this little light of mine..
Bush is known as a steadfast and resolute leader,
you've got to be kidding...
We're told, even by the Kerry campaign that Bush
is strong, resolute and consistent (the Kerry campaign calls it stubbornness).
What the fuck is everyone smoking? I mean really. Let's look at the reasons
cited for the current Iraqi invasion and
occupation.
Why'd we go in
there?
1. WMD -
Nuclear
2. WMD - Chemical and
Biological
The above reasons were cited
as reason's for launching a preemptive strike. Preemptive action is, contrary
to popular opinion not illegal. However, it does require an imminent threat of
attack. Remember the poorly plaguerized document claiming the 45 minute
threat? Although quickly dismissed, it got the ball rolling. And just two
months before the attacks, Bush was still lying about Iraq's nuclear
program.
Lying? Yeah lying that's what
we call it here in the hinterlands, when somebody intentionally deceives someone
else. I mean Clinton knew that Iraq was largely disarmed of it's known WMD
(chemical and biological) in 1998 at the latest. And what might have remained
of their chemical and biological stockpile was almost certainly inert. Even if
they had something, it certainly didn't pose an imminent threat to the homeland
(don't you wonder of the Bushies played around with the idea of calling it the
fatherland?). And the Bush Administration certainly knew there was no there,
there - relating to nuclear WMD. Just look at the way they pursued, massaged,
and managed intelligence/propaganda.
So
eventually the obvious, became obvious, in the months following the toppling of
the Hussein regime. The obvious of course being that Iraq had no WMD that posed
an imminent threat to the United States or our interests. Now eighteen months
following the beginning of the invasion it appears that Iraq had next to nothing
(not withstanding any magical discovery of a secret stash less than 1 month
before the 2004 presidential elections). So holy shit, we launched an illegal
war. No imminent threat, not by any stretch of the
imagination.
So the resolute Bush,
shifted to something else to justify the killing of 1,060 of our soldiers and
13,000 - 15,000 Iraqis (to date): Building democracy in Iraq (ta dah). Now the
Bush Administration is not stupid, they started laying the ground work for the
shifting sand of justifying the war upfront. From the beginning, every so often
they talked about how nice it would be build democracy in Iraq and spread
democracy throughout the Middle East. So with the ONLY acceptable reason for
justifiable preemptive war gone, we we're now building democracy in Iraq.
Bush never asked United Nations to
join us in liberating Iraq, Bush never asked congress to give him the authority
to wage war in the name of liberating the Iraqi peope, and the truth is we never
asked our nation's military families to put their son's and daughters in harm's
way to make Iraq free. The stupid logic was that a pluralistic western
democracy plopped down in the middle of Baghdad, would make the US safer from
Islamist terrorists than a more-or-less-boxed-in stable secular dictatorship. uh
huh. Hussein's a shit, and he deserved to be toppled rather than embraced in
the 1980's. But it was never a question of invading and occupying Iraq or do
nothing. We have undermined and overthrown many nations in a variety of ways
that rarely involves invasion.
And
let's think of the timing. Less than 2 years after the worst terrorist strike
ever against the United States and we're launching a military adventure that
would tie up the bulk of our military for as much as the next decade. How does
that make sense? How does that show a resolute leader, protecting us from
terrorists? I mean come on, what the
fuck?
So what do we see now? We see a
country slipping into anarchy and maybe even towards civil war after they push
us out or they're left to fend for themselves. So in the end we'll find that we
haven't done a very good job of liberating Iraq but destroying it. But the Bush
administration, as is their way, are not affected by their previously stated
objectives or the reality on the ground. So now they're staking their claim on
showing the Arabs of the Middle East, how democracy can be done right. Why, you
may ask. Well the Bush administration explains that this is the center-piece of
their plan on fighting terror and presumably
terrorists.
The Bushies argue that by
establishing a beach-head of democracy right dab in the middle of the Middle
East, we will show all those disaffected Arabs that they've got options. See
there's no need to attack us (America), you can attack your government, agitate
for change in the best western tradition. You can hold your country
accountable, and once you have a government that is responsive to your needs you
will be rich and comfortable just like us. And once you're rich and comfortable
there will be no reason you to attack us. Or at least that's the general
idea.
Of course, it's half-baked and
moronic at best. I mean if anyone really went to the trouble of hatching this
scheme why would you start with Iraq? Why wouldn't you start with one of our
previously mentioned allies in the Arab world. Don't ya think we'd have a
better chance of succeeding in a society who's infrastructure is more or less
intact? Don't you think we'd get farther working with a government that is
either friendly or at least dependent on us? It's important to get this right,
right? We don't want another 9/11, do
we?
The answer to all these questions
is of course, yes. That is why Iraq would be exactly the wrong country for
this. It has a heterogeneous population with relations and ties to neighboring
nations. It also has a populations that isn't exactly enamored with
us.
The Administration knew this.
That's why here in the hinterlands we consider the "spark-o-democracy" plan just
another serving of bullshit from an administration that seems to elevate
bullshit to an art form.
Ok smart-ass
(that's me) why did we invade Iraq? Because of Iran. More specifically, Iran -
1979. That's when we lost our foothold in the oil rich Middle East. I was
living in Kenya in the late 1980's when the first Bush Administration tried to
work over the Kenyan government to establish a permanent military base in the
northeast corner of the country. It was in the Lamu archipelago, a conservative
african/muslim culture that had little use for the drinking, whoring ways of the
US service personnel recreating themselves in the host country. The reason the
US military wanted to build a base there, was because it was the closest they
could get to the Middle East. The locals were successful in blocking the base,
or at least it never got built. That fact it never got build may have more to
do with the impending first gulf war and the serendipity that the Saudi's
allowed us to build "temporary" bases in the muslim holy land until we took care
of the Iraqi's. Twelve years later we're still there and we've worn out our
welcome. You see most of the rest of the world started to figure out that Iraq
was largely disarmed by 1998 (as required under UN resolutions). If Iraq would
have successfully met the threshold then we would have found ourselves out of
the Middle East and again begging for bases in countries like
Kenya.
Remember that's the reason that
bin Laden committed mass murder here in the United States on 9/11/01. He wanted
us to get-the-fuck-out of the muslim holy land. So what better way to stay in
the region then to launch a war against one of the weakest, most-unpopular
regimes in the Persian Gulf? So even though we claim we'll only be in Iraq as
long as we're wanted, we're building 14 permanent bases around Bagdad. Maybe our
resolute leader is expecting that we'll be invited for dinner for a long long
time to come. We'll see.
Like
everything else I suspect he's wrong on this too.
Posted: Sun - October 3, 2004 at 10:45 AM