What? A disastrous war in Iraq isn’t enough? Now he’s rekindling the cold war with Russia!

The casualty figures from Iraq are getting so bad it's easy to get a deep-down, bottom-of-the-gut sick feeling every time you look at them. Each day, more American kids are dead. For what? (More Iraqis are dying every day, too.)

The Iraqi civil war, whose existence once was denied by the administration, is now so bad that the locals are busy blowing up one another’s mosques. As one acquaintance of mine remarked, out of the side of his mouth, “Good thing they have us to persecute them, otherwise they’d spend all their time persecuting each other.”

So in the midst of this what do we need more than anything else? Right – renewal of the nearly forgotten cold war with Russia.

This new ham-handed tactic of ours springs from Boy George’s brilliant idea to place anti-missile missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, former Iron Curtain satellite countries. The administration purports that the sole purpose of these missiles would be to shoot down Iranian nukes aimed at the United States. Only a few small problems with that one, starting with the fact that Iran doesn’t have ICBM capabilities.

Second small problem, even if Iran ever figures out how to make a nuclear ICBM: if a missile from Poland hits a nuke from Iran while it’s sailing over Russia, who gets nuked? Can you blame the Russians for feeling antsy? Shoot those missiles down over the ocean instead? Nah!

Third small problem: Imagine if Russia set up a weapons system only miles from our border in Mexico, claiming the anti-nukes were only there to shoot down Chinese missiles. Would we believe it? Would we allow it even if we believed it?

Vladimir Putin attempted to defuse the issue in a meeting with Boy George. Condoleeza Rice responded essentially by poking Putin in the eye. She changed the subject to Russia’s execrable human rights record. Two problems with that.

First, it’s a non-sequitur. Second, given our recent record for secret prisons, water torture and other human rights abuses, we seem to have the equivalent of a dungeon calling a Siberian salt mine black. (You’ll find URLS you can cut-and-paste to read more about Condi, Boy George and Putin below.)

Somehow, the Bush administration’s clever propensity for turning everything – absolutely every last damn thing there is – into a life-threatening disaster brings to mind an old song that once ridiculed a Democrat. Fortunately, it can be easily updated to describe the disaster that is George W. Bush and Friends.

President George Bush
Had brains made out of mush
He started fights with everyone
(“Just bring ‘em on,” he said)
And he said,
“You know I’m pro-life
“And so’s my lovely wife
“But we won’t be safe
‘Till everybody’s dead.”

P.S. Look, I know this is pathetic, but I still – after a year of blogging – haven’t figured out how to imbed links into text on my Mac. Sorry sorry sorry. So if you want to refer to the URLs below, just copy and paste them into your browser.

There’s plenty more where these come from, but you’re a big kid. I figure, if you’re still hungry for more after reading these, you’ll find ‘em on your own.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/05/31/russia.tensions/index.html


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053102391.html