Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

"It was illusory ... like all the words the Arabs heard from the Americans during the eight days of Bush's tourist jaunt around the Middle East."

Robert Fisk clearly saw through this grand delusion Middle East spin control mission.

Fisk also wrote, "You wouldn't think it though, watching this preposterous man prancing around arm in arm with the king in what was presumably meant to be a dance, wielding a massive glinting curved Saudi sword."

During this eight day trip a massive car bomb was exploding in Beirut, wounding a U.S. Embassy driver.

While Bush was relaxing at the Saudi royal ranch at Al Janadriyah, 19 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.  One of the Palestinians killed was the son of Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader.  Zahar claimed that Israel never would have staged the attack - on the day a Palestinian rocket killed an Israeli - if it had not been encouraged by George Bush.

Gallantly George Bush promised the Palestinians "a sovereign and contiguous state" by the end of 2008.

At the same moment Bush was pledging security for Israel, Arabs hastily observed that security was not being pledged for "Palestine."

To make the Bush propaganda policy complete, Bush arrived in the Middle East armed with American offers of huge weapons sales to protect largely undemocratic and police state regimes from potentially the most powerful nation in Bush's "axis of evil."

One cannot help but wonder if it ever crosses Bush's mind about what the entire world now thinks of Bush's disastrous Iraq War.  To see Bush endlessly descend at strategic points around the world in Air Force One on his endless world tours is truly astounding.  There he is, parading, waving, and smiling.  But what on earth has George Bush got to smile about?

Is it the Iraq War debacle, beginning with the false alarm of "weapons of mass destruction" that never existed that prompts him to smile?

Is it disposing of Saddam Hussein that the U.S. and 23 other nations obtained oil from, often supplying with weapons, that brings that familiar smile to his face?

We watched as TV news told the story of Saddam's killing sprees to get rid of any opposition.  Did we deliver democracy or freedom to Iraq?  Of course not, with 2 ½ million fleeing to Syria, Jordan and Iran.

Was that the intention behind the Iraq War?

Or was the intention Iraq's oil?  If Alan Greenspan's book "Tumultuous Times" is really true, oil was indeed the motivation behind the Iraq War.  Certainly no one can take pride in 600 to a million Iraqi civilian deaths, can they?  Is that stopping terrorism or igniting future terrorist attacks?

Over 3,800 U.S. service personnel are now dead with over 55,000 combatants and non-combatants wounded, requiring millions in post-war care.

The dollar has fallen, the recession has begun while we move ever closer to the staggering reality of a $10 trillion national debt.  Bush now asks for $500 to $800 dollars to be given to taxpayers to stimulate an ever sinking economy.  

With the gigantic debt, greater than all the combined national debts since the U.S. was founded, one citizen stated bluntly, "We're broke.  How can Bush hand money out to anybody?"

The answer is, "Just print it with only more debt and promises to pay someday."