FLAIT

After all these blog postings, you'd think there wouldn't be any more ways to describeAfter all these blog postings, you'd think there wouldn't be any more ways to describe George Bush. Well, there is: he treats the country, the world and his Presidency like a seven year old treats his building blocks.

Just look at what he's done to the Mideast. His "efforts" to try and bring "freedom" and "democracy" to the region have come tumbling to the ground.

And then he shrugs his shoulders (literally), tries to blame others for the mess he created, and hopes someone else will come along and clean it up; or not because he doesn't care.

While Bush isn't directly to blame for the violence that erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, he is responsible for laying the ground work for it and making it worse then it might have been.

Bush ignored the Mideast upon taking office

President Clinton spent much of his time, personally, trying to secure a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and Syrians.

But Bush couldn't, and didn't, pick up were he left off because of petty and immature Republican pride. It would have looked bad if Bush followed Clinton's lead so he did the exact opposite: he turned his back on the region and did absolutely nothing...out of spite (what a way to govern, huh?).

This passive policy - no direction, no guidance and no leadership from the United States - allowed the problems to fester and the violence to escalate.

And Bush couldn't be bothered. It was their problem so let them deal with it; which was fine because that wasn't Bill Clinton's strategy. And that was all that mattered.

Iran: the "neighborhoods" biggest and baddest bully

During the 1990s Iran and Iraq were the two neighborhood bully's - one Shiite and one Sunni. They were enemies, and as such, kept an eye on one another. Ironically, it was this rivalry and cat and mouse game that kept both of them "in check" and the neighborhood relatively stable.

But when Bush invaded Iraq and took down the Saddam Hussein regime, he took away the only check we had against Iran.

Brilliant move, Mr. President.

Not only did this make Iran the bully in the neighborhood, it gave them the opportunity to act like one. And they had good reason to.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saw that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair invaded Iraq without provocation and thought his country could be next. So Ahmadinejad had his own "axis of evil" on his hands and what he perceived as a madman in the White House.

So he reconstituted his nuclear weapons program to act as a deterrent against an attack (and possibly use against Israel), knowing full well that with Bush bogged down in Iraq, he couldn't do anything about it.

If that's not enough, tearing down the Hussein regime also gave Iran the opportunity to spread their radical Shiite influence throughout the Mideast.

Well, they've already accomplished that in Iraq.

Congratulations, Mr. President. You created a Frankenstein.

A convenient war

With Bush, Blair and the UN threatening Iran with sanctions in regards to their nuclear program, Ahmadinejad needed to change the subject, solidify his allies, and rally the Arab world against Bush and the United States. And what better way to accomplish all that by sparking a war with Israel?

Hey, destructive and bellicose behavior and starting senseless wars is what bullies in power do. Just ask George Bush.

So with Iran looking for a fight and the IDF already engaged with Hamas in Gaza - wasn't that convenient? - Hezbollah ambushes a group of Israeli soldiers, killing six and capturing two, thus creating casus belli, a cause for war.

Israel naturally responds - what did the world expect them to do? - and a war is unleashed. How convenient.

The fact that Hezbollah is so well entrenched, so well organized, and so well armed, it should leave no doubt who was prepared for this war, who wanted it and who started it (it's entirely possible that the June 9 incident on the Gaza beach that killed eight Palestinians, details of which are in dispute, was the beginning of this elaborate Iranian set up).

With Hezbollah shooting at Jews, rockets raining down on Israel, the IDF bogged down and killing Lebanese civilians (the pictures used to inflame the Arab world), attention diverted from Iran's nuclear program, the world outraged at Israel, and George Bush and Condoleezza Rice looking like the "bad guys" and the village idiots, Ahmadinejad is doing cartwheels up and down the streets of Tehran.

"Mission accomplished."

Bush not to the rescue

Once Hezbollah instigated this war, Israel had every right to go after the terrorist organization in southern Lebanon and eradicate them once and for all. However, bombing Beirut didn't exactly help the situation, especially when Israel didn't have a beef with the Lebanese people (were it not for the PLO during the 1970s and Hezbollah since then, Israel and Lebanon might have been friendly neighbors all this time.).

Not only has the bombing of Beirut taken valuable time, attention and resources away from the real fight in southern Lebanon, it has accomplished exactly what Iran and Hezbollah wanted: it's turning the Lebanese people against Israel.

From Israel's standpoint, they want to keep Syria and Iran from supplying Hezbollah with weapons, so going after Beirut's roads, infrastructure and airport is understandable. But it was apparent from the beginning that the ends wouldn't justify the means because when it comes to the global media and public opinion, Israel gets the short end of the stick. So there was no point in losing whatever grip they had by bombing Beirut.

And as President - and Israel's top ally - Bush should have pointed that out to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (maybe if Beirut had buildings full of stem cells, he would have).

But since this White House is incapable of any practical and intelligent thought, Bush's "response" was nothing but patronizing "photo-op diplomacy."

This obvious foot-dragging allowed Israel to do anything they wanted and that enraged our enemies and Israel's enemies even more.

Lost in all the violence is the irony: Bush is trying to get Syria and other country's to get Hezbollah to return the two soldiers and stop firing rockets into Israel, and get Iran to stop supplying them with arms. But when other countries tell Bush to stop supplying Israel with bombs, or at least get Israel to stop pounding Beirut, he tells them to "get lost" (although this White House would use more colorful language, I'm sure).

