We may yet yearn for Bush

I don’t know anyone in favor of a permanent occupation in Iraq, or that we should draft young Americans to force our presence on the Iraqi people. So, why in the world did George W. Bush build an embassy there that is larger than the Vatican in Rome and six times bigger than the U.N. complex in New York? In their book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmer describe our military bases as designed for long term U.S. occupation, some are built to house up to 22,000 troops with fully functioning American amenities including sports facilities, fast food restaurants, (Baskin Robbins, Burger King and Pizza Huts,) Rent a Cars and cable T.V. In spite of 4000 dead, over 60,000 coming home sick or wounded, a price tag into the trillions, Bush says if we will only stay a little longer, we will win.
Does he actually think we can kill them all? And if only ten escape, will they not come after us?
I hate what George W. Bush has done to this nation: torture chambers, black sites, borrowing us into generations of debt, ignoring civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, squandering our good name around the globe and neglecting the emotional and medical needs of thousands of wounded warriors who have returned home.
Yet, having said all that, we may well look back and yearn for Bush, if we put John McCain in the White House. He presents himself as a Bush-Lite but other than his rethoric about torture he walks hand and glove with Bush’s “Bring ‘em on” mentality for war. Only worse! McCain’s casual singing of “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran,” coupled with his close ties to Joe Leiberman and William Kristol, both of whom would promote any conflict if it were seen as beneficial to Israel, could very well lead us into war with Iran, or Syria.
We can’t pay for the war we are in. We are told that it runs into the billions. Billions! I can’t imagine how much that is. According to the internet, a billion seconds ago, I was still in seminary. (I have been retired for ten years.) A billion minutes ago, the apostle Paul was still in seminary. A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in caves. A billion days ago, there were no creatures on earth walking on two legs and a billion weeks ago, who knows? But to John McCain, a billion dollars is two and a third days in Iraq and he is talking about a hundred years… plus Iran. Sarah Palin would even include Russia.
Bomb Iran and I fear we will long for the days when we regretted only one major national disaster. We can’t let this happen.
Ending this madness in Iraq and stopping a war with Iran starts Tuesday, with us.


Thomas Are
tomare1@alltel.net
October 30, 2008