Don’t read the newspaper much, eh? Becaue if you did, you would know that Iraq is in worse shape than it ever has been. That’s right, Iraq is now more dangerous that it ever was under that brutal dictator and slimeball. More murders, more kidknappings, more torture, more bombs, more violence - pure and simple.

Kind of like Dirty Harry’s Iraq.

Or Dirty Harry’s America, “Being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and could blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya–punk?”

It would behoove this country’s critics to try harder to understand both impulses. What we know is the left wing extremists side only has 20 percent support this group believe’s the Bush administration knew/participated in 911!

It’s funny how all the world hates George Bush, but nobody has really done anything of any substance to stop him or even slow him down. Europe hates the Bush Administration’s stand on interrogation, but are we even sure how many of Bush’s secret prisons for terror suspects now exist in Europe, established and maintained with the cooperation of various European governments?

Germany was one of the most vocal critics of the Iraq War, but still the German government permitted the US to use German territory in order to prepare and wage the war and provided 3.000 German Soldiers to guard the US-Bases in Germany in place of the GI’s who had gone to war in Iraq. The military bases in Germany have always been of central meaning for the wars of the US in Africa, Asia and the Balkans. Had the German government denied the US the use of these bases, as well as the overflight rights over German territory, as it was obliged to do by national and international law, it would have created enormous problems for the US troops and would have delayed the beginning of the war for many months. About 70.000 US troops are stationed in Germany and there are large air bases see and inland ports over which the US do a major part of their troop transportation and support. The German Bundeswehr also supported the US troops directly in the warfare with German officers doing duty on the AWACS planes near Iraq, with ABC units in Kuwait, and with escorts for US warships at Cape Horn in Africa. Right now the Bundeswehr is helping out by training Iraqi auxiliary troops. Guess THEY showed W, huh?

Then there’s the UN, which did nothing to even slow the Bush war effort outside of flaccid rhetoric. Resolution 1441 was not the explicit support of war that Bush wanted, but it was vague enough (”serious consequences”) to give Bush the wiggle room he needed to justify his invasion to his allies, while simultaneously allowing the UN to slip out from under actually endorsing the war without being so harsh on the Bush Administration as to preclude future ass kissing when the need should arise. Now that the invasion is complete, the war has become a mess and no WMD’s have materialized, where are the stern condemnations from the UN a lot of us were justified in expecting? Why is the UN not giving a unified voice to the anti-US / anti-Bush sentiment that runs so high in so much of the world? Where is the backlash - the substantial, organized, multinational backlash against what the Bush administration has done in Iraq? France, for instance, made a reputation as the great thorn in Bush’s side during the lead up to the invasion but, seriously, what did they really do to stop that invasion? What are they doing now to constructively utilize the moral highground which is rightfully theirs?

I’m sure the Chavez speech was a real knee-slapper in Paris, and wherever fine anti-Bush rhetoric is sold, but sissies everywhere only yuck it up until the bully steps back on the street and they have to get back with the program.

Chavez is a joke, but that was still probably the best thing I’ve seen on television in years. I wonder what Bush thinks when comments are made like that, in a venue such as that, and half of the world’s leaders either applaud or chuckle. Do you think he is starting to realize what he has done? What his legacy will be?

I think so, his arrogance seems to be diminishing everyday.