American Impotence?

North Korea today fired several- at least 6- missiles into the Sea of Japan. Apparently their effort to fire a long range missile, capable of reaching the US, failed. For now.

Do you think it was a coincidence that these missiles were fired on the 4th of July?

Eventually the North Koreans will successfully test their long range missile. And then?

Now the disaster of Iraq will start to cost the United States even more that the lives and money we have already lost. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld wanted to show that the US could take the "war on terror" to the world. They've demonstrated the opposite.

We have not been able to get the job done in Iraq- not in terms of reducing the terrorist threat from Iraq, not in terms of establishing security and safety for its people, and not in terms of making the US safer from WMD.

We've alienated nations that were our friends.

Our military is stretched too thin.

The war in Iraq has become increasingly unpopular, as has the President responsible for it.

And, adopting a 4th of July appropriate language, these truths are self-evident, and all in the candid world (including those who would harm us) know it.

Now a more real threat exists, and we are impotent. Worse than that- our failure in every way in Iraq has given "aid and comfort" to the enemy (far more than the NY Times has done- see here and here) because rogue nations like Iran and North Korea feel emboldened to develop- and publicize- their real WMD programs.

The law of unintended consequences comes home to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. Unintended, but not necessarily unexpected. Certainly not from the team that promised us greater "competence" in the '02 election. While we have chased a fiction in Iraq, real dangers have grown, and our ability to deal with those real dangers has diminished.

This means that, in fact, our independence is diminished because our hands are tied as we face serious challenges in the years ahead. This is the sobering reality of July 4th, 2006.

GP