Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Perhaps if we analyzed people as one recent article explained regarding Reagan's jellybeans.  We all know Reagan was fond of jellybeans.  But little did we know at the time that Reagan allegedly analyzed the character of individuals by the colors of the jellybeans they selected.  

Or perhaps it was the great faith placed in astrology that impressed these Republican representatives of intelligentsia, allowing the movements of the stars, as defined by some astrologer, to decide how events shaped our lives.  That must have impressed those Republicans who were naming the Washington, D.C. airport after their Washington hero.

When President Reagan granted illegal immigrants who had lived in the U.S. a specified amount of time amnesty, the die was cast.  In subsequent years millions of illegals sneaked across the U.S. border, just waiting for the Ronald Reagan amnesty to take effect once again.  All they had to do was sneak across the border, accept very low wages from predatory business leaders who exploited their cheap labor, and wait.

When Congress finally dared to put the lid on this illegal entry and stop labor exploitation, the response has been millions on the march, demanding what other illegals got under President Reagan - amnesty.

In all fairness we should rename L.A. Airport after Ronald Reagan for it was his policy that has brought us this tragic dilemma, courtesy of another Republican icon.

As for the Elder Bush, he was hailed as a foreign affairs expert when he entered office. Perhaps it was his CIA. background which accorded him this unworthy recognition.

During the first two years of the Elder Bush's term, he gained considerable fame for his famous "read my lips" cliché.  The promise to cut capital gains taxes never materialized.  When asked about this fact in Tampa while he was jogging, Bush grinningly quipped, "Read my hips!"  What his hips had to do with failing to go through with his capital gains reduction promise is continuing mystery.

I was in Tampa, Florida when Bush spoke, asking the public to back his proposal for $3 billion in loans for Saddam Hussein to buy foodstuffs.  Conveniently, Senator Robert Dole's Kansas was poised to supply these foodstuffs if the $3 billion loan to buy them materialized.  

When it came to supplying Saddam with the latest sophisticated weaponry, as Saddam's killing sprees of his Kurdish population were occurring frequently, Tampa area Honeywell scientists objected vehemently to the loan to the bloody dictator Bush would later refer to as "worse than Hitler".

During the second half of the Elder Bush's administration, Saddam had been told if he invaded Kuwait to stop their practice of stealing Iraqi oil through slant drilling, the U.S. informed Saddam through U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie that the U.S. considered this an Arab problem and in effect indicated that it would do nothing.

Once Saddam got the green light and invaded Kuwait, Bush became an instant international superman hero figure.  Iraq must be invaded.  Saddam, after all those years of sending him billions in loans along with building up his weapons arsenal to engage in war against Iran, was suddenly the enemy that the United States was destined to go to war against.  

Other nations joined swiftly in the war cry.  The coalition was formed.  However, the exact number of Iraqis killed was never revealed.  We do know the deaths of the American soldiers mercifully were not high.  

International estimates, however, put the loss of life to Iraqis at 100,000 deaths.  When asked about the Iraq death toll, a far from compassionate Colin Powell stated that he was not interested in knowing the tragic numbers.

The Gulf War ended quickly and the Elder Bush's advisers, led by General Brent Scowcroft, decided it would not be wise to go into Baghdad and topple Saddam for fear that a civil war would erupt.

What we are witnessing this very moment shows that was indeed a wise decision not to enter Baghdad, or attempt to bring down Saddam's entire regime, which we sadly, tragically, had propped up for years for one reason or another.  Would you call the Elder Bush's activities basically those of a foreign policy expert?

Now we come to the second Bush Presidency.  Before 9/11 warnings were repeatedly given to the FBI. in Washington about the terrorist Zacharias Moussaoui.  

Richard A. Serrano wrote in the March 22, 2006 L.A. Times, "A former senior F.B.I. counterterrorism official testified Tuesday that the arrest of Zacharias Moussaoui in August 2001 never rose to a heightened alert because federal law enforcement was besieged by threats to America that summer, and it was unclear what Moussaoui was doing in the United States."

The article then continues, "FBI headquarters in Washington repeatedly snubbed his efforts to obtain search warrants and learn about al-Qaida-linked terrorists who were training on jumbo-jet simulators."  

Considering the foregoing, was the Bush Administration as clueless as Condoleezza Rice claimed?  With an operation like this, who needs enemies from without?  We've got them from within.

Can any honest American take pride in launching a war on forged documents, lies, and an unwillingness to let inspectors finish their inspection for those non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Bush kept ranting about repetitiously to help get the American public into the proper fighting mode?

Now, according to a former Iraqi president, "If this isn't civil war going on now in Iraq, what is it?"  The awful truth is out for anyone caring to see it!

The legacy of the Iraq War will be sadly visible every time you see a serviceman or woman who was bravely serving their country minus his or her own arms or legs and adjusting to prosthetic devices to replace lost limbs.  

Another element of the Iraq War legacy is the staggering debt that future U.S. generations will be saddled with.  As Henry Kissinger said when Donald Rumsfeld compared the Iraq War to World War Two, "This is not a fair parallel at all!"