the crusades in the Middle Ages and how the modern day crusade is also destined for failure. The column by Dimitri K. Simes is at www.latimes.com:

But sending more brigades to pursue the same crusade is unlikely to bring success — at least not on an American political timetable. The problem is not just the incompetent management of the war's aftermath. The problem is that the crusade to reshape the Middle East that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq precludes anything that could be legitimately called victory.

The debacle that is Iraq reaffirms the lesson that there is no such thing as a good crusade. This was true a thousand years ago when European Christian knights tried to impose their faith and way of life on the Holy Land, pillaging the region in the process, and it is equally true today. Divine missions and sensible foreign policy just don't mix.

For President Bush and his neoconservative supporters, the invasion of Iraq was from the outset about much more than dismantling (as we now know nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, cutting Hussein's (also nonexistent) ties to Al Qaeda and removing a murderous and unpredictable dictator from power. They also sought to depose an Iraqi regime hostile to the United States and Israel — and to demonstrate to Arabs and others in the greater Middle East who was the real master of the region.