Nobody's Poodle

Submitted by Nicole Chaplain-Pearman (Canada), Jul 29, 2005 at 11:27

I have no time for Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban or Al Qaeda and I believe that militant Islam is one of the biggest threats to the world today.
I also am a strong supporter of Israel.
None of this however, should be interpreted to mean that I'm on the George Bush cheering team. If the "Left" does something wrong I'll say it's wrong and if the "Right" does something wrong I'll say it's wrong. I refuse to be anyone's political poodle.
George W. Bush funded the Taliban when it suited his interests. Relations between bin Laden and the Bush family were quite amicable when it was expedient, and there wasn't much of a problem with Saddam Hussein before he set his sights on the Kuwaiti oilfields.
Though the ousting of Saddam Hussein was a welcome side effect of the war on Iraq, the war itself is a fool's errand and I find George Bush's willingness to bankrupt his country to the point of having to compromise Social Security thoroughly reprehensible. This war is nothing more than a PR exercise to make it look as though Bush and other western leaders are actually doing something effective when they're not.
If Bush and other "leaders" were really serious about persuing the people who bankroll Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, they'd put pressure on Saudi Arabia as that's where most of their money comes from. That won't happen though because of the west's, and especially North America's almost total dependence on Saudi oil.
We could reduce that dependency on oil by buying more fuel efficient cars and pressuring governments to raise fuel efficiency standards for automakers but this would mean slaying many sacred cows. Could we sacrifice a bit of luxury to walk the talk on terrorism? I doubt it.

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