21 January 2005 By Alan Bisbort
No WMDs, No Problem
Impeachment isnīt good enough for this gang
They called off the search for those wily weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq last week. "They" are the people the Bush Administration sent out in
the field to play a high stakes and expensive ($1 billion) game of charades
with the American people.
The WMD search was never really serious; it was like O.J. Simpson's search
for the person who murdered his wife -- a diversionary tactic. More to the
point, the WMD search was part of George W's comedy routine. You know, the
one where he pretends to look under his desk, out the window, behind the
file cabinet ... then tells an audience of gutless yellow journalists "they
gotta be around here somewhere!" (yes, this actually happened at the
National Press Club), and we all die laughing.
"We," meaning anyone with a functioning brain who opposed this terrible war,
knew there were no WMDs. We believed Hans Blix and Scott Ritter long before
Bush's propagandists, led by the New York Times ' Judith Miller, started
laying down their WMD diversions. Miller's source for the WMD claim was
Ahmad Chalabi, the Bernie Kerik of the Middle East. We preferred to trust
Ritter, a decorated US Marine and super-patriot who worked for the UN
inspection team from 1991 to 1998. He, like Blix, repeatedly claimed that 90
to 95 percent of Saddam's WMDs were destroyed and practically got on his
knees and begged the US government not to invade Iraq. Ritter was way too
kind to Bush in his estimates; zero WMDs were found in Iraq, not even the
ones the Bushes probably planted there.
We knew that Iraq presented no imminent threat to the US. We knew Iraq had
no connection to 9/11; 15 of the 18 attackers that day were Saudi; none were
Iraqi. And yet, we have been sending our sons and daughters to die for
Bush's Iraqi diversion. We number in the tens of millions, but we don't
matter. "They," the war criminals who opened this Pain-dora's Box in the
Middle East, outvoted us, just as the Supreme Court outvoted us in 2000, 5
to 45 million.
Now that all the justifications for the war in Iraq -- WMDs, threat,
connection to 9/11 -- have proven lies, it isn't up to "we" to step forward.
"They" already know how "we" feel. It is up to "you" to do that -- "you,"
who backed this guy, "you," who shouted us down, called us unpatriotic,
keyed our cars, made anonymous threatening phone calls and whispered vile
lies about us to our communities. You broke it, you bought it. Don't come
looking to us for any hugs just because you finally figured out that the
"neos" really were the "cons" we told they were two years ago.
Are "you" going to be honest about this, take some moral inventory, and
admit you have been duped by some really dangerous people ? Or are you going
to say, like the President, "It doesn't matter" ?
If it's the former, that's the first step toward healing the nation's wounds
and reclaiming what's left of our democracy.
If it's the latter, I hope you burn slowly and forever in hell.
When Barbara Walters asked Bush last week if the war in Iraq was worth it,
even though no WMDs were found, he responded, "Oh, absolutely" the way
someone might respond were they asked at a cocktail party, "Would you care
for another pretzel ?"
Think about it : We've invaded a country in the heart of the
1.1-billion-strong Muslim world under false pretenses, laid waste to their
cities, tortured their people, allowed their cultural treasures to be
looted, killed more than 100,000 civilians (that's the confirmed number;
it's likely twice or thrice that), and stolen their oil, the one cash crop
they have, taunting them every step of the way. And the man responsible says
"Oh, absolutely," it was worth it.
No matter what happens with the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 -- and I
anticipate chaos and bloodshed -- the justifications and excuses for this
war were lies. The rest of the world knows this. Why don't we ?
Another thing you may not know, because it was reported by the foreign press
: 5,500 US soldiers have already deserted, either going permanently AWOL or
seeking asylum in Canada, Mexico or anywhere that will have them. Maybe
these soldiers figured it out before the rest of you. Maybe they've seen one
too many stories like the following, from last week: A US warplane dropped a
500-pound bomb on the wrong house in Mosul. The man who owned the house said
the bomb killed 14 people; an AP photographer on the scene confirmed the
number and said seven of the victims were children. The US military admitted
to dropping the bomb, and that it hit the wrong ............
More :
http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:96902
http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/archives.html
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