Is The White House Taking The Dope?
President Bush addressed the nation last night and is apparently still taking the entirety of the American populace for chumps. Now, I’m not going to argue that there aren’t a lot of chumps out there, but not everyone is going to buy his latest rhetoric.
I’m going to take a brief moment to try and clarify some of my admittedly murky political views. Let me make it perfectly clear: I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I don’t like Bush as President, but I wasn’t a fan of Kerry either. I believe that the political system in this country is sick at its core and the rot of corruption has spread to every facet of the process. I’d say that we could always rely on our ability to “vote the bastards out”, except that the only people who have a chance of successfully running a campaign these days are simply other bastards with deep pockets (because you can’t campaign without an assload of capital: this is our own fault for allowing ourselves to be snookered by faces in TV ads as opposed to actual positions). While the leeches who latch onto this failing system and suck it dry disgust me, the fact that we, the people, have allowed our government to degenerate so far from what the founding fathers intended is what really disturbs me. This is a pit of our own digging, and it’s going to take a lot of work to climb out.
Back to the matter at hand: Bush’s speech. I’m not sure if the short term memory loss exhibited by the White House is the result of years of self-abuse or if they really, sincerely expect the rest of us to not put two and two together. Let me get into some history here. It’s a little hard to keep everything straight over the last several years, but let’s see if we can firm up this particular quaqmire (I’ve talked about this before, but let’s review):
- The original response to the attacks of 9/11 did not involve Iraq. We retaliated against the Al Quaeda presence in Afghanistan and the government that was harboring them, the Taliban.
- In January, 2002, President Bush vows that the U.S. “will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” During this speech he identified Iraq are part of the “Axis of evil”. Note that this speech doesn’t identify Iraq as part of 9/11, but rather an on-going threat that pre-dated 9/11.
- The original motivation to go to war with Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11, but rather the lack of the UN to enforce their own resolutions. In September, 2002 Bush addressed the UN and told them that if they didn’t act on their resolutions against Iraq, the US would act on its own.
- After much back and forth regarding whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs, the capability to produce WMDs or if he was cooperating properly with UN inspectors, in March, 2003, President Bush delivers an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave the country or face an attack.
So it seems, and has seemed, pretty clear to me that the war in Iraq was never about terrorism. There was a slight possiblity that Saddam Hussein might supply terror cells with weapons if he had any, but there has been no credible evidence to support that theory. As I understand it, Osama Bin Laden hated Saddam Husseing for his hedonistic lifestyle. Remember, the secular Baathist regime that Saddam Hussein led violently suppressed Shiite Islamists in Iraq and that, despite his public portrayal of faithfulness, Saddam was a lover of women, drinking and vice, which is certainly not in keeping with the teachings of Islam. Hussein’s turn to religion was seen by many observers as an attept to win back Shiite support and Islamic support across the region after the initial Gulf War.
So why does Bush keep trying to link the terrorist attacks of 9/11, our subsequent war on terror in Afghanistan and this unrelated (and wholly destructive) war in Iraq? Here are some quotes from his speech last night:
After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy.
Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.
Point 1: “We will take the fight to the enemy.” Iraq wasn’t the enemy, Osama Bin Laden and the government that harbored him were. We never finished our original mission and are stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan as a result.
Point 2: “Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.” Well, it is now. As I already mentioned in my statements above, the war with Iraq initially had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11 or the war on terror. Now that many Fundamentalist Muslim terror groups have a rallying point, they are flocking across the borders of Iraq to join the insurgency. Unlike initial reports that the insurgency was failing, it has only gotten stronger with more and more attacks on soldiers, policemen and civilians.
Our mission in Iraq is clear: We’re hunting down the terrorists. We’re helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We’re advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren.
Again, we’re hunting down terrorists that didn’t exist in Iraq before we invaded. These terrorists are foreign imports who are using our attack as a rallying cry to fight America. And where exactly was the threat from Saddam Hussein to our children and grandchildren? A government saddled by sanctions (when certain of our European and local US friends weren’t scamming a few bills working the Oil for Food program in their favor) with no WMDs was a big threat to the US, our children and our grandchildren?
But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. And we know that this great ideal of human freedom entrusted to us in a special way and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending.
What “evil” in Iraq ever struck us? They originally invaded Kuwait, not the US. After that war, they were left under harsh sanctions and had a leader who could do little more than posture. They never struck us, nor did they have any strength. The strength of Iraq now is the fact that our invasion has given terrorists a rallying cry.
Don’t deign to speak of liberty until you address the problems of liberty at home. Between your administration and the Supreme Court, there has been incredible harm done to the freedoms of American’s in the last few years (Patriot Act, Environmental laws, the erosion of our Constitutional rights, etc., etc.).
After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult and we are prevailing.
Really? If we’re prevailing so much, why haven’t we captured Osama Bin Laden? If we’re prevailing so much, why are we stuck in two wars instead of the one that focused on avenging the attacks of 9/11? If we’re prevailing so much, why are we living in a state of fear and paranoia mixed with jingoism and xenophobia?
You know, it’s not so much the bullshit that get shat out of the White House, because every administration does it these days, but rather that they assume every one of their citizens is dumber than paint. Even sadder is that they’re probably not all that wrong. The war in Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism. Saddam Hussein was a vicious thug who deserved to be overthrown, but the reasons the administration keeps spouting for overthrowing him are just a pack of lies. The administration wanted inroads in the Middle East and access to his oil. The President wanted to impress daddy. And meanwhile, 1,700 of our boys and girls have perished in a war that has nothing to do with the war on terror.
This 4th of July, I will honor the soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice as well as those still serving because they deserve my respect and support. I will also continue to demand truth and honesty from my government, because the troops deserve that too. And in the future, I believe that every member of Congress and every person responsible for deciding to go to war must, by law, volunteer either themselves or a loved one to serve in combat (not in the rear with the gear, but on the front line) with the rest of our troops so that they will understand the sacrifice so many have made for our country. Perhaps then they will be more judicious when deciding to unleash the power of what I still believe is the greatest country on Earth (if misguided).
