“God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son.”
Abraham said, “Man, you must be putting me on.”
God said, “No.” Abe said, “What?”
God said, “You can do what you want, Abe, but
The next time you see me, you better run.”
Abe said, “Where do you want this killing done?

—B. Dylan, “Highway 61”

“The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve.”

—George W. Bush, on his plan for
the Iraq War, Jan. 10, 2007

This is not a test. This is not a test of faith or patriotism, but one of intelligence and integrity. And just because Bush has failed it, doesn’t mean the rest of the country and Congress must flunk.

In his pathetic plea for support for his new and improved plan to win in Iraq, Bush again asked the American people for patience and more sacrifice. As if the sacrifice at the altar of Halliburton and Exxon of more than 3,000 sons and daughters weren’t enough, he wants more offered up to honor those already slaughtered.

Never mind that the November mid-term elections are widely viewed as a repudiation of his Iraq policy, never mind that polls show 70 percent of Americans oppose his Iraq policy and that even the timid Democrats in Congress are now railing against it. Bush’s “new course” strategy is to send in more troops and escalate. And will this plan, unlike all his previous ones, “bring us closer to success?” he himself asks. “I believe it will,” he answers himself.

That may be good enough for him, but we all believe a lot of things we aren’t going to risk lives, economies and history for. And Bush’s record on these things is not reassuring.
As Bush acknowledged in the televised speech, “We thought the election [in Iraq in 2005] would bring Iraqis together…but the opposite happened.” Violence and death increased as civil war broke out. Didn’t see that coming.

The only mistake Bush really admitted making was that he didn’t wage war hard enough to begin with, he didn’t have enough troops and the ones there were under too many restrictions. That’s the problem his new course plans to remedy.

And to no one’s surprise, in classic Orwellian fashion he declared that war is peace. “If we increase the troops now, it will hasten the day they can come home,” he said. Take that, peaceniks.

There are times to give up much and/or risk everything for a just cause—it’s just that this isn’t one. And that’s what seemingly is missing in all this talk of mistakes, tactics and finding a way out of this mess—how the hell we got here. Remember the weapons of mass destruction that threatened the imminent demise of civilization as we know it? The WMDs no one, not even the delusional Pat Robertson, argues any more were ever there?

Perhaps what is called for here is not so much sacrifice as atonement, atonement for the lies, the deaths and the misery Bush consciously caused. Or maybe not so much atonement as revenge.

—Steve Stallone
   Editor