The War President

Note: I change the photo of Bush since it bothers me to have his image again on my blog. There are plenty of photos from Google images offering horrific bloodshed.. instead, I choose this one to replace our former President.  Iraq, I sadly must remind myself, more than a geography or name or war.


Britain is doing the right thing regarding the mess that is now Iraq: an investigation, open to public hearings, which begins today. There was initially considerable backlash from White Hall about transparency while guys like Tony Blair balked.  Due to the public's anger - and free from repercussion -  Tony will.  The panel, appointed by Gordon Brown, will not lay blame nor establish criminal or civil liability. The panel will offer stern reprimands, smack a few wrists soundly with a yard-stick and make a recommendation or two. Nobody to be held accountable. No one discredited for perhaps the greatest strategic blunder of the last fifty years. Notes panel Chair John Chicot: "Our determination is to do not merely a thorough job, but one that is frank and will bear public scrutiny."  Milk toast.  The  report done by the end of 2010 and not in time for the next general election which must be held by June 2010.  Super Gee did a good job on that one, though I suppose we should be grateful to have any serious review of Iraq.  The stakes high too: 179 British soldiers dead, a broken country and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians displaced or perished.  A failed state, terrorism and a resurgent Iran who actually builds a nuclear bomb.  Nobody would have thought Viet Nam, again, either. But we should have learned.


"Let Freedom reign!''
--George W. Bush (scribbled on a note to Condalisa Rice) 


"The War President" montage of American deaths in Iraq from "Faces of the Fallen" Washington Post online exhibition.