Reactions to the election and the "REPORTS"

Bush' cool reception of the Baker Comm. report was to be expected. Apparently there is a fixation on Bush' concept of "victory" and his rejection of Bakers urging of "stability". The"war on terrorism" label has taken on a numbing effect. It has become meaningless. "Terror". is a tactic. It can't be isolated and bombed to smitherines. It is something employed by persons as a means to an end. In the case of Iraq the objective is to cause enough pain to force the "occupiers" out of the country.

The attempt to establish "democracy" in the ME is, at best, a noble idea, but at this juncture, a fantasy. In "The End of Iraq", Peter Galbraith revues the history of the region back to the Ottoman Empire. After WW I the allies carved up the region and created the present geographical/political entities. Ethnicity, religion, or tribal affiliation was not understood and certainly not considered. Ever after various foreign goverments have meddled in the various local governments of the area to suit their own interests. The U.S. has had its hand in many of the factional disputes, sometimes be the fomentor of them, over many years.

Today Bush labels Iran one of those in the "Axis of Evil". At one time we aided Hussein of Iraq in fighting Iran. Then we aided Iran in countering Iraq. It is difficult to follow the twists and turns of our foreign policy over the several years. Another out come of WW I was the creation of Israel by carving up Palestine. The resentment of the Arabs and their desire to eliminate Israel is a root cause of the ME conflagration. In addition to that the alQueda movement started by binLaden stemmed largely from the Arab outrage caused by the stationing of American troops and armament in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. To add insult to injury the U.S. had previosly ousted the government of Iran and restored the Monarchy by reinstalling the Shah. His regime was amost as brutal as Saddam's.

Those historical events have been reinforced recently by Bush Sr. urging the Shiites and Kurds to overthrow Saddam after he was defeated in the Gulf War. When they acted on this they expected U.S. help. Instead, because of a screw-up in the cease fire agreements, Saddam had been allowed to keep his helicopters and Republican Guard units. Dick Cheney, the then Sec'y of Defense ruled that "we didn't want to get into that mess" so no help came. Relatively defenseless the Shiites and Kurds were horribly massacred by the thousands. During Reagan's watch Saddam had used gas to kill thousands of Kurds in his extermination campaign in northern Iraq. During that time Rumsfeld was sent over to arrange U.S. intelligence help to Iraq in its war with Iran. He failed to make any protest to Saddam about the use of gas on the Kurds.

With the above as a backdrop to the current morass the U. S. is in in Iraq I'm sure that the initiation and prosecution of the war is not viewed as Bush would like. He even demanded that Bremer, the Coalition's Czar in Iraq, produce an Iraqi who would profess "thanks to Bush" for the liberation of the nation. Galbraith recounts from first hand experience that two months before the invasion Bush was unaware that there were Sunni and Shiite Iraqis. The present attitude appears to be that Iraqis are a homogeneous populous.

Galbraith's bool has the last chapter titled: How to Get Out of Iraq. I'm hoping to read that shortly.