The Liberal Patriot

Bush’s Worst Nightmare

J.G. Schwam - August 14, 2005

The deteriorating support for the Iraq war is now George W. Bush’s worst nightmare. Bush’s only opportunity to improve the situation in Iraq is as politically unpalatable to Bush as aresenic. Neither was Bush willing to consider it from the start. That is increase the troop strength, secure the borders and impose an effective security regime that has the strength to carry out this mission. But the opportunity to do has passed. Just as in Vietnam, the failure to initially and accurately assess the situation before it escalated out of control has created an uncontrollable insurgency. Even if there was political support in the GOP to do so, increasing the in-country troop strength at this point would be insufficient to mitigate the now escalated and entrenched insurgency. Just as similar mistakes in Vietnam proved true; it is now too late get the situation under control. The middle-eastern equivalent of the Pathet Lao and Chi-Com forces have streamed in and set up camp. It is now crystal clear that George W. Bush has created another Vietnam in Iraq.

Right wing talk show host Mike Gallagher’s chant against Cindy Sheehan’s campaign to meet with Bush while he vacations in Crawford, Texas, “we don’t care” sickened thousands of families who share her plight, mourning a child that has died or been maimed on battlefield, the purpose of which can no longer be explained . Disapproval for Bush’s management of the war is now, according to recent polls passed 60%, a staggering number.

Bush and his GOP debate framers know that admitting his mistakes or declaring that he can no longer offer solutions for victory, as Lyndon Johnson did during Vietnam, would be the political death knell for his party, just as it was for the Democrats when Johnson did so in 1968. So they will not at any cost. They will coast into the 2006 congressional elections and 2008 presidential and try to hide the grim reality that their miscalculations have lost them their war of choice and the support for it of the majority of the nation.

In the mean time Bush’s knowledge that he can no longer justify this war to the nation has resulted in a profound act of cowardice, his unwillingness to meet with Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan. What could he tell her? What truth other than one that is politically suicidal as to why her son died could Bush say to assuage her grief? There is none other than the truth, and that truth, is that his war was solely a war of greed and arrogance. That truth as Bush and his debate framers know would be wholly politically unexplainable and entirely unpalatable to the people.

So there stands Cindy Sheehan in the hot dry Texas dust, bravely trying to force Bush to speak the truth to the American people, that her son and the more than 1800 others died for the greed and arrogance of the few misguided power brokers that sounded their lying, now sickeningly fallacious trumpets that their war about freedom and democracy.

So there stands Cindy Sheehan holding out to for Bush to speak a truth will never speak. But along with the polls roiling up against their war, polls she is helping to push higher, the brave Mrs. Sheehan has become Bush’s worst nightmare.

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