Here is an EXCELLENT article. Worth sharing!
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Bush's Deadly Deception In Our Name;
"Oops", is no excuse for war.
By Patricia Ernest
The invasion of, and resulting war in, Iraq should not have
occurred. Bush told us we were in eminent danger due to Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction. He said we must go to war to
protect our country from an attack. The latest report says there
were no wmd in Iraq at the time the US invaded and began its
occupation. The media, in lockstep with the administration, will try
to lay the blame for the miscue on the intelligence agencies. You
can blame it on the Bossa Nova or the devil or whatever, but
blame and ignorance is no excuse when the result is death. "Oops",
is no excuse for war. The bottom line is, it happened on bush's
watch, therefore it's Bush's problem and he must deal with it. You
can't change the rules after the game begins and you can't change
the goal after the game is over. This war in Iraq is still a war, and
to change the reason at this point, based on new information, just
will not wash with the American people and certainly not with the rest
of the world.
Don't you wonder why so many Americans were against this war
in the first place? Not all Americans who were against this war are
against all wars. Many weren't anti war. They were anti invasion
based on what they perceived to be anti truth. Many of us were
against this war, because before the war began, the UN weapons
inspectors reported that they had not found any weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. We, unlike the President, watched the
inspector's reports on TV. It's just as simple as that. When Powell
appeared before the UN with his aerial photos of trucks near buildings
and his recordings of conversations, the UN inspectors, in so many
words, reported that all of Powell's evidence was useless and
unfounded. I, along with you, believed them, and apparently everyone
else should have as well. The longer the inspectors searched the less
they found. Perhaps the administration felt that the public might
actually notice that no weapons were being found, and perhaps that
was why they rushed into this war when they did. The obvious was
becoming more obvious with every report.
Maybe when Saddam sent his report regarding his weapons, and
the US demanded to have the report before other countries were given
their copies, maybe there was something in that original report that
would have shown that he had nothing. I don't know. What I do know
is that as a result of a US invasion, over 500 of our soldiers now lay
dead, and many, many more lay wounded. Soldiers from other countries
now lay dead, and who knows how many thousands of innocent Iraqis
now lay dead. What should the US say? Do we say, "I'm sorry, I guess
we got some bad info, but remember, Saddam also killed a lot of
people"? Is that enough? If this war was fought because Washing-
ton didn't believe the UN inspectors, is it enough to try to justify
it now based on new reasons? Is it enough if the new reasons
sound good but are not true reasons? Do we invade countries, kill
thousands and then change our reasons for doing so? Is that America?
Have we become so hardened that we really don't care why we killed
thousands of human beings? Is that the result of what 9-11 did to us?
Did the attacks of 9-11 turn us to the same sort of mindset as the
terrorists. Do we now kill human beings and worry about the reasons
later? The attacks of 9-11 were Osama's way of making a statement.
Did we invade Iraq just to make a statement? That's not the way
we do things in the United States, and, I don't believe we would
condone or tolerate these same actions if they had been taken by
any other country. We didn't condone Saddam's invasion of Kuwait
did we?
[[[ Ed.: Actually, something that we said to Saddam before he
did that DID give him precisely that impression! ]]]
Imagine, with the history of this war, that another country,
we'll call that country Lieland, had done the very same things that
we have done in Iraq, and that all Lieland's actions had been
condemned by the US from the beginning. Just imagine that
Lieland had invaded Iraq, based on the declaration that Iraq
was a threat to Lieland. The administration of Lieland said that
Iraq possessed wmd. These were declarations that we Americans
believed to be untrue. Imagine how we would have felt if we had
seen Lieland dropping the shock and awe bombs. Imagine how
we would have felt as we thought about the innocent Iraqis as
they were being murdered from above. Imagine that we heard
that there were no weapons found in Iraq and that Lieland's leaders
were simply blowing that news off and instead bragging that they
had freed the Iraqi people. Imagine that we saw the conditions in
Iraq today and heard that the soldiers from Lieland were going
door to door in Iraq, crashing down the doors of homes, and arresting
thousands of Iraqis. These Iraqis were being kept in prisons based
only on a suspicion and there was news that the prisoners were being
unfairly treated. Imagine that the very first thing Lieland secured
after their invasion was Iraq's oil fields. Lieland allowed Iraq to
be looted, but protected the oil fields. Lieland would look like a
heartless opportunistic country to us and to the rest of the world.
Just imagine seeing all of that. Now try to imagine how other
countries are seeing us today.
Keeping your imagination going for a moment, please imagine
what you would think of Lielanders if they re-elected the same
President who had led them into that atrocious war. By re-electing
this same President, they would be telling the rest of the world that
they endorsed his actions. By supporting this president, Lielanders
would tell the world they had no remorse regarding what their leader
had done. If you had wondered about the citizens of Lieland
before, you would feel that by their re-election of their President,
that they were just as dangerous and heartless as their President.
You would feel that if their leader presented himself as a man guided
by religion, it must be the kind of religion that endorses and
condones war and murder based on lies. Lieland would appear
to be a danger to all people.
We are Lieland and we are at a pivotal point in history. If we
re-elect Bush (and yes, I know he was never truly elected), we will be
telling the world that we support what he has done to our country, to
Iraq and to the world. I don't want the world to think that we are,
in any way, akin to bush in either thought or deed. I want to show
the world that we are wiser and kinder than the president. I don't
want us to be Democrats or Republicans. I want us to be Americans
who stand up and show the world that we recognize what has
taken place in our name, and that we will take action to see that it
never happens again. We owe it to ourselves and to our forefathers
to demand honesty from our leaders, especially when the conse-
quence of dishonesty is death. We have a debt and a responsibility
to protect our soldiers and to see that they are never forced to enter
into a contrived or a preventable war. Our country is headed down
a frightening, ugly and dangerous path, and we must do everything
in our power to change directions before we completely lose
our way and discover that there is no turning back.
Patricia
BIO of Patricia Ernest, <nesters@bellsouth.net>:
I live in the wonderful state of Florida.
I am a mom to Murphy (my precious pup) and Fred (my occasionally
precious cat).
I share my life, my laughter, my world and all of my love with my
husband and have for 16 years.
I would describe myself as a very sentimental and sensitive person
who is forever willing to share my point of view whether or not it has
been requested of me. This article is copyright by Patricia Ernest,
originally published by opednews.com Permission is granted to
forward this or to place it on a website as long as the article is
included intact, including this statement.
-- Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com>
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