If you think that Americans are unhappy with Bush, you ought to read what Iraqis are saying.
Bush has been bad for America, but worse for Iraq.
Regarding the terror attacks in Jordan last week, it has been reported that the female bomber whose explosive belt failed to explode is the sister of three Iraqis killed in conflicts with American soldiers in Iraq.
One Iraqi blogger, Ibn Alrafidain comments on the terror attacks in Jordan last week:
Finally, when the explosions took place, in Amman, I remembered the September 11th events. And once again I imagined myself on one of the planes hit the two towers or inside one of the towers. The question is "what have I done to be killed in such cruel way?" The same question goes for the whole similar crimes all over the world. Here in Iraq, the question is asked by tens of innocent victims daily.
An Iraqi dentist blogs about the hopelessness she feels:
How would you feel if you see ,children with painful carious teeth , abscesses,& other mouth diseases with no hope to treat that because of poverty & because the government don't provide the least medical care required?
How would you feel if you see a school without electricity & the children are studying in the darkness& freezing in the classroom with no heat in very cold weather?
How would you feel if you see children in the classroom have no seats in their classrooms?
How would you feel if you see two different classes( third & fourth , fifth & sixth)studying in one classroom at the same time?!
How would you feel if you see every day tens or more of people from your country dying because of lack of security?
How would you feel if you know that your blood is the cheaper among all?
How would you feel if you live in a country floating on oil , & it's people are freezing in winter?
How would you feel if your country is destructed & need rebuilding , but you see dishonesty, cheating & larceny in the authorities?
How would you feel if you live among countries that so much cared because of the bird -flu disease & made the best procedures to protect their people & your (elected ,democratic government ) not even aware of that danger on it's people?
How would you feel if you see all that & much more in the richest country in the world?
How would you feel if you work in a medical field & you see all the suffer & you can't do much?
The ever-eloquent Riverbend cuts Bush to the quick about fraudulent elections (NO, BUSH WOULD NEVER DO THAT!) and his bogus threats:
The agony of the long war with Iran is what makes the current situation in Iraq so difficult to bear- especially this last year. The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one.
It began, of course, with Badir's Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The referendum results were so disappointing and there have been so many stories of fraud and shady dealings (especially in Mosul), that there's already talk of boycotting the December elections. This was the Puppets' shining chance to show that there is that modicum of democracy they claim the Iraqi people are enjoying under occupation- that chance was terribly botched up...
...Last year, there was even a warrant for Muqtada's arrest from the Ministry of Interior and supported by the Americans who repeatedly said they were either going to detain the `radical cleric' or kill him.
Well, today he's very much alive and involved in the `political process' American politicians and their puppets hail so energetically. Sadr and his followers have been responsible for activities such as terrorizing hairdressers, bombing liquor stores, and abductions of women not dressed properly, etc. because all these things are considered anti-Islamic (according to Iranian-style Islam)...
...Americans constantly tell me, "What do you think will happen if we pull out of Iraq- those same radicals you fear will take over." The reality is that most Iraqis don't like fundamentalists and only want stability- most Iraqis wouldn't stand for an Iran-influenced Iraq. The American military presence is working hand in hand with Badir, etc. because only together with Iran can they suppress anti-occupation Iraqis all over the country. If and when the Americans leave, their Puppets and militias will have to pack up and return to wherever they came from because without American protection and guidance they don't stand a chance.
We literally laugh when we hear the much subdued threats American politicians make towards Iran. The US can no longer afford to threaten Iran because they know that should the followers of Sadr, Iranian cleric Sistani and Badir's Brigade people rise up against the Americans, they'd have to be out of Iraq within a month. Iran can do what it wants- enrich uranium? Of course! If Tehran declared tomorrow that it was currently in negotiations for a nuclear bomb, Bush would have to don his fake pilot suit again, gush enthusiastically about the War on Terror and then threaten Syria some more.
Congratulations Americans- not only are the hardliner Iranian clerics running the show in Iran- they are also running the show in Iraq. This shift of power should have been obvious to the world when My-Loyalty-to-the-Highest-Bidder-Chalabi sold his allegiance to Iran last year. American and British sons and daughters and husbands and wives are dying so that this coming December, Iraqis can go out and vote for Iran influenced clerics to knock us back a good four hundred years.
What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?
