Bush and peace?

Jimmy K: I guess you are right, might makes right. But why should the Palestinians not have all of Israel? After all, it is their country. They didn't agree to share it with the Israelis. Given your logic why should we just not take whatever we want? There are places in Italy and France I would love to have. And how about Venezuela with all that oil. We should take that, too. I think Brazil and Argentina would be nice, and why not British Columbia? I take it you haven't heard, colonialism is dead (except apparently in Israel). Are you sure the oil fields haven't addled your brain?

I do not usually watch or listen to George W. Bush as it makes me ill. This morning I accidentally tuned in to his "speech" or whatever it was during his meeting with Blair. For a few moments it was hypnotizying, like being hypnotized by a snake. He was babbling on and on about peace. Peace in the Middle East. And how it is that he (and Blair, I guess) are working towards bringing peace to that part of the world. When, after three or four minutes of this, nausea set in, and I managed to turn it off. But I couldn't help to keep thinking about it. Like, what has Bush done for peace in the Middle East? He lied to start a "war" with Iraq, a country that was not a threat to us, he absolutely refuses to even talk to either Iran or Syria, he expedited bombs to Israel for their attack on Lebanon, he abandoned any pretense of U.S. neutrality in the Israeli/Palestinian problem, and in general has created a situation so dire in the Middle East that the whole region may erupt in violence. This ignores the fact that the U.S. is the major provider of arms for different factions in the region, hardly a stimulus for peace. So how does he get away with claiming he is promoting peace? And why doesn't someone in the media challenge this utter bullshit?

Bush and Blair seemed to agree that we were going to more "forward" in Iraq. I interpret that to mean they are simply going to ignore the Baker report and go ahead with their insane idea that they are somehow going to "win," that "victory" is possible. Bush says we are going to stay in Iraq as long as "they" want us to. The only "they" that want us to stay is the U.S. picked puppet government in Iraq, everyone else has made it more than clear that they definitely do not want us to stay. Until the Bush/Cheney administration says clearly that we do not intend to maintain permanent bases in Iraq there is no hope for any kind of solution to the chaos we have created. The Iraqis are not stupid, they know perfectly well what we are up to - installing a puppet government, controlling their oil, and making them subservient to our will. It doesn't matter how long we stay in Iraq, it doesn't matter how many troops we keep stationed there, it doesn't matter how many permanent bases we build or how much money we spend, democracy is not going to come to Iraq or the rest of the Middle East, at least not in any of our lifetimes. Bush/Cheney will leave Iraq only when they are chased out, an inevitability as powerful as the sunrise.