Frosty Wooldridge -- President Bush Redefines Insanity

PRESIDENT BUSH REDEFINES INSANITY

By Frosty Wooldridge
January 15, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

President George Bush addressed the nation last week with the face of a beaten man staring into the camera with forlorn eyes. He tilted off-balance like a pinball machine jammed one too many times. Bush�s childhood provides reasons for his irrational actions. Allow me to explain. First, however, let�s examine some necessary background information:

Iraq is not a replica of the United States. Its culture counters ours; its religion opposes ours and its people come from utterly different cultures. Sharia Law, imbedded in Islamic Iraq for 1,600 years, opposes democratic law. Islam abhors becoming like Western culture.

To say that average Americans and this U.S. President do not understand Iraq and its disparate people proves a gross understatement. While few anywhere disagree with President Bush's desire for peace in the region � his obsession with bending Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds into an intertwined pretzel fail at every juncture.

The bottom-line? The United States warrants no business trying to gerrymander Iraq. True, Saddam Hussein proved a cruel leader. Neither can we deny that Hussein, like Tito and Yugoslavia, grew Iraq into a successful, thriving nation. Most important; Saddam's sadism and blustering threatened America not one iota.

The U.S. Electorate is Fed-Up

Nonetheless, the United States twice picked a bloody fight with Iraq. As a fragile Republic, we cannot afford such foolishness. The United Nations must step into that circle. That the U.N. is a paper-tiger proves another of many unresolved problems � not ours to solve. Deciding what not to do underwrites our survival!

On November 6, 2006, Americans voted to bring U.S. troops back home from Iraq. They changed the makeup of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from Republican to Democratic majorities � to stop George Bush from waging his senseless war. They applauded the "Iraq Study Group" conclusion that we could not and would not win in Iraq.

NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN polls show seven to eight out of ten Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq. Why? Iraq is a no-win quagmire -- exploding daily into bloody civil war.

Newsweek's top Middle East expert, Fareed Zakaria, stated, "Eighty percent of Iraqis want U.S. troops out of Iraq." There is no way that President Bush can deny or besmirch that fundamental truth. Yet, he persists in his delusional quest. That approach proves symptomatic of a serious personal problem.

Bush provoked an invasion of Iraq thus far resulting in 655,000 Iraqi military and citizen deaths, tens of thousands of disfigured and amputated bodies of their men, women and children -- 3,018 American soldiers killed and 22,000 U.S. service members heinously amputated, gutted and burned. Bush thrust those soldiers into a lifetime of pain and horrific consequences. Meanwhile, complete and utter insanity along with chaos continue in the streets of Baghdad for five million terrified people.

For anyone unlucky enough to walk on any street--Iraqis might be alive in the morning -- and splattered to smithereens by nightfall.

Our tactics don't facilitate peace or tranquility. For example:

The U.S. military dropped bombs shielded with high-density depleted uranium in cities all over Iraq. These weapon components carry low-level radiation that may create cancer and birth defects in adults and children for decades into the future�theirs and ours.

To make it worse, President Bush provoked his war on a fundamental untruth--based on weapons of mass destruction. While Dubya and a few others imagined the existence of the WMD, in truth none existed. Bush's war broke international law, and dishonored the face of ethics, morals and sanity.

And yet, after five years of endless bloodshed and violence -- an orgy of death and mayhem in Afghanistan and Iraq� our President persists.

The "Victory" Surge

Last week, in what appears the ultimate act of an irrational mind -- President George W. Bush announced his 22,000 troop "surge" to gain ultimate "victory."

Webster defines insanity as, "Something utterly foolish or unreasonable." Another definition reads, "Taking the same action over and over again while expecting different results." Another reads, "Mental disorder."

Let's bring in another aspect of President George Bush that few address.

His father, Bush-41, drank more than a little alcohol. Bush-43 consumed copious amounts of alcohol from his teens through age 40. He suffered two DUIs, one of which ended in a conviction. Countless times, he did not get caught! Additionally, he consumed various drugs during his years with alcohol. His wife finally gave notice that it was either stop alcohol or the children and she would leave.

