Bush Administration Dead In The Water On Both The War and Gas Prices

Written from Yellowknife, Canadian Northwest Territories--

The Bush Administration seems fresh out of ideas on what to do about the war in Iraq and escalating gasoline prices, and the whole world is suffering from it.

It was time after the election to revamp these policies, getting rid of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and bringing in someone, like Sen. John McCain, who would fight the war more vigorously.

Similarly, Norman Maneda, the transportation secretary, was pathetic yesterday as he announced a new policy on gas mileage for SUVs that would not do anything for six years, and then make only a two-mile-per gallon change. He needs to be replaced and new energy policies adopted immediately. General Motors and the other dopes who run the American automobile industry, need to be taken in hand and directed to stop producing any automobiles, as distinct from heavyduty trucks, that do not get 40 mpg or better. Much more use of alternative fuels needs also to commence as soon as possible.

The whole world, every country except those few with huge oil surpluses, is suffering from the failure of the United States to wind up the war as brutally as necessary, and to take action to stem the bandits in the Arab world and others who are charging more and more for oil.

Meanwhile, the government must take the oil companies in hand, with an excess profits tax and use its oil reserve to jockey down prices in the short term.

As for the war, the Canadians I spoke with a few days ago in Telegraph Creek, B.C., were right who suggested that the U.S. is following a wimpish, no-win war policy in complete contrast with its original assurances that it would over-awe the Iraqis with lightning speed.

B-52s should be used to plaster the Sunni heartland until the insurgents beg for mercy. And the Shiites should be told with no lack of timidity that, no, they cannot have a constitution that barbaricly discriminates against women and gives primacy to a religion that was out of date a thousand years ago.

The U.S. must clearly side with the Kurds in Iraq. Unless the Shiites and Sunnis do our biding, they should be punished and severely until they give in. We need not worry about making Iraqi civilians feel the brunt of our campaign, no more than Sherman did the Southern white civilians when he marched through Georgia.

This policy should be announced to the whole world and pursued actively until it succeeds.

Words of defending a policy that clearly hasn't worked are coming every day from President Bush. He needs to gird up his loins and change that policy. We are on top in benighted Iraq, and the Iraqis, except for the Kurds, need to feel it.