Well it was Sept since I last chatted. Now Halloween is upon us and the Christmas sales are in full swing. The economy is sluggish, home sales are way down and prices are slipping. Next week we will have the mid-term elections. All my ranting and raving seems to have had an effect (even though no one admits to reading my blog).
The Republicans are heading into a real bashing at the polls. This is tha culmination of a sequence of scandals and books revealing the seamy underside of the current administration. Bob woodward's book, "State of Denial". the last of three previous lauditory expositions about Bush, lambasts the way the Bushies have failed to face reality. Their "stay the course" mantra however has been changed, actually it has simply been dropped,nothing has changed. A committee headed by James Baker is due to report --- after the elections--- on how bad things really are and maybe suggest changes in the "course". The current Iraqi leadership is floundering badly amid a tremendous increase in internecine killing. The failure to produce the necessary troops and police to quell the violence is stalling the time when they can "stand up so we can stand down". While the fighting continues no rehabilitation gets done and the Iraqis fall deeper into despondency and rebellion against the occupation.
Another favorite Rovism Bush likes to use,"We must fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" has been proven as vacuous as many other "talking points" Rove has come up with. Here is my latest letter to the editor.
Dear Editor,
I believe it is necessary for the U.S. to face squarely the energy issue. Our dependency on oil from the Middle East is keeping us from being able to establish a foreign policy that is realistic. Realistic here means non-confrontational nor exploitive. If our “national interest” is shackled to foreign oil we are forcing confrontation with the “national interest” of the Muslim nations who do not appreciate our desire to subjugate them through democratic governments of our choosing..

The whole “terrorism” phenomenon is directly linked to the occupation by foreign troops in, and the undue influence of the U.S. over, Muslim countries. Robert Pape, a political science professor at Chicago University, has done an in depth study of the suicide bomber’s motivation. His book “Dying to Win” graphically describes his work. Each case shows that the individual was primarily motivated by the desire to drive the occupiers from the homeland. Because defense of the homeland is a sacred duty it is not “suicide”, which is prohibited, but “martyrdom”, which is rewarded.

The failure to be sensitive to Muslim beliefs is what has driven the Iraq war to the terrible state it is in now. The myopic ideology of the Bush administration is what causes it to claim we have to “fight terrorism over there so we won’t have to fight it here“. The 9/11 tragedy was the result of our armed forces being in Saudi Arabia. That “occupation” infuriated bin Laden to the point of desperation and his diabolical plot to harm the “occupiers”. It isn’t that “they hate our freedom”, they hate our arrogance and manipulative influence on Muslim countries.

So the basic problem is our voracious appetite for oil beyond which we can supply ourselves. The solution is not more oil but to curb our appetite for it. Very little has been done along that line. Again Bush chooses business interests over the country’s welfare. The entire spectrum of energy resources must be pursued more vigorously and intelligently. Something the current administration is obviously incapable of.