Half-Assed War Weakens U. S.

President Bush said tonight that withdrawing from Iraq would weaken America. Of course, he was taling more about his Iraq policies than the ideas of his domestic opponents. There's nothing more clear than that the Iraq war has weakened the United States. Deciding that they could wage a minimalist war, the Bush administration launched a major invasion without building up the American military first. Then, the Bush administration failed to increase American forces in Iraq after the first fiascos of the occupation--the failures to quell looting, contol borders, clean up ammo dumps, and fully occupy restive Sunni areas. Because of the half-assed character of the occupation, ever larger streams of militant fighters began to come to Iraq to fight the harried occupation forces. Still refusing to increase the American commitment to Iraq, the Bush administration now finds that controlling the continually growing insurgency requires the efforts of most of the active American military. As a result, the commitment to maintaining the mission among the American military has weakened (thus reports of plans to downsize) while the global terrorists and insurgents become more dangerous.Bush administration stupidity, dishonesty, and evasiveness have also weakened the United States by wearing down the patience of the American public. Fed-up with the scatter-shot lies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, the broken promises of first military and then political magic, and the pointless sweeps of insurgents who return a week later, the American public now won't allow the U. S. to increase its forces enough to actually defeat the Sunni insurgents. As a result, public willingness to fight in Iraq is decreasing just as the threat from the global terrorists who've camped out in Western Iraq has begun to grow. The incompetence of the Bush administration has weakened the U. S. to the point where the prospects of dealing with the terrorist threat in Western Iraq have declined dramatically. We would have done better if we had never invaded Iraq or had withdrawn immediately after capturing Saddam. Hell, we would have done better if Cincy Sheehan were president and George Soros were secretary of defense.