BUSH FLYS THE COOP

The Senate debated a bill yesterday to establish a time-table to end the war. Since Republicans control the Congress it did not pass though a weakened Republican drafted version, calling on Bush to begin to do more frequent reporting to Congress on the war, indicates that even the war-thumping Repubs are beginning to fear the next election.

Bush has just flown the coop again and is doing an extended tour of the Asian-Pacific region. He knows he has to get out of the country in order to try to repair his sagging poll numbers. Support for the war is at an all time low. The more he opens his mouth, the worse his numbers get. Maybe being on the other side of the world, looking presidential, will help his advisors must figure.

The war is not going well. As of today 2,069 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq with 15,568 GI's wounded in action. The war has now cost U.S. taxpayers $300 billion - money that will not be now available for home heating assistance this winter, health care, hurricane relief, education, and the like.

Increasing numbers of U.S. troops, and their families, are speaking out against the war. Many GI's have become disillusioned as they witness first-hand that the rhetoric about "freedom" in Iraq does not match up with the reality of U.S. torture and killing of legions of innocent civilians.

This was supposed to be a high-tech war from a distance. A computer terminal kind of war where the U.S. military did not have to get their "hands dirty". But the reality of the occupation has been a different story. The Iraqi's, not ready to hand over the country to an occupation for oil, increasingly fight back just as Americans would do if a foreign power had attacked and occupied our nation.

Bush's war to control the oil of the Middle East is not going as expected. Or maybe it is. Maybe when Bush warned the American people to "Be patient...it is going to be a long, long war" - maybe he meant it. Maybe Bush knew that the only way he could justify creating permanent bases in Iraq was if the entire country was a mess, in chaos. Then he could make the case that we can't "cut and run" because if the U.S. military was to leave there would be a bloody civil war.

Well now we have a bloody civil war and our troops are right in the middle of the mess. Many of the GI's have been there two or even three times. The odds of them getting home safe and sound dimish with each IED or mortar attack.

The time has come for the Congress to demand that the troops come home. Let Bush and Cheney and the rest of their Congressional team go take up arms in Iraq if they want to. My guess is that they'd fly the coop pretty fast if they had to serve there.