George Bush Learns the Lessons of History

George W. Bush is managing his war on Iraq to have minimum impact on everyday Americans. In fact, he's succeeded in making this war nearly invisible to most of us.



As U.S. troops face the relentless violence in Iraq, each death and injury tears a hole in a small circle of family and friends. Meanwhile, for everyone else in America, the war is proceeding without a cost greater than a little unease and sorrow when watching the evening news.



Since the Civil War, Americans have raised taxes to fund all of the nation's wars, but when Congress returns next month, Bush's first priority will be making permanent the huge tax cuts he won during his first term.



And so we all proceed with our lives, perhaps pausing long enough to slap a "support the troops" magnet on the car, as though nothing is out of the ordinary ... as though we're not at war at all.



Apparently recognizing that the war on Vietnam was "lost on the homefront, not on the battlefield," Bush has devised an elegant strategy: keeping the war as far as possible from the citizens keeps them content and happy, generally oblivious to the carnage being carried out in their name, and effectively blunts serious internal opposition.



Who would have guessed that Bush is such a student of history. Seventy years before, recognizing that his country had lost World War I "on the homefront, not on the battlefield," the Chancellor of Germany used the same strategy to lead his people down the path toward World War II.



Los Angeles Times - Bush Sending the Wrong Message as Chaos Smolders in Iraq