Bush's Dangerous Wishful Thinking

Consortiumnews.com: In Iraq, George W. Bush has demonstrated an old truism of geopolitics – wishful thinking mixed with bellicose rhetoric makes for a deadly cocktail, as it certainly has for tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,600 U.S. soldiers. The question now is: can the U.S. political system wean itself from an addiction to this poisonous brew of swagger and delusion?

So far, the Bush administration shows no sign of getting on the wagon and looking at the facts with a clear eye. Instead, it's still talking tough and demanding that everyone concentrate on the few glimmers of progress amid the death and destruction.

"We don't have an exit strategy" Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted during a trip to Iraq on April 12. "We have a victory strategy." Read more


DB: Victory for the US in Iraq is highly unlikely; unless it was always the aim of the US to broker a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran, or become a recruiting vehicle for al Qaeda, or to lose its 'leader of the free world' status. The US is now a leader in lawlessness and abuse (challenged only, perhaps, by China) - evidence available everywhere - and rather than extinguish these damaging flames, the US continues to conspire and pervert the truth with the aim of maintaining its strategy and avoiding accountability - beyond the prosecution of the occasional 'grunt'.

I would guess that for Donald Rumsfeld victory might mean staying out of prison as a convicted war criminal. If that's so, victory may end up being his - but not America's.