Bush's choice: America or the empire

KUALA LUMPUR -- Deep down, U.S. President George W. Bush should grasp the seriousness of his debacle. If true, then he must also appreciate the time element in averting the worse-case scenario, which he, along with an increasingly alienated number of ideologues are imposing on their country.
Iraq is a multifaceted disaster, and its calamitous effects are hurting America on many levels. The number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is creeping up to the 2,000 mark. The figure of those wounded and maimed -- some permanently disabled -- is several folds higher.

This war is too costly. Hundreds of millions of dollars are diverted from the U.S. budget everyday to feed the war machine; good news for the Pentagon and the military establishment maybe, but not so good for the majority of Americans, especially the poorest among them.

The U.S. Army is stretched too thin, bogged down in a war gone awry. Many National Guard units, whose sole mission is to tend to the nation's needs in times of crisis, were deployed to Iraq. The consequences of such indiscretions were exhibited in the Katrina disaster to a humiliating degree.

Public opinion has been illustrative of Bush's heedless foreign-policy conduct. A recent CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll found that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq. The majority of Americans, according to the poll, want to see serious cuts in military spending and a diversion of resources to help in the post-Katrina rebuilding efforts