In my less than naive past, I remember smelling a plot in the relentless news coverage of Watergate.  I kept looking at the second and third pages of newspapers trying to discover what it was "they" wanted to avert my attention from.  And it's only this year that I finally found an answer in a book by a guy names Susbielle called Les Royaumes Combattants which can be loosely translated "the warring kingdoms".

Susbielle claims that Watergate enabled the NeoConservatives to get their hands on the controls.  They got rid of Nixon who had pulled us out of Vietnam, established diplomatic relations with China and signed arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union.  Behind the placid figure of Gerald Ford they began ramping things back up toward conflict.  They continued with Bush senior and George W. Bush.

Obama has already stated in campaign speeches that he will not respect borders if he esteems that a sovereign country such as Pakistan does not do what he considers an adequate job of fighting terrorism.  He has obviously foregone any tenable moral stance the international arena might have expected him to take on Gaza which exemplifies another breach in the respect of borders.  For someone like Susbielle, this bodes ill for the world. 

What is clear is that American democracy has spoken.  We can no longer use Bush as a scapegoat, a president that Americans elected and re-elected.  The future conflicts and deaths of American soldiers will be the responsibility of Obama and those who voted for him, many and probably most of whom didn't vote for Bush.  It remains to be seen if these voters will "own up" when the time comes, if they will be able to admit their errors or simply rationalize the performance of their president as so many supporters of George W Bush are doing now .