|
NEW YORK -- "If at first you don't succeed,
lie and lie again" seems to be the watchword of the floundering Bush administration.
First, it was the ultimate evils, bin Laden
and Mullah Omar. When they couldn't be found, evil forces "that hate our freedoms." Then Saddam's nuclear weapons, anthrax,
mustard, and nerve gas, "drones of death," mobile germ labs, and links to al-Qaida, etc.
Now, in the latest change of sales pitch,
the president insists his war on terrorism equals Iraq.
According to Bushthink, any Iraqi opposing
U.S. occupying forces is a "terrorist." Ergo, growing Iraqi nationalist resistance will inevitably mean Bush's signature "war
on terrorism" will be a growth industry.
Like the gigantic Enron swindle, it's a huge
bubble, inflated by false claims and calculated deception.
Straining credulity even farther, the president
claimed that waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan would spare America from another 9/11 that might otherwise happen at any moment
- though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
It was the duty of the world community, Bush
proclaimed, to "share the burden of occupation" of Iraq and Afghanistan - which the White House finally admitted will total
at least $166 billion US for this year and next, an astronomical sum that could buy 39 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
By the end of 2004, Bush's wars could amount to 30% of the total cost of the equally misbegotten 17-year Vietnam War.
Clever rebranding
By cleverly rebranding the invasion of Iraq
as the essential part of his crusade against terrorism, Bush and his handlers were clearly counting on their core supporters
in middle America to have short memories and a weak grasp of foreign geography and nomenclature.
They are probably right: recent polls confirm
2/3 of confused Americans still believe the nonsense, promoted by the White House and neo-conservatives, that Iraq was behind
the 9/11 attacks.
This example of how the White House shamelessly
exploited the confusion and ignorance of many Americans about world affairs recalls another famous quote.
Reich Marshall Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg
trial: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same
in any country." Indeed.
In an astounding about-face, the Bush administration
is now begging "old" Europe, led by those "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" - as Bush's know-nothing supporters called France
- and the "irrelevant" UN to send troops and money to Iraq. In Europe, so long abused and slandered by Bush and his supporters,
the plaintive request was greeted by sneers.
France's conservative Le Figaro headlined
White House pleas for help as "Saving Private Bush."
Congress, terrified of being branded "unpatriotic,"
will go along with this monumental political and economic folly. While America's economy sags and its states plunge deep in
the red, George Bush plans to spend in short order almost as much to wage a hugely expensive colonial war in chaotic Iraq,
as the cost of the post-WWII Marshall Plan.
Bush and his handlers are not protecting
Americans by pursuing the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, they are protecting their own political skins.
These twin foreign misadventures are a historic
geopolitical, military and economic blunder. Europeans repeatedly warned against invading Iraq. So did genuine Mideast experts,
who were dismissed as pro-Arab or, like this writer, as "friends of Saddam." The mushrooming disaster was totally predictable
and avoidable.
Absurd claims
It defies understanding how the many intelligent
men and women in the Bush administration believed their own absurd claims about the danger posed by Iraq, and stuck America
in the worst mess since Vietnam. Mind you, chief "whiz kid" Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam disaster, was also
noted for his intellect, as is his heir, Donald Rumsfeld. "Brilliant" VP Dick Cheney actually claimed last spring that Saddam
Hussein had nuclear weapons. In Washington, arrogance and ignorance too often combined.
Shockingly, Congress's budget office just
reported the U.S. will run short of troops in Iraq by spring. Almost half of U.S. Army combat units are tied down in Iraq,
Kuwait, and Afghanistan. That's why Bush is trying to bribe or browbeat nations like Turkey, India and Pakistan into sending
cannon-fodder troops to Iraq, and force rich Europe to pay part of the bill.
Grand chutzpah
But asking other nations to "share the burden"
of an unprovoked invasion of another country takes grand chutzpah.
Aggression is not a burden, it's a crime
under the UN Charter. The Bush administration did not invade Iraq to perform social work but to grab its vast oil reserves.
Bush's demand that Third World UN troops
serve under orders of American officers is a further insult to the United Nations and will reinforce the belief of those who
attacked its Baghdad HQ that the organization is merely a cat's paw of Washington. What Bush should do is declare victory
and bring U.S. troops home. Now. Save $166 billion and many, many lives. It's still not too late to climb out of the swamp.
Copyright
© 2003, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe Inc | 
