Winning Hearts And Minds Or Just Pocket Books?

Exporting democracy to the Middle East is hard work, as George Bush knows so well. It is important to win the hearts and minds of the locals so that they embrace our western way of life. In turn, they'll happily sell their oil and other natural resources at ridiculously low prices while throwing flowers at the feet of the oil executives at Shell, BP, Exxon-Mobil, etc.

Ok, now it is time to wake up from this delusion.

President Bush went to Anbar last week because he was in a safe remote location, far from the hellish streets of Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, Mosul....I could go on and on. The reality of the situation with the Sunnis and Al-Qaeda is that for now, the U.S. is paying the former to fight the latter. The insurgents need money to finance their operations and if the United States is willing to bankroll them, then they are more than happy to go along.

Both sides win in the short term. The United States (i.e. George Bush's Administration) gets to look good for the commoners back home with reduced casualties in the region and the Sunnis aren't attacked from the skies and by U.S. backed operations. Meanwhile they get additional funding to fight the Shias (and the U.S.?) at a later date.

Sheer fucking brilliance.