|
Edited on Thu Aug-31-06 11:13 AM by bigtree
August 3, 2006
There have been no major acts of terror outside of Iraq which can be attributed to the 'enemies' that can be identified in Bush's congressional war authorization as the 'perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks'. Just who are we at war with in Bush's rhetorical war on terror?
If the Bush regime is at war with those we hold responsible for the collapse of the World Trade Towers, then it is truly a stealth war. Bush never mentions bin-Laden's name anymore, even though he began his 'hunt' in 2001 demanding his apprehension, "dead or alive.' A few months back, the special office that was tasked with the capture of Osama bin-Laden was closed, eliminated, without any hint of a replacement effort.
The hunt for bin-Laden and his accomplices has been folded into Bush's dual-fronted adventures in imperialism. Or, maybe it's been outsourced to Pakistan or to some band of nomad tribesmen like the Bush regime did in Tora Bora, back when bin-Laden himself must have been preparing for his afterlife and certain martyrdom . . . until Bush veered off to Iraq.
When Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq there was no threat from that country to the United States.
~
Bush, July 2004:
"We have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction"
"Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there"
Bush in August, 2006:
Q: What did Iraq have to do with that?
Bush: What did Iraq have to do with what?
Q: The attack on the World Trade Center?
Bush: Nothing . . .
~
Bush's own admission, there were no WMDs in Iraq, and there was no connecting Saddam Hussein to the tragic events of 9-11. If we are to accept his rhetoric about Iraq being the 'center' in his terror 'war', then it would follow that his invasion and occupation has made us less safe and secure. Again, by Bush's own admission, Iraq has gone from no significant threat to the United States to, what he describes as "more dangerous than Afghanistan" sans Taliban.
Bush spoke Wednesday at a fundraiser for Tennessee republicans trying to unseat Democrat Rep. Harold Ford:
"If we leave Iraq before the job is done," Bush said, "it will create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, a terrorist state much more dangerous than Afghanistan was before we removed the Taliban, a terrorist state with the capacity to fund its activities because of the oil reserves of Iraq"
So, in the next few weeks, Bush is going to be flying around the country on our dime warning Americans that the Iraq that he took over and claims responsibility for is now a "haven for terrorists", and "more dangerous than the Taliban they are still trying to kill and suppress in Afghanistan.
Apparently, nothing is safer for Americans now than it was when Bush first began his 'hunt' for terrorists, and became distracted invading and occupying Iraq. He said so at the Wednesday fundraiser:
"The stakes are high," Bush said, "It's very important for the American people to understand that the security of the United States of America, the capacity of our children to grow up in a peaceful world, in large part depends on our willingness to help this young Iraq democracy succeed.
Some democracy. Bush thinks that the elections staged and facilitated by our foreign occupation of Iraq represent democracy. I can't imagine that he actually believes the Maliki regime, hunkered down in the Green Zone behind our soldiers, represents democracy. A true democracy would have vehicles and levers for redress and opposition from the citizens who intend for the leaders to lead, effective with the votes cast.
Iraq's elite has only as much influence that they can intimidate out of the residents who are regularly harassed, killed, maimed, arrested without charges by their U.S. sponsored army and police. Our soldiers are effectively killing Iraqis from one side of a multi-front civil war. It's no secret that some of the very Iraqi troops the U.S. has funded, equipped, and trained, have devolved into deadly militias bent on reprisal killings of rival sects and factions.
Today, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon wants to shell out another $20m of out tax dollars to troll the U.S. and Middle East for positive press on Iraq. It's presumably part of the 'freedom agenda' that Bush trumpets. 'Perception management' of the Iraq occupation has been the job of a public relations firm with connections to the Iraqi National Congress. 'Rendon Group' is Chalabi's old posse who got millions of U.S. dollars for the lies they provided Bush to justify his invasion of Iraq. The next 'firm' selected will have to far surpass Rendon in dressing up Iraq's bloody descent into civil war and the U.S. role in its unraveling.
It's almost inconceivable that Bush would choose to dig his heels in and promote and continue his devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. But, there he is . . . insisting that his failure there is actually resounding success, that some sort of victory is at hand, that his actions are a model for 'spreading democracy.'
All the while, Bush is using the chaos and heart-wrenching mayhem his occupation has created and aggravated to strike another round of fear in the heart of Americans who intend to change the course of our own democracy in the November midterm congressional elections. It's Bush we should fear, not the 'terrorists' our soldiers are 'fighting over there' in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Out of the handful of significant bombings around the world that have occurred since September 11, 2001, and among the handful of 'terror plots' presented as evidence of a threat against us, none have been in any way connected to the other, except in the occasional adoption of a name or moniker of some notorious assailant. None of these have been directly linked to those individuals our government holds responsible for the tragedies of September 11.
So, who is our nation's enemy? Who most threatens America? How does Bush intend to complete the job he was originally tasked to do in the Authorization for use of Military Force resolution he claims gives him the power to disregard laws and wield power supreme?
Where are the those 'nations, organizations, or persons he's determined planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons' as Congress mandated he pursue in the congressional resolution, Public Law 107-40? Why aren't the bulk of our resources being spent on that pursuit instead of the $8b a month we are pumping into Iraq alone?
At Edwardsville, Illinois, on September 11, 1858, Abraham Lincoln said, "What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoast, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle."
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere." Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your down doors."
"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage," Lincoln warned, "and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
This government and this administration have become accustomed to trampling, and bondage. And we have allowed them to skirt accountability for their sly justifications for their attacks on our civil liberties; demagogic appeals to patriotism and to our nationalism; the deliberate inflaming, and careful stoking of the sparks of fear that flashed from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center; and the mortgaging of ours and our children's future toil and tribute to the subsidizing of both of the Bush president's bloody and costly wars of opportunity.
We are not any safer for our invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq. We are, in fact, less safe as a result of Bush's blundering mimic of military commander. In his occupation, he contradicts the most basic of our nation's values of freedom, liberty, and democracy.
With his theft of the industry and resources of Iraq, our country has joined the long line of oppressors and brutal opportunists who have sought to dominate that region for greed and power. History will wonder at our nation's arrogance, and at our citizen's inability to restrain our military and its agents from pursuing ambitions far outside of the mandate of our constitution or conscience.
And yet, the damn fool presses on unabated, unrestrained by those we elected to hold him accountable. Come November . . .
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
