random thought

I think I've finally figured it out - Bush continues to call Iraq an attack on terrorism because he fears the history books.

That's right- those folks at Houghton Mifflin have him shaking in his Ostrich skin boots.

See, if Bush can convince the American people (and the historians writing the textbooks) that the reasoning behind invading Iraq was to combat terrorism, he won't look like the latter-day Johnson or Nixon he really is.

Not to say that Iraq is exactly like Vietnam... it most certainly isn't. But Bush continues to make many of the same mistakes that were made in Vietnam. And the comparison between how the U.S. handled Vietnam and how we are handling Iraq is much more valid than simply saying that Iraq is another Vietnam.

I for one am banking that the historians won't buy it. We're a long way from the insecure, prideful posturing it took us in the 1820's-1860's to declare such untruth's as "the pilgrims were really friends with the Indians", etc. Hopefully in 30 years, when all the documents the Bush administration hasn't destroyed or stolen come into the public domain, historians will mark down the Bush presidencies as they really were: an accident, and a misinformed bullet to the foot from an entirely too gullible electorate (it didn't help that he ran against worse than no-shows). And when it comes to describing Iraq, we'll have a whole new lesson on American arrogance and imperialism... that is, unless Bush can convince the country (as he never relents in trying to do) that this is a war on "t'ar" and that his preemptive invasion actually makes us safer while it infuriates the middle east and generates thousand of new terrorists to replace all those we killed in Afghanistan, where the real threat was and still is.