by James Glaser
Februray 15, 2005

If it sounds to us like George Bush wants to now take on Iran or maybe Syria, imagine how it sounds to those people. They know that America can kill tens of thousands of their innocent civilians in a matter of weeks, even in a couple of days.

Both of those nations have been watching how a small band of Iraqi nationals have been able to take out thousands and thousands of American troops, killing almost 1,500 of them and wounding over 11,000.

Paul Craig Roberts writes for Antiwar.com about what we have done to the Iraqi people and his words tell us why both Iran and Syria now live in fear of America. Roberts writes, "You see, the facts that the US invaded Iraq on false pretenses, killed and maimed tens of thousands of Iraqis, shot down women and children in the streets, blew up Iraqi homes, hospitals, and mosques, cut Iraqis off from vital services such as water and electricity, destroyed the institutions of civil society, left half of the population without means of livelihood, filled up prisons with people picked up off the streets and then tortured and humiliated them for fun and games are not facts that explain why there is an insurgency. These facts are just descriptions of collateral damage associated with America "bringing democracy to Iraq."

Right now both Iran and Syria are living in fear that the United States might want to bring "democracy" to there countries too. Iraq is right next door to them and there television coverage is not controlled like ours. They see the dead and maimed Iraqi infants and children every night. They see the dead Iraqi mother lying in the dried pool of her own blood.

Another reason that people in these two countries are frightened is that they have seen war, they know what it is. Here is America war is something honorable, where brave young men and women give their all for shiny medals and perceived glory in some foreign land. Americans can look at war like that because they have no understanding of the real horror of war.

Our country was shocked and devastated by the September 11th terrorist attacks on our country. Iraq has been having multiple terrorist attacks for almost 700 days in a row. Some of those attacks have come from a home grown insurgency, but most come from American forces. American forces who claim that their guns, tanks and bombs are there to bring the Iraqi people freedom and democracy.

The people in Iran and Syria know, no matter what they say or how many inspectors they allow, America can still attack them at any time. Iraq told the world they had no weapons of Mass Destruction, they wanted us to inspect their country. Now we know they were telling the truth, but we have killed tens of thousands of their people anyways.

Before we attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan we told the world we were going to for weeks. That gave Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar the time they needed to plan an insurgency that is still killing American troops there to this day.

Before we attacked Iraq we told the world we were going to for months and that gave the Iraqis that wanted to, time to plan and implement an insurgency which is growing stronger every day.

Now we are telling the world that we are looking hard at both Syria and Iran. We make threats and demands. Right now both of these countries are studying what the Afghans and Iraqis did right and what they did wrong. These nations know that the United States can destroy their military in a matter of days or weeks, but they will make us pay in blood to take their countries.

If after almost two years we still haven't been able to take Baghdad and could only have an election by putting 300, 000 American, Coalition, and Iraqi troops on the streets, they know we are vulnerable.

Like most bullies, George Bush wants to taunt these two third rate powers. Once again he wants to take on a pitiful Muslim military, because he has nothing else going for himself. George thinks there is glory in his wars and he will go down in history as some sort of great leader, but the world knows that they have a bully that they will have to suffer for another four years.

George Bush is our bully. He takes on the poor and the pitiful like all school yard bullies do. George gains us no respect. Sometimes a bully pushes the wrong opponent and gets his clock cleaned. That won't happen to George, because he has our fine young troops out in front of him... way out in front. They are the ones who will suffer and die for George and that is a crime.