F.A.Gs (Fuckin’ Armchair Generals) in the Whitehouse and Malacanang

Left: Favorite Photo of F.A.Gs

I have been wondering why the likes of George Bush Jr., Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were too eager to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aside from being prominent Hawks, Bush and Cheney also share one thing one common: both dodged the draft when the US called up reserves when the Vietnam War escalated. Opposing them were Colin Powell and Anthony Zini who both served in Vietnam. While the triumvirate of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are swaggering like trigger-happy cowboys, battle-scarred men are standing in their way to keep them from stirring the neighborhood. It is ironic that it takes men who have seen the horrors of war up close to challenge madmen on a warpath. It must be the nightmares that trouble their sleep. For the Washington D.C. Cowboys, it must be lovely dreams of tankers brimful with oil that inspired them. Fast forward to the present. Sure, Saddam might have a future date with the hangman, but civil war is threatening to tear Iraq apart because Rumsfeld vetoed Zini’s plan to place more troops on the ground to cover more area and the Defense Secretary also cut down the invasion force when a larger army could have hastened Iraq’s fall. Iraq has also turned from a backwater of terrorism (alright, Saddam possesses Hitler’s bloodlust) into a festering hotbed where terrorists, Coalition forces and nationalist Iraqis (I believe the Time magazine article about Iraqis battling both Americans and terrorists and I doff my hat off to them) are locked in mortal combat. Trapped in the center, of course, are the hapless civilians.
On the local front, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should have sent her two-bit action star son to Iraq instead of sending Filipino troops on a mission that had no mandate from the United Nations. And when an Overseas Filipino Worker was abducted (Angelo de la Cruz), the Philippines suffered an international blackeye for hastily pulling out its contingent to appease his abductors.
Can you imagine the mess that warmongering politicians make?