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Oddly enough, I thought it was *me* who was the one who was holding to a certain set of beliefs that went against the popularly held ones...!!
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Nah. Remember the political compass thread where most people ended up left-of-centre and anti-authoritarian.
George Bush has been so successful in his cunning War on Terror strategy that his forces are bogged down in Iraq looking for non-existent weapons and dealing with an Islamic fundamentalist insurgency that didn't exist there a year ago. Al-Qaeda (well, its associated groups, which is essentially what al-Qaeda is) has had lots of excellent publicity and images of the US invading Muslim countries to help recruitment and is free to attack worldwide when it feels like it, now the US is looking elsewhere. Israel is still suffering suicide bombings, the Palestinians are suffering reprisal attacks and are having a wall built through their land, perpetuating the cycle of hate and mistrust that is one of the key drivers of terrorism. I remember a 'Roadmap for Peace' a while back, but there appears to have been a wrong turn.
Russia has 're-elected' what looks suspiciously like a one-party state, and is still engaged with the bothersome Chechens, who've been blowing up commuter trains for a good while now, as well as providing a source of well-motivated hairy b*stards to the grateful Bin Laden and co. Get Really Tough On Terrorists not working there, I feel.
The Libyans have decided to admit everything the US wants them to admit in return for money, except for their Prime Minister who let slip that they had nothing to do with Lockerbie, but was quickly sat upon now Muammar is George'n'Tony's new best mate. Yvonne Who? Talk to terrorists, us? Funny, I remember in the 70s if an Irishman pretended he'd murdered 20 people he was beaten up and given life imprisonment - Gaddafi pretends he murdered 270 and gets to meet the Prime Minister to discuss oil contracts.
Although you can lay a number of charges at Bush's door, short-termism, ignorance, arrogance, paranoia, stupidity, nepotism, religious fundamentalism, the one that really sticks for me is incompetence. And that is deeply worrying in the supposed leader of the free world. Based on the last year, his school report would have the b*gger in detention for the next year writing out 'I must try to concentrate' 5000 times.