OBAMA OVER HIS HEAD: IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, LIBYA

OBAMA OVER HIS HEAD: IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, LIBYA

By Frosty Wooldridge
March 24, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

[Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article are solely those of Frosty Wolldridge and not necessary the opinion of NWV, it's staff or other writers.]

Back in the 1960s, social scientist Lawrence Peter wrote The Peter Principle whereby most individuals in the Western world enjoy promotions until they reach their highest level of incompetence. George W. Bush reached it by using his father’s name to become an elected governor of Texas. He had done nothing to earn or warrant the governorship. From that mediocre performance, he leaped into the Oval Office at the White House where he illustrated The Peter Principle brilliantly, stupidly and with deadly outcomes. It wasn’t that Bush was qualified to become president; he was electable by name recognition.

By his fraudulent weapons of mass destruction claim in Iraq, Bush managed to get 4,400 American troops slaughtered and another 32,000 hideously wounded by IEDs that took off legs and other body parts. He killed off nearly 1.0 million Iraqi civilians while creating 2.5 million refugees. He dropped immoral and amoral depleted uranium bombs that have caused thousands of cancers and birth defects in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will for centuries.

He became a guest on Oprah pitching his book on his decisions. A sixth grader could have made better decisions. One lament came from a mother: “Bush’s daughters are going to their weddings and I’m going to my son’s funeral.”

Amazingly, Bush never captured Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Hussein never owned weapons of mass destruction. And, 17 of the 19 terrorist crew members hailed from Saudi Arabia.

After Bush, Barack Hussein Obama, a little known Illinois U.S. senator with an unspectacular “did nothing” three year senate career, emerged on the scene to tell us, “We live in the most successful country in history; now let’s change it.”

Because of Obama’s minority status along with myopic hope that he would bring peace to the world, Sweden presented Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize while he had done nothing to earn or deserve it.

Today, Nobel Laureate Obama carries on Bush’s folly and commenced bombing Libya last week.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said, “Thus far, the president has been unable to construct a foreign policy, any foreign policy.”

In other words, Obama and his staff manage our government by the seat of their pants with a totally reactive style, i.e., they don’t have a plan and they don’t know what they are doing!

“March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks,” said journalist Charles Davis. “It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people. Defense Secretary Assistant Ken Adelman predicted that "Liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."

Let’s look back at that cakewalk.

1. 4,400 U.S. Soldiers died for a lie. Projections of over 100,000 will commit suicide after their tours of duty. Over 175,000 Vietnam vets killed themselves after leaving the war zone in 1975.

2. Bankrupting our nation. We spend $12 billion every 30 days while our own country degrades within at every level. We stand $14 trillion in debt and sinking fast.

3. According to the National Priorities Project, “The money the U.S. government spent destroying Iraq could have provided yearly salaries for 12.5 million teachers or paid the annual healthcare costs for 167 million Americans. When elected officials tell us our nation is bankrupt, we should tell them to bring our war dollars home.”

4. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead. A 2006 study by researchers at John Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal found that in just over three years there had been 654,965 "excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war," with Iraq’s death rate more than doubling due to gunfire. A January 2008 analysis by British polling firm Opinion Research Business, meanwhile, estimated "That over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003."

5. Lights still out. “Then came the 2003 invasion, which destroyed electrical plants, sewage systems, water treatment facilities, hospitals and more,” said Davis. “Eight years later, the living conditions of Iraqis are worse than under Saddam Hussein.”

6. Millions flee their homes. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, since 2003 "More than 4.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes.”

7. Poisoning Iraqi Society. “The U.S. military dropped thousands of bombs across Iraq laced with depleted uranium, the radioactive waste produced from manufacturing nuclear fuel,” said Davis. “It’s not just Falluja facing a cancer epidemic. Al Jazeera reports that in the central Iraq province of Babil, reported cancer cases rose from 500 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2008.”

Bush and now Obama violated their oath of office by sending our country and our kids into unlawful wars. Only Congress maintains the right to wage war. Congress and our presidents send our kids off to die or become maimed, but they never send their own children. Our kids serve our country; when will our country serve our kids? Our kids have become a mercenary army for the fat cats of the military industrial complex.

Why are we still occupying Iraq with 50,000 soldiers? Why 130,000 soldiers in Afghanistan? Why 572,000 military personnel in 700 bases in 120 countries around the world? Why the cost of all that when our own country crumbles underneath us? Anybody got an answer to this level of The Peter Principle? We’re paying for this folly and it will ultimately take our civilization down. Guess what? Your two senators from your state, who support all this folly by funding it for the past 10 years, illustrate The Peter Principle everyday!

What are you doing about it? Answer: most likely, nothing!

Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show

© 2011 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved

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Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents and six times across the United States in the past 30 years. His published books include: "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS" ; “STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE”; “IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES”; “MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE TO ALASKA: INTO THE WIND—A TEEN NOVEL”; “BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD: TIRE TRACKS FOR YOUR IMAGINATION”; “AN EXTREME ENCOUNTER: ANTARCTICA.” His next book: “TILTING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY INTO A SWAMP.” He lives in Denver, Colorado.