Where Angels Fear to Tread

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread – fools rush in where wise men never go – song lyrics by Ricky Nelson that Howard Dean may want to use in his upcoming campaign against the House of Bush.

After being consciously misled by Bush, a majority of Americans finally got it right: the war in Iraq was a stupendous strategic mistake – there is very little democracy, no Niger yellowcake – no WMD – no links to 9/11. As a result of GW Bush's misadventure, Iran's regional power is greatly enhanced by the Iraq Shiite majority. More than half of Iraq is now a deeply anti-American Iranian protectorate that Saddam earlier had precluded – US has stirred up a Sunni Jihad hornet's nest that seems to be spreading with an estimated 200,000 insurgents. As far as oil, talk to the Shiites and the Kurds; price of oil $72.00 plus, and going up as Bush and Condoleezza fumble with the Iranian nucs dilemma.

So far the price is over 2,500 killed in action and 18,000 casualties (one third of them serious), with 317 billion dollars spent for failure – the meter continues to run.

Major security problems combined with rampant corruption cut deeply into any stability in Iraq. Standing up the Iraq national forces gets more problematical daily as sectarian militias grow in power. Iraqis seem to need an ayatollah or imam to die for; and, are bewildered at the coalition soldiers who die for politicians.

The US has recently earmarked 1,200 two and one-half ton trucks and 1,100 Humvees for the Iraq Army. This is drop in the bucket, if you expect the Iraqi forces to run against the 200,000 insurgents...

Politicians from both US parties now resist talking about how we got into this pickle. If you understand both parties were complicit in the war, you understand why the topic is avoided and the stress is on what to do with the bloody situation now. Just wait a minute, because unless the rules are suspended, the past is still prologue – worse yet, if the same people were past failures what assurance do you have they will not repeat their sad performance in the future? And, are they the ones to fix the Iraqi war problem or are they more likely to justify it? Where is the accountability?

It may open your eyes if you got a sense of the fanatic breed that helped push the US into the Iraq war – that species is the Neocon. Here is a Neocon quote from an article on the Yellowcake Uranium scandal by Craig Unger in the July 2006 edition of VANITY FAIR: "creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad... We must destroy to advance our historic mission... imperious, ruthless, and relentless... we must keep our fangs bared... we must remind them daily that we Americans are in a rage, and we will not rest until we have avenged our dead, we will not be sated until we have the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheik, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle"

This almost asiatic, Attila the Hun screed certainly represents a Trotskyite diatribe of permanent revolution... This over the top rhetoric should have died in Mexico with Trotsky's ice axe assassination by Stalin in 1940 – some say the Neocons were spawned from the Marxist intellectual afterbirth in the old battered, NYC Trotskyite movement.

The quoted Neocon is Michael Ladeen, of the American Enterprise Institute; he is still close to the White House, Cheney and most of the Bush national security elements – a player – there is no way this guy and his Neocon pals who think alike want a peace deal in Iraq. They are all pro-Israel and want keep the pot boiling in the Middle East with the presence of US forces, because they believe it works in Israeli national security interests. And Bush foolishly continues to allow them to be glued to him like leeches.

The Democrats' confusion and inability to bite the bullet about pulling out of Iraq are directly linked to their support by the Israeli lobby. Hard to accept the lobby's influence through political contributions and not do what is expected, i.e.: to keep the war in Iraq going. At least with the Democrats, there is a chance that finally, political expediency or their conscience will dictate withdrawal. As far as the Republicans with their running pack of Neocons, hell will freeze over before they agree to withdraw from Iraq. There are those who believe that there is no exit strategy, because Bush never intended to exit.

This all would be a lot simpler to follow if the Neocons would come out of the closet and announce they have Israeli citizenship – or at least register as foreign lobbyists. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA RET