Bush belatedly seeing the light

US President George W. Bush has finally admitted that America was not winning the war in Iraq. But of course. There is no way America can win the war in Iraq because in the first place it is not its war.

Mr. Bush appears to have forgotten that the war in Iraq was just his way of letting off steam. So incensed was he over the terrorist attacks on September 11 yet so elusive had been the culprits that he needed to kick ass no matter to whom it belongs.

Well, in Iraq at the time had been one big fat ass that America had long wanted to kick, September 11 or no September 11. Saddam Hussein had been thumbing his nose at America ever since he duped it into supporting him in his earlier war against Iran.

History is replete with instances wherein America gets a dose of its own medicine because of its propensity to meddle in the business of other people. Its principle of defending itself by waiting for the enemy outside his front door has a tendency to backfire frequently.

America had no business in Iraq. All the indications pointed to it being a big mistake to go in just because Bush had no other ass to kick. World opinion was against it. The United Nations was against it.

Eventually, Bush managed to muster a coterie of similarly-threatened nations to join him, plus of course countries like the Philippines whose president badly needs American friendship to generate the illusion Uncle Sam would step in, in case her presidency is in danger of falling.

The real enemy was in Afghanistan. But wars in that country have always proven to be very difficult to fight. Maybe it is because of the terrain. Maybe it is the resiliency of the enemy. Maybe it is in not knowing who the real enemy is.

But whatever the case, Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. So were his supporters, the Taliban. Bush should have gone there if war was what he wanted as the final resolution to the humiliation of September 11.

But Bush is not known to be a fighter. In fact, one of the biggest issues raised against him was in dodging military service, with the help of daddy of course. If he went to Afghanistan, it would mean a real fight.

Of course he later went to Afghanistan. But that was already more of like to save face after it became immediately apparent that going into Iraq was wrong. Saddam may have been an enemy. But he was not the enemy. And that is why America is now mired in a war that it has absolutely no business in. The hundreds of lives of young American boys lost since Bush made that fatal mistake will someday come to haunt him personally and historically.

Lives will always be lost in war. But it does not necessarily follow they have to be sacrificed needlessly. And the American lives lost in Iraq have been lost needlessly despite what the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld triumvirate had been saying to rationalize US involvement there.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld all used the terrorism bogey to go after Saddam who, while certainly no angel, not only had nothing to do with September 11 but had nothing of the weapons of terrorism that the triumvirate was harping about.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As things turned out, Cheney was more dangerous with a shotgun than Saddam was with non-existent WMDs. What a costly hullabaloo the war in Iraq turned out to be for America. And now Bush is saying the US is not winning the war? Ha!