In today's
Los Angeles Times:
... snip ...
American soldiers standing guard over the White House's imperial ambitions — a new Middle East as linchpin to a new world order — are now being shot like fish in a barrel.
Had Congress dared question Bush's claim of an immediate Iraqi military threat, there would have been no excuse for invasion. But Congress is kept on a tight leash by Republican leaders, subverting its basic role as a check and balance on executive power. Shame on congressional Democrats, especially those running for president, who went along with this disgusting charade.
In the disarray and dissolution of the U.S. role as leader of the free world, we sadly witness America's pathetic and isolated effort to rule Iraq with some of the same émigrés who deceived us with the false information that led us into a war that suited their ambitions.
One of those Iraqi exile leaders who clearly misled the U.S., Ahmad Chalabi, is now a senior figure in the fig-leaf Iraqi shadow government in U.S.-colonized Baghdad. Chalabi is a fugitive from Jordan, where he was convicted of major financial fraud, and he has no real base of support in Iraq. But Bush still backs him, trafficking all too easily with a liar who tells him what he wants to hear.
MORE