Gates reports to Bush

When I was a kid, we used to have to do book reports. You remember those? You'd read a book, and then you'd do this one-page paper in the prescribed form ...

• title
• author
• publisher
• date
• plot summary
• analysis

I think that's how it went. Anyway, Bob Gates got to give his report to his teacher boss today. Maybe it looked something like this:

Title:
War on Terror
Operation Enduring Freedom
civil war
War in Iraq

Author:
George W. Bush

Publisher:
Neo-Conservative Press

Date:
2003

Plot Summary:
The United States military gets involved in Iraq when its president wants to fulfill a personal vendetta against Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein. The American president promises a quick invasion and declares victory, but their soldiers keep dying and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis do, too, even though Iraq's leader gets captured. All the while, the real bad guys, who really attacked the U.S., are in another country, and the president seems to ignore them. Eventually, the U.S. ends up repeating history, and Iraq turns into Vietnam without the lush greenery.

Analysis:
I thought the American president was unstable and possibly insane. He acted like a boy with toy soldiers, sending them to die so he can impress his dad. That didn't make sense to me. And another thing. The president wasn't ever able to change his mind about anything. Even when all his friends told him the war was wrong and it wasn't working, he wouldn't listen. That looks to me like someone whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor, if you know what I mean. Mostly, I just think it would have been a better ending if when the U.S. got rid of the bad guy in Iraq, they just went after the people who really did them harm rather than messing up a whole other country just so the president could play with his toys.

(I'm new to this school, so I hope I did this right. Thanks and happy holidays.)

Nah, I guess it wouldn't look like that at all. Especially the part about changing the ending ... that's clearly not going to happen.

C-
your summary and analysis are unrealistic
welcome to your new school!