Is the world safer yet?

Yesterday the House of Representatives, apparently not having any real work to do, passed a resolution declaring that the world is safer since the removal of Saddam Hussein (Yahoo! News: Unbelievable Bullshit). The resolution was passed several hours after a bomb went off in a Baghdad hotel, destroying the building and killing at least 27 people. I couldn't make this shit up. 327 members of the US Congress are still living in a dream land where the Iraq war is both winnable and justified, but members of the Coalition of the Bribed are waking up. Last Saturday the voters of Spain decided their government had told one lie too many and elected a new prime minister who pledged to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq on June 30. Today the president of Poland admitted he was "taken for a ride" about Weapons of Mass Destruction™ in Iraq and is considering following Spain's lead (Yahoo! News: Poland Says It Was Misled Over WMD in Iraq) and a minister in the Italian government said "The war may have been a mistake. Perhaps there were ways it could have been avoided ... What is certain is that it wasn't the best thing to do." (Yahoo! News: Iraq war 'may have been a mistake'). Some of the rats are finally starting to jump off this sinking ship, but the fattest rats are still feasting it up in Washington and London. It's time to call Pest Control.
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Counting the lies - all 237 of them

Representative Henry Waxman has compiled a comprehensive database (and accompanying report) of all the false and misleading statements about Iraq made by George W. Bush and senior members of his administration. Representative Waxman counts 237 of these lies. That's a lot of dishonesty. Most of these lies were made before the invasion of Iraq started. You might wonder why the news media has paid so little attention to them, refusing to even ask administration officials for clarification. In their defense, not one of the misleading statements involves oral sex with an intern. Reporters have priorities, you see. Check out Waxman's database here.
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Stretching the troops

Trying to establish security in occupied Iraq while at the same time hunting Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and meeting our other international commitments has put quite a strain on American armed forces.

The Army is spread so thin around the globe that when it needs fresh combat troops for Iraq this fall it will have little choice but to call on the same soldiers who led the charge into Baghdad last spring.

When the Saddam Hussein government collapsed, U.S. troops in Iraq figured the war was over, except for some mopping up. But as the acting secretary of the Army, Les Brownlee, acknowledged to Congress last week, "we simply were not prepared" for the insurgency that developed in early summer, prolonging the war and taking the lives of hundreds of American soldiers.

(Yahoo! News: Spread Thin, Army Calling on Same Units) I hate to be an armchair general, but who in their right mind invades a country and does not prepare for the possibility of armed resistance after the invasion? Never mind that the CIA specifically warned that post-invasion guerilla warfare was a strong possibility, preparing for a possible resistance movement should have been an integral part of the occupation plan. Sadly, this folly is only part of the much larger folly of starting an unnecessary war while still fighting the so-called war on terrorism against Al Qaeda and their supporters. Without the distraction of Iraq the US military might well have had Al Qaeda on the run by now. Instead, as they proved in Madrid last week, Al Qaeda has the ability to act with impunity, and the removal of the Iraqi regime has given them a new base of operations and thousands of new recruits to their cause. George W. Bush's mistakes and miscalculations have made the United States and the world even less safe than we were before September 11, 2001.
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Supporting the troops

The latest exhortation to support our men and women in uniform comes from one of those men in uniform, which in my book gives it a lot more credibility. Today's Stars and Stripes contains a letter from one M. Dan Wooldridge stationed in Germany. The author has harsh words for the civilians in Washington charged with making life or death decisions involving him and others like him:

Pressuring intelligence agencies to exaggerate their findings of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and then blaming them for it; bashing the United Nations and then crawling back begging for peacekeeping assistance; and sending in insufficient troops unprepared for the war’s aftermath, without proper equipment and shielding, reveals inept, uncaring civilian leadership. One wonders if Gen. Custer could have done worse. Requiring guardsmen and reservists to extend foreign tours as they abandon families, careers, and incomes belies the poor military planning. It is especially insulting to do this as President Bush proposes cuts to veterans’ health care benefits. Our soldiers and citizens deserve much better, but the White House would rather do flight suit photo ops than act responsibly. Squandering a budget surplus into a $500 billion deficit while lowering taxes for the rich during a war has to be a first for any nation. Soldiers’ dependents, families, friends and veterans must demand better civilian leadership for our military and for the economic health of our country.

(Stars & Stripes Letters to the Editor) Given the Bush cartel's attitude towards dissenting opinions, I predict a dishonorable discharge in Dan's future.
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