The Fly In The Ointment

Read just about any newspaper and you'll find plenty of articles debating what America should do about the quagmire in Iraq. It's all "could'a, should'a, would'a" stuff, more confusing than informative.

The more of these opinions you read the more obvious it becomes is that all the experts are thinking inside very hypothetical bubbles. None of them seem to want to deal with the whole basket of factors that plague this issue.

Here's an example of what I mean. Some look at it militarily and predict what might happen if the US force was doubled or trebled. Some weigh the need to stay for five, ten or even twenty years. The list is endless. The word none of them seem to want to use, however, is "sacrifice."

The Pentagon has just asked for another $100-billion to feed into the bottomless pits we call Iraq and Afghanistan. Just losing these supposed wars on terror is costing a fortune, draining America's wealth, influence and power and leaving in its wake massive government debt that future generations will have to struggle to pay off. If that's what it costs to lose, what would the tab be for winning and how is the US going to come up with the cash?

For five years, George Bush has defied gravity. He has levitated his way out of the "guns or butter" dilemma that all wartime leaders confront. He's done this while actually cutting taxes. George Bush has financed his wars with borrowed money from foreign lenders.

Now his economy is beginning to tank and America's spiralling debtload is beginning to worry foreign financiers. How is he going to keep this 'house of cards' from collapsing?

Can a president with such exhausted political capital at home, who has totally botched everything he's put his hand to, sell his congress and the American people on financing, out of their own pockets, an expanded, insanely costly, and increasingly unpopular war for many years, possibly decades to come, with limited prospects of success? You've watched this unfold for the past five years, what do you think? It's kind of obvious, eh?

George Bush has reached the point where sleight of hand is no longer an option. Without it, what future remains for his Global War Without End on Terror?