As a matter of fact, President Bush The Younger really, really likes that puppet state idea. So much so that he has decided to make it a cornerstone of his foreign policy concerning the war. He seems to feel that puppet American states are the answer to the problems that America and the rest of the world face today. As such, he has gone to that answer twice now. He went to it first in Afghanistan where he felt that the Taliban had to go since they had harbored those that had perpetrated the attacks upon America. Her sent the american military in there to wipe the Taliban out, and they did just that. They ended up driving them into some remote part of Afghanistan where they are rather isolated and unable to do anything meaningful anymore. Since they were no longer able to govern Afghanistan, Bush decided to put an American puppet government in their place. He ended up finding some of the biggest drug dealers on Earth and installing them. He felt that this was a perfect puppet government for Afghanistan. Thing is, he was not installing any sort of politicians, he was installing big time heroin dealers instead, so his puppet government is not quite the submissive kind that Panama has. This new government of Afghanistan is not doing what america says, they are instead letting America do as it pleases, just as long as America leaves their business interests ( read heroin) alone. America is keeping their part of the bargain. They have done very little to stop the re planting of massive amounts of opium poppies and the resulting heroin that is refined from them. Never mind the fact that this puppet government of Bush's intends to sell a lot of that heroin in America. Never mind the fact that this will enrich these dealers ever more. These dudes are no puppet government. They are about nothing more than making money for themselves off of the sale of heroin. But they act like they are an american puppet state so that Bush will leave them alone, and then wonder why so many Americans will be dying of heroin overdoses. Bush will not go after these cats like his dad did Noriega, even though these dudes are exactly what his old man said that Noriega was, even more so. He has uses for them as a puppet state. As long as they give the appearance of being that, then America will look the other way. Bush surely knows that these guys are no government of any kind, puppet or not, but he does not care, since heroin dealers would not ever fly planes into skyscrapers and start a war with America because it would be bad for their business. So Bush thinks that he has done a good thing by installing what he perceives as a puppet state in Afghanistan. So now he has that idea on his mind again. As We all know, Bush is about as hard up as you can get to go to war against Iraq. He wants Saddam Hussein deposed in the worst way. There is growing opposition to this both in America and abroad. Bush is gettign increasingly desperate for a way to start this war. One of the things that the war opponents are saying is that if Saddam is indeed deposed, then who goes into his spot? Who runs Iraq? For a long time, Bush said that he wanted to cultivate opposition from within Iraq and install them. But as it became increasingly clear that there was no real opposition in Iraq that you could use, Bush and the Pentagon needed to come up with something else. So they went back to a tried and true method and decided to install an American puppet government. But this was not going to be as easy of a task as it had been in the past. In the past, America had been installing puppet states in the New World, in places like Central and South America, places that were sort of home turf for America. It was easier because many of these lands had been built by America and the same types that built America. America understood the culture better, as it was a culture that they as the West had imposed on the Indians that had previously inhabited these lands. However, in a place like Iraq, you are talking about an ancient land, a land that claims itself as the cradle of civilization itself. The people there come from a culture not of the West, one that the West could not exterminate like they did the Indian culture, only modify a bit for Mr. Businessman's uses. It would not be so easy to handpick people from within Iraq to run things, for America would have little ideas of who they really were. Bush knows that he already made heroin dealers into world leaders in Afghanistan, and he would pretty much have to do the same in Iraq, which he would, but he does not know the heroin dealers of Iraq like he knows the heroin dealers of Afghanistan. So he has come up with another plan. Instead of putting locals that masquerade as leaders into power, he has decided to use some of his own people as a puppet government. Apparently, there are plans afoot to install a puppet government in Iraq that would be run by Major General Tommy Franks, one of the highest ranking Warmongers at the Pentagon. He would act as de facto leader for a government that would basically be run by the Pentagon and the CIA. Then there'd be no further embarrassment of a government exporting a product that is killing untold numbers of Americans. Instead, you would have a military state that was controlled by America. There would be no destruction of any stocks of chemical weaponry or biological shit, only the keeping of that shit by the American military for itself. This American puppet state would be a military one. Why? Because of Iraq's strategic location. To take over Iraq and make it a virtual american military base would give America a military presence in the Middle East like they have never had before. This would allow America to keep a close eye on the neighboring Islamic states and make sure that they knew what these states were up to at all times. This would allow America to de stabilize governments that they did not approve of and generally run things in the Middle East to America's satisfaction. Given the recklessness of american foreign policies in the past, this might not be a better solution for the Iraqi people than Saddam's government. Shit like this is why puppet governments are bad things. The more that America creates them and relies on them, the worse things shall get, for the more of these that are created, the more inept ones will be created, ones that will do far more harm for America and the world than good. Iraq could quite possibly be the second one of those, as Afghanistan was the first. Puppets are for kid shows, not for world governments, and America needs to realize this and stop creating them as their own whims like they have for far too many years now before they create the one that will destroy all.