His record on war, military is lacking

It seems that President Bush’s aggressive military approach to the world is slowly starting to collapse. The war in Iraq continues unabated, with new killings of Americans and Iraqis occurring every day. The so-called “insurgents” won’t go away, and maybe we should all recognize that they’re just Iraqi citizens seething over a foreign occupation. Even the president is acknowledging the reality of continuing opposition for the first time.

Another test of an unworkable missile defense system has failed, once again highlighting the fact that the system cannot work, and its immense cost is a complete waste of resources. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been forced to say that “the best equipped army in the world” is not the army we want, but only the army we have. That’s a far cry from what we’ve been told for years. We need to know the truth about our military.

And on the home front, the president’s choice to keep the nation safe, Bernard Kerik, was involved in so many shady activities that it not only forced him to quit before starting, but raises serious questions about how Mr. Bush could be so incompetent as to nominate him for the post. It seems that the president was as clueless about Mr. Kerik as he was about Iraq prior to the war.

Bruce Barnbaum

Granite Falls

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