Is America's War on Terror Worth the Cost?

[Art]

Seems Operation Iraqi Freedom is being scaled back to Operation a little bit of freedom.

U.S. scales down goals in Iraq

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of President George W. Bush is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Citing unnamed officials in Washington and Baghdad, the newspaper said Washington no longer expected to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society, in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=8/15/2005&Cat=4&Num=006 It appears the main concern of Bush and co. these days is no longer bringing democracy and the American dream to the middle east but how to get out of the nightmare mess they've created without losing too much face.

 

[Art]

It appears even Fox News is losing faith;

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

By FRANK RICH
Published: August 14, 2005
LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/opinion/14rich.html

 

[Art]

Change might not be good for Iraqi women
By Marie Szaniszlo
Sunday, August 14, 2005 - Updated: 10:14 AM EST

In a chilling irony, women may actually have fewer rights under Iraq's new, ``democratic'' constitution than they did under Saddam Hussein.

``The United States government has poured millions of dollars into democracy training for Iraqi women, and more than 1,800 Americans have died for Iraqi freedom. But it may turn out to be for Iraqi male freedom,'' said Katheryn Coughlin, program administrator for the American Islamic Congress, a nonprofit doing democracy training in Iraq.

Things just keep getting better. http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=97940