Bush's War

"President Bush said Saturday he is open to the possibility of slowing or stopping plans to bring home more U.S. troops from Iraq, defying domestic demands to speed the withdrawals. Updated on war developments, Bush said the U.S. presence in Iraq will outlast his presidency."
(note the date on the cartoon - March 29, 2003)

Those words cut me like a knife today! I'm not really surprised I guess, but somehow I still had the unrealistic hope that public opinion in America would somehow influence our elected leader. Maybe that's the problem - he wasn't really elected. As a co-blogger so aptly pointed out recently, "In 2000 the President of the United States was "elected" in a cloistered room by nine people in black robes." We have paid a terrible price during the last 7 years for their decision.

I ran across a quote from Arundhati Roy recently that speaks to the current "Bush War".

"It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't
hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war:
to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most
entertainingly, to "rid the world of evil-doers."
--Arundhati Roy

Do I dare hope that things will really change after the 2008 election? All the candidates seem to be promising "change" if elected, but most campaign promises are broken soon after the ballots are counted. I'm old enough that I probably won't see the "fall" of the American Empire but I worry that my children and grandchildren will. Sorry for the pessimistic mood but that's how I feel today. I hope and pray that I am wrong.