Bush way off base on Iraq war rhetoric

President Bush lives in his own little world of lies and distortions. How else do you explain a man so detached from reality?

15 Months ago, he told us today, al-Qaeda was increasing its strength and today we have them on the defensive.

Really? 60 Months ago, al-Qaeda didn't exist in Iraq. Bush brought them there.

Bush says the "Surge" is bringing Iraq closer to Democracy, but the reality the only thing the Surge is doing is allowing his Republican Party which got us into this unwinnable war, PR spin so they can prevent further losses in November.

Yes, the Republican Party is taking a beating. And while the Democrats have not been able to extricate this nation from the god-forsaken war in Iraq, they still are less guilty than the Republicans who bought all of Bush's lies and allowed Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to push us into a conflict we never should have entered.

Today's press conference by Bush sounded much like the "We Have Prevailed" speech he gave months after illegally invading Iraq on March 19, 2003, falsely claiming "major combat operations are over."

If fighting this war is the only way to get out ot his war, then the American people, especially those who are blindly gung-ho supporting this wild expedition, should allow their sons and daughters to be DRAFTED into the military so we will have enough soldiers to fight the war.

But just as President Bush dodged active duty military service during the height of the Vietnam War, his Republican fanatic supporters want their own children to dodge active duty military service to fight this war. That's the hypocrisy in this conflict. The people screaming the loudest to fight this war are the ones who are refusing to send their own sons and daughters to fight it, relying on the soldiers who enlisted during the peacetime military era, hoping to off-set economic woes, and those gung-hoe and misguided Americans who enlisted in the military having swallowed whole all of Bush's outright lies.

15 months from now, we'll be in the same mud, mired in conflict, with an American death toll that is steadily climing and with no real hope of EVER bringing Western-style Democracy to Iraq.

And, 15 months from now, the real criminal, Osama Bin Laden, who orchestrated Sept. 11, 2001 which Bush used to justify this unjustified war in Iraq, is still loose in Afghanistan, protected in part by the Pakistani dictatorship we call an ally, the Government of Pervez Musharref.

What a mess!

Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com