Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

"I am writing to you on a matter of grave importance.  It is hard for me to express to you how deep the economic crisis in America is today.  We are discussing a $1 trillion bailout for our troubled banking system.  This is a financial 9/11.  As Americans lose their homes and sink into debt, they no longer understand why we are spending $1 billion a day to make Iraqis feel more secure in their homes."

With George Bush having launched the Iraq War based on a tissue of well orchestrated lies, Friedman has to be kidding to fantasize that the Iraqi president and prime minister will be shedding crocodile tears over the economic pit the most despised ever U.S. chief executive dug for Americans.

With Iraq's infrastructure demolished, an estimate of over a million Iraqi men, women and children dead, and 2 ½ million Iraqis having fled their homes for Iran, Syria and Jordan, a question must be asked:

How much genuine sympathy can the U.S. expect from Iraqis over 2 ½ million American home foreclosures?

Get real, Thomas Friedman!

This letter continues, dramatically declaring:

"A deadline is coming.  American taxpayers who would not let their money be used to subsidize their own companies -- Lehman Brothers, Bear-Stearns and Merrill Lynch -- will not have tax dollars used to subsidize your endless dithering over which Iraqi community dominates Kirkuk."

Now, Mr. Friedman, here is my version of a fantasy letter from Iraq's leadership to White House resident George Bush:

Dear Mr. Bush:

After launching the Iraq War on proven lies, you changed the reason of "weapons of mass destruction" once it was proven they were non-existent to bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq, eventually spreading to the entire Middle East.

When poll after poll revealed that over 70% of Iraqis wanted U.S. occupational forces to leave, but you steadfastly remained, one point was proven.  The claim that you were delivering democracy to Iraq was another big lie.  

The hypocrisy of ignoring a democratic decision to have you leave was observed by the entire world.

You claimed that freedom was what you were continuing to fight for in Iraq.

The long term lease for oil rights that you offered Iraq requested 63 of Iraq's oil wells for foreign rights lease, with U.S. oil producers at the front of the lease line.

The Iraqis have not signed this one-sided lease giving them control of only 17 of their 80 oil wells.  They want the freedom to control all of their oil wells.

So, if you are asking for sympathy for the U.S. economic collapse, don't ask the people of Iraq!

Instead they are more interested in having you pay back the billions spent on destroying the nation through Donald Rumsfeld's vaunted "shock and awe" campaign.

Now the shock has occurred in our own economic markets as well as awe that it could ever happen in the first place.

The eyes of the world watched in horror at what was once the greatest economic powerhouse nation in the world economy on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its own stupendous corruption.