The Bush Administration Wants To Go Out With a Bang... Literally

"With the clock winding down on the [Bush] administration, it has a greater appetite for racking up victories against al Qaeda—and less worries about any residual political consequences from striking."

That's from a new article in The New Republic entitled Twilight Struggle: In its closing days, the Bush administration escalates the war on terror. The article goes on to say:

"We have entered a new phase in the war on terror. In July, according to three administration sources, the Bush administration formally gave the military new power to strike terrorist safe havens outside of Iraq and Afghanistan."

So. Now the military no longer needs approval from President Bush (or presumably even the next President--yikes) to launch a military strike in a country like Pakistan or Syria (where last Sunday, U.S. military helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction in a village near the Iraq border, killing eight):

"Now, those kinds of strikes in the region can occur at the discretion of the incoming commander of Central Command, General David Petraeus."

And in this "new order", countries like Kenya, Mali, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen may all be fair game, because they are "all places where the American intelligence believe al Qaeda has a significant presence, but can no longer count on the indigenous security services to act. In the parlance of the Cold War, Petraeus will now have the authority to fight a regional "dirty war."

(shudder). So there's yet another facet of the Bush Legacy for you.

Here's another: The Syrian government ordered an American School and a U.S. Cultural Center in Damascus closed Tuesday in response to the deadly attack. So. Another important opportunity for good Public Relations lost, thanks to Sunday's attack. And reports say that Syrian villagers held banners declaring "Down with American enemy" as they carried the coffins of relatives who died in the strike.

See what happens when we all take our eyes off the Bush? (sigh) If America really wanted to win the War on Terror, maybe it would stop helping al Qaeda with it's recruitment drive.

If you're thinking to yourself, Well if they're not with us then they're against us and so they are "Terrorists", please see my earlier post, Is Bjork a Terrorist?

I'm going to go watch Dr. Strangelove now... and hopefully I'll be able to see the comic side to all this... again.

And let me know if you are stumped for things to say to Bush if/when you email or call him (see my post below). Because it's high time for the American people to "engage", to use military-speak--and no, yelling at your TV screen does not count.

Here's the link to the article: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=9c613d05-0441-4a14-bf40-ef3ac16a42b5