Am quite surprised this appeared in my local fishwrap:
War is the ultimate human failure.
President George W. Bush has failed as a leader because he did not keep talking until his administration found a peaceful way to solve the Iraqi crisis.
*****
Acting in my name -- and yours -- on orders from our president, our troops will win the battle for Baghdad but lose the hearts and minds of 1 billion Muslims, who see our attack on an independent Arab state as an assault on Islam. As a jihad escalates against us abroad and at home in years to come, we will look back on this time and wonder: How did it happen?
One answer is that
the man giving the order for war was a C student who didn't like history, never served in combat and, until he became president, had never traveled outside his own country. He was raised in privilege, elected in controversy, surrounded by his father's advisers and spun by experts. He ignored the protests of millions of his own citizens and alienated allies who dated back to the American Revolution. He brushed aside the United Nations because it would not do his bidding and arbitrarily declared, on March 17, 2003, that:
"The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now."
Houston Chronicle
