What are we - rather, they - doing in Iraq?

It's often hard to judge what's real, true or spin in the myriads of reports that comepounding in through every available information channel.

If just a little of this is well founded, however, it is about time that somebody - high up, very very high up - starts to think. And possible, under their breath quite likely, admits to themselves that another way forward is the only option:

What Are We Doing? - column by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that admitting being wrong is exactly the strongest point in the US administration that we - seen from this part of the world - alas has for another four years.

*sigh*

[Listening to: Steely Dan - Parker's Band (2:45)]

Just always

There is always something to do. Always - like in ... always.

Does it have to be like this?

Will it just continue?

Always?

I confess: I no longer understand Americans

I have to bow to the fact that America today reelected Bush as President.

But I don't understand it.

Seen from here, Bush is responsible for -

- Getting the US and the world into a war that proved not to be founded on any of the things it claimed to be founded on. It may have been a good enough cause to remove Saddam Hussein - but the execution has proved to be completely clueless as to how to establish a peace afterwards.

- Redirecting the wealth in the US to the rich - leaving a financial deficit of a size that is unheard of.

- Putting the environment - this world that we all, also Americans, live in - in a much worse state. Not only that, but actually going back on a treaty that had been signed on behalf of his country.

- Failing to make the world a safer place. On the contrary, hate towards the US - and with it, the rest of the Western world - and probably also recruiting for terrorists has been on the increase.

- Saying that he was going to unite America - but leaving it so deeply polarized that it is hard to see how it can be healed again anytime soon.

I am also worried that Bush is representing a right-wing religious attitude that may - if it is not kept curbed - at some point may make it relevant to ask whether the USA is becoming as fundamentalistically Christian as some countries has been accused of being fundamentalistic Muslim.

I know a good number of Americans, people that I like and happily call my friends. But overall, I cannot any longer say that I understand Americans.

For me, it is a sad day.

An overdue review

Should have posted this a while back. Did in fact - apart from the fact that my direct Blogger posting went ... wrong :(

Anyway: A good way to spend an evening in Milwaukee, WI is to go to the Milwaukee Ale House. Spent a good night there recently, enjoying only a little too much of the Honey Ale - and listened to Random Maxx. They rock!

[Listening to: Sheryl Crow - The First Cut is the Deepest (3:47)]