Bellicose Boy

First, we he have endured years of thankless military sacrifice in Iraq, a war justified by the George W. Bush administration with lies and deceit. Afghanistan, the initial poster child of the war on terror, was left to wither on the vine, and now the resurgent Taliban launch operations against various targets at will throughout the country.

Then Bush's friend and exemplar of the Administration's foreign policy success, Michel Shashkavilli, decides to go to war on Russia's border and is "shocked" by Russia's swift and crushing military response, and by the failure of the West to come to his aid (about as shocked as Claude Rains in the movie 'Casablanca' when he learns that gambling is going on at Rick's). Bush promptly sends the inept Condi Rice to the area so as to allow the peoples of that region the pleasure of ignoring her. And we follow that act of statesmanship with a treaty with Poland that allows the US to install missiles at Russia's border, further inflaming the attitude of the Russians and daring them to respond.

And in the Saturday morning paper in Los Angeles is an article stating that the US may have to take unilateral action against terrorists in Pakistan, since the new government there seems less responsive to our concerns.

Wait a minute. It is time for Bush to stop acting like the bellicose and petulant twelve-year-old boy that he is. For someone who so openly touts the moral high-ground he certainly has none. His administration has been one long slide downhill, his foreign policy marked by confrontation over statesmanship, decree over consensus, and the result is a growing disregard for the US around the world.

Has Bush accomplished anything? Yes. He abolished the inheritance tax and ushered in faith-based initiatives. Perhaps there is a future for a new inbred aristocracy in America, one modeled on the dark days of Europe, where the royal family was aided and abetted by the state-sponsored church.

It is time for George to take a respite from unilateral actions on the international scene, and to cease his war mongering activities around the globe. It is time for a new administration to take over the reins of foreign relations from this childish lame-duck, and see if they can salvage and rebuild the decimated image of the US around the world.