His recovery process never ends. Alcoholics may stop consuming, but their behaviors continue unabated.

Dr. Janet Woititz, wrote in her book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, "Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences."

Bush coins new phrases like �The way forward with a new surge.� In fact, it means a fifteen percent increase in overall U.S. troop-strength in Iraq. Reality check for Bush-43: Lawrence O'Donnell, an analyst for NBC said, "With 22,000 troops, it means only 5,000 will be on the ground at any one time. There is no way that 5,000 troops will mean anything in changing this war's outcome. Not only that, they won�t all reach Iraq until May 2007."

The "Vietnam Conflict;" A Bitter Lesson-Learned

During the Vietnam Conflict, Westmoreland told Johnson � "All we need is 100,000 troops" -- then 200,000 and then, 300,000 more troops to stop the Vietcong. All told, we sent 550,000 kids into a jungle of death.

We killed 3,000,000 human beings called Vietnamese. More than 58,000 of our kids sacrificed their lives and 350,000 suffered horrible amputations and burns from napalm. A million veterans suffer mental problems to this day. President Kennedy got us into that mess, and President Johnson escalated the insanity, unabated with his version of �Weapons of Mass Destruction� given another name: �Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.� Both proved to be fraudulent! What do these men enjoy in common? Both are adult children of alcoholics!

President Nixon was also a lifetime member of the ACOA club. He stopped at nothing. He sent USAF-SAC B52s to bomb Cambodia, in secret.

For what? NOTHING!

Moving Forward Intelligently

In the end, we exited Vietnam. Our veterans still suffer lasting and destructive mental illnesses and cancers -- from Agent Orange, alcoholism, broken families, homelessness, drug addictions and various forms of emotional instability.

We cannot afford to repeatedly subject our na�ve youth to this form of mistreatment and cruelty. We cannot afford to diminish our national reputation in one �Charles Atlas� grandstand play after another. We must stop, look inside, and find out why our nation behaves in this manner � over and over again � obsessive repetition of war.

What will George W. Bush's war on terrorism in Iraq finally accomplish? First and foremost, no terrorists existed in Iraq. Therefore, he didn't do anything to stop terrorism. The act of 9/11 explains their responses to our behaviors more than we would like to consider. Insanity prevails on both sides.

However, Bush-43 sacrifices hundreds of thousands of lives and destroys hundreds of thousands of family units with pain and suffering � to kill one dictator out of dozens in the world. An assassin could have done that job.

Armed-Conflict Begets More Wars � Not Peace

President Bush has not stopped terror, but in fact, imbues more Islamic terrorists with greater resolve. He slices America's financial throat -- now $500 billion in debt for his Iraq-Afghanistan wars. He erases thousands of American lives and damages tens of thousands of American kids.

A kind of national anguish and spiritual pain blanket America�s citizens in a daily trauma of newly reported deaths.

Few of our disabled soldiers will ever regain a "normal" life. I saw that while serving at Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Riley, Kansas; and Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas--68-71. I sickened daily at the grisly, gruesome and unending horror of fellow soldiers mangled in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Iraq is not the only game in town. All the while, our misguided President has left our Mexican borders wide-open for any terrorists to waltz into America with weapons of mass destruction � and blow us up.

We Must Find Another Way

The American Empire stations 460,000 U.S. military troops in 144 countries around the world. By what right do we presume to police or modify the world into our image?

President Bush's loss of reason and his irrational actions � redefine insanity. His obsession-addiction problems become our national nightmare. He proves a national disgrace and a global embarrassment. The rest of the world pays a dear price along with us.

Fellow citizen-taxpayers, we might pity Bush, much like Lyndon Baines Johnson�s breakdown at the end of his life. However, Bush cannot redeem himself from the carnage and death he created�if allowed to continue on his aberrant path.

For our salvation, we who maintain rational minds and choose reasonable actions must redirect the United States and return to our original goals and objectives. Jefferson wrote, �We the people�.life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.�

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Jefferson never intended dominating the world as one of those goals.

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -� kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor �- with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." General Douglas MacArthur

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: ANTARCTIA.� His next book: �TILTING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY INTO A SWAMP.� He lives in Denver, Colorado.