George Bush's Acid Reign: Pernicious Nation-Building Creates a Failed State

Birth of a Nation?- The bombed-0ut Mt. Lebanon Hotel, Baghdad

A West Bank suicide blast; could be Fatah, or Hamas
Why such tactics? They ask. One need but look to the past
As Western boots remain, encamped in places like Bahrain
it breeds seeds of these misdeeds from future Saddam Hussein's

by Anthony Barnes

Although May 1st made it four long years since George W. Bush's hideously ill-timed “mission accomplished” speech, it remains difficult to lose sight of the fact that were it not for the stealthy underlying goal of Iraqi nation-building as raison d'etre for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the precise moment at which Iraq's WMD threat was determined illusory – viewed here as the point at which Baghdad fell without coalition forces having faced a single biological or chemical attack -- would have also been the moment at which the planning for withdrawal would have begun.

Simply put, Bush could have said: "My bad," then prudently cut the Iraqis a check for the damages thus saving his nation's blood and treasure for times when a legitimate security threat loomed.

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