short shirt-tails of the bush vanity war

Mr Bush's little vanity war in Iraq seems to have been based on lies and global goodwill towards his administration continues to erode. Listening to shortwave from state-run shortwave stations around the world showed some real Bush-bashing today. Very anti-administration programs could be found on:

Radio Nederland

Deutsche Welle

NHK Japan

Radio Sweden

Denmark Radio

The BBC World Service

Radio Canada

(probably many others, but that is all I have listened to in the past day)

One wonders if the average citizen in the US will catch on that their president ignored warnings about al Qaeda and then used 9/11 as an excuse focus on his father's foibles and give al Qaeda a much needed chance to mutate into something potentially much worse. Bush gave Osama bin Laden real credibility on the Islamic street (not just the Arab street) - bin Laden had been claiming that the US would invade and occupy an oil-rich country. In a very strange sense bin Laden and al Qaeda needed Bush to grow influence.

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In the US people are mostly isolated from the war unless you have a friend or relative in the military. Since photos of returned caskets have been banned and Bush refuses to honor the dead by attending funerals, the 550 or so deaths and 3000 serious injuries are conveniently out of the public mind. The only serious effect people feel is the $2+ billion a week that is going into the effort, but such is the cost of vanity and tilting at neo-con windmills. More lies are coming, after all, this is the Party of Nixon.