Here, There and Everywhere

There is safety in numbers. And, so, George Bush has made the world safer-for terrorists, that is. The ranks of jihadists have swollen. Once contained in Afghanistan, members of al-Qaeda are present and plotting in many more countries, a direct consequence of George Bush’s maniacal war of terror. With safety in numbers, there is also strength. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, al-Qaeda has recovered to pre-9/11 potency.

Osama bin Laden’s organization is now in Iraq, has regrouped in Afghanistan, and has sympathizer cells all over Europe. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Congress played smack dab into the hands of bin Laden with “Shock and Awe,” the devastation of a country incapable of threatening the United States, and blustery “with-us-or-against-us” rhetoric, alienating many who mourned with us in the aftermath of the attack on our homeland.

Now, there must be hundreds of thousands of young men and women in Iraq who are literally dying to strap on a bomb in order to avenge the deaths and maiming of so many loved ones, killed by United States and “coalition” troops who believed the lies of their leaders-whoppers that included all the bull about spreading democracy and grateful Iraqis bearing gifts of flowers. Add to this the rage of Muslims all over the world who perceive the occupation of Iraq as Christian America’s religious war against Islam. Then, factor in the hypocrisy of the “Decider” who boasts the overthrown of an “evil dictator who tortured his own people” while calling for stay-the-course campaigns that have resulted in the deaths of more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein killed.

Casualties continue to mount on all sides. Iraq is a wasteland. And George Bush has misgivings for only one thing-saying “bring em on.” Actually, when asked if he had any regrets, Bush said he shouldn’t have issued the challenge, “Bring it on,” dropping the “em” for “it.” What is astonishing and underlines George Bush’s epic ineptitude is that he actually taunted the Iraqi insurgents with this dare to attack our military.

As a result of Bush’s moral and mental deficits, he has made cataclysmic errors in judgment, leading to the loss of nearly 3,650 soldiers and Marines and impacting forever the lives of their families. More than half a million Iraqis have died. And there is nothing-absolutely nothing-to put in the plus column. Instead, the world is a much more dangerous place with al-Qaeda as determined as they were in the early hours of September 11, 2001 to strike within the United States. Not because they are jealous of our freedoms. Not because they hate democracy. Simply and undeniably, they want to destroy us because our greedy and merciless hands have been and still are manipulating their fates and the lives of their children as we rape the resources of the Middle East.

Thanks to George Bush and American foreign policy, we are fighting them over there so we can fight them over here.

Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She’s written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she’s a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,’05, she has been writing political articles. She can be reached at: Missybeat@aol.com

 

 

Missy Beattie has written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. She was an instructor of memoirs writing at Johns Hopkins’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in BaltimoreEmail: missybeat@gmail.com