And we wonder why the world thinks we're arrogant hypocrites.

A child among men

With the Mideast coming apart at the seams, it's times like this when the world looks to the United States for guidance and leadership. Unfortunately, our clout and credibility isn't what is used to be because the world hates George Bush (gee, I wonder why).

But Bush had the perfect opportunity at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg to change that.

Granted, it was a tough spot and there was little he could do. But if he stepped up and shown the world that he was going to make an honest effort to keep the crisis from getting out of hand, maybe he would have gotten further on the diplomatic front or at least regained some of his credibility.

But he didn't. Heck, it never even occurred to him. How pathetic.

Instead of acting like the mature and dignified leader of the free world (hey, at least the world respected Bill Clinton and listened to what he had to say!), Bush treated the Summit as if it was a frat party.

When Bush said in an open microphone "...what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over," it not only showed he's ignorant of the crisis, the region and its complicated history, but that he has no business taking the White House tour, let alone being its occupant.

(Maybe if Bush spent the last five years building upon the relationship Clinton started with Syria, it just might have been that simple. But Bush can't talk to Syria because that's what Clinton did.)

Also at the Summit, Bush complained that "these guys talk too long." Sounds like something a seven year old who couldn't wait to get back to his blocks would say in church, doesn't it? How pathetic.

Conclusion

Since the "liberal" media has practically ignored the Iraq war for the last year, and barely did its job before that, the public has no idea just how big of a colossal disaster it is.

For instance....besides all the death and destruction, besides the daily car bombs, suicide bombings, IED bombings and kidnappings, besides the heads, headless and tortured bodies that turn up every day, besides the Iraqi "death squads" and militia groups, besides our military stretched dangerously thin, besides the fact that we we can't leave and we can't stay, besides 20,000 American casualties, so far, besides hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, so far, (and not a peep from "pro-life" Republicans), besides costing hundreds of billions of dollars, so far, besides losing our credibility around the world, besides the reformation of the Taliban and al-Qaeda (because Bush pulled troops and resources out of Afghanistan in 2002 to go on this wild goose chase in Iraq), besides turning a stable secular society that women were part of into an Islamic Theocracy that has come down hard on women's rights, and on and on and on...by taking out Saddam Hussein, it made Iran the king bully in the "neighborhood," and that has enabled them to intimidate the region, reconstitute their nuclear program, expand their radical Shiite influence throughout the Mideast and ignite a war between Israel and Hezbollah.

But that's not the half of it.

Should an Iraqi civil war spill into Saudi Arabia - which has the largest oil reserves in the would - it will give Osamba bin Laden the opportunity he's been looking for all along: to topple the Saudi Royal family (that sound you hear is bin Laden laughing hysterically at his favorite person in the world - George Bush).

So besides blood and money, invading Iraq has had many more consequences then most people realize. And we'll be paying dearly for them, in a number of ways, probably forever.

Great going, Mr. President.

But wait, there's more!

Bush's bullying tactics of intimidation, torturing, bombing and destroying - "kill 'em all" in effect - along with his feckless policy of ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, has destabilized the region, increased the violence on all sides, allowed terrorist groups to expand - regionally and globally - and increased terrorist attacks worldwide (and oh yea, oil prices have skyrocketed too).

But despite all that, Bush still maintains that bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to the region will stop terrorism and make us safer even though "freedom" and "democracy" have absolutely nothing to do with the cause of terrorism and are not the solutions to terrorism (but that's just Bush trying to be Ronald Reagan so those words are "red meat" for his brainwashed base. What a way to govern on matters of life and death, huh?).

Terrorists don't "hate us" because of our "freedom" and "democracy." If they did, why didn't al-Qaeda attack Sweden? In fact, bin Laden himself posed such a question in 2004.

However, to be fair and balanced, let's see how well Bush's "strategy" has worked so far:

All these recent "democratic elections" that Bush takes credit for has given power to Ahmadinejad in Iran, power to the war lords in Afghanistan, power to Hamas in the Palestinian territories, power to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and power to the Islamic Theocrats and radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq...proving once again, that Bush hasn't just been wrong, again, he couldn't have been more wrong...again!

So how can we possibly get anywhere on the "war on terror" - which we're losing - when Bush has no idea what this war is about and thinks it can be won with no plan, the wrong strategy and nothing but an iron fist and moronic twenty year old GOP talking points?

Meanwhile, all this disarray, and all these wars are not only creating more terrorists every day, but since 9/11, Bush has failed to prevent one Muslim from becoming a terrorist!

Hey, whose side is Bush on?

While the military and intelligence agencies will play a role in the fight against terrorism, it's a small role. Because the only way we're going to have a chance to win this war - assuming it's not already too late - is to prevent young Muslims from becoming terrorists in the first place. And you do that by continuously engaging the Arab world, especially teenagers, in an open and honest discussion, and explain that if their countries and societies denounce terrorism, they can join the globalized world where goods and services are traded and tourism flourishes (see Letter to the Editor).

Having a financial stake in the globalized world would give Muslims a reason to live, not to die; see Indonesia. And that would do more to make us safer over the long run then any "smart bomb." And cost a lot less too.

But trying explaining that to a belligerent seven year old who's kicking his blocks all over the room.


Also see Bush Totally Responsible for Mideast Disarray