Iraq has been the land of dreams for everyone except Iraqis- the Persian dream of a Shia controlled Islamic state modeled upon Iran and inclusive of the holy shrines in Najaf, the pan-Arab nationalist dream of a united Arab region with Iraq acting as its protective eastern border, the American dream of controlling the region by installing permanent bases and a Puppet government in one of its wealthiest countries, the Kurdish dream of an independent Kurdish state financed by the oil wealth in Kirkuk...
The Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen... the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation.
Another Iraqi blog, A family in Baghdad, compares Bush's conquest of Iraq to those of The Crusades:
Bush tries to mould the story in a religious form, inserting words like: GOD and Christ, as reasons for war on Iraq... but generally, America's war against us seems like an imperialistic war in the first degree, its reasons and aims economical in the second degree...
And all the rest is empty talk for consumption, and fool people's sentiments...
The crusade wars were also based upon fooling people's sentiments in Europe, with big words concerning The Prophet Jesus Christ and protecting the Christian religion from the infidel Muslims, and there were a lot who believed this and joined the armies. But from reading history I see it as a war to seek interests and privileges, much more than protecting The Prophet Jesus Christ, his religion, and his grave......
Another blogger, Abu Khaleel, analyzes the rise and fall of the neo-con empire:
It must be one of the shortest-lived empires in the history of mankind.
It was an empire that was fashioned by taking hold of the reigns of an existing empire. America was taken from the inside.
The initial effort was painstakingly made; laying the foundation took several decades of hard work; but the main battle only took a decade or so to overwhelm the American political and military system to force an order based on the "Project of the New American Century".
They took formal office in 2001. They tried to shape the world to their ambitious master plan. They were certainly quietly (but not secretly) praying for another Pearl Harbor to be able to mobilize the public's feelings to initiate their scheme.
Providence gave them 9/11.
Large segments of the American public fell for their scheme-in-disguise, either through fear, misguided anger, blind desire for revenge, delusions of grandeur, patriotism, super-patriotism, greed, ignorance or indifference.
The wind was blowing in their direction. They went full speed ahead... and the world was never the same again; Afghanistan, Iraq, scorn for the UN, contempt for "Old Europe" and total disregard for the rest of the world...
As soon as "Mission" was "Accomplished" in May 2003, they went ahead with trying to shape Iraq to neocon design with decree after decree of "economic reform" as if designing a new country on an empty sheet of paper.
It was the height and the Golden Age of that empire.
But soon after, the idols started crumbling. This is amazing. Builders of the new American Century are falling at the peak of their adventure... one by one:
- Richard Perle, "The Prince of Darkness", dismissed quietly before the fun even started.
- Paul Wolfowitz , removed from the MoD where he had so much control over the US army, quietly to the World Bank.
- Douglas Feith, the man responsible for post-invasion planning among other things, slipped quietly from a position of great influence... into oblivion.
- Scooter Libby... exposed in disgrace (although technically innocent so far) despite all the sugar-coating and all the smokescreens.
And now the front man himself, God's Confidante, is seen by a majority of his own people as unethical and incompetent.
His fortunes and those of his top two lieutenants, Cheney and Rumsfeld, will unfold in the coming year or two.
Captains of the New Order falling at the peak of their `winning battle'; Odd isn't it?
These people are a disgrace to empire builders! They should be called "Empire Crumblers". Well, it was more like a palace coup really!
These people have fallen. More will fall in the coming days.
However, it is sad to reflect, on the American Veterans' Day, that these office warriors send real soldiers to battle. When real soldiers and captains fall, they pay with their lives and fall into pools of blood. But when these office warriors and initiators of wars fall, they fall out of office into another one or, sometimes, into golf courses.
Just to think of the damage they have done to their own country, leading to the death of many of its sons and daughters and the squandering of so much of its wealth and its loss of standing in the eyes of the world... they are really getting off lightly.
But they are American. They were put in their positions of power by the American people through a democratic process. The American people have nobody else to blame.
But what about Iraq? What about all the loss of innocent life and the suffering and the destruction and the devastation of a country that is still going on for more than two years? What about the terrorism that was imported by these people into our country that is now an export business?
All this reminds me of something Michael Ledeen, the neocon guru, once wrote advising George Bush (in April, 2004 urging him to deal harshly with Fallujah, even after that first massacre):
"Remember one of the early dicta of Machiavelli: If you are victorious, everyone will judge your methods to have been appropriate. If you lose, you're a bum."
Tonight, I watched President Bush defending his policy, attacking Syria and Iran and moving along the same track, as if nothing had happened. What will it take for this Emperor to know?