With over 2000 Americans dead and more destined to meet their Maker, with the war in Iraq having officially achieved quagmire status, and with Our Glorious Leader’s Iraq policy now officially a clusterf—k two and a half years after he declared the “end of major combat operations”, one has to wonder if it isn’t about time for those responsible to be held accountable.
Despite the Prevaricator in Chief’s protestations to the contrary, the war effort in Iraq is NOT “central to the war on terror”. Frankly, there WAS no terrorist threat in Iraq prior to the American invasion. There certainly is one now, of course, but only because it was created by the American occupation. Our Glorious Leader in effect created the very terrorist insurgency that he is now so adamant must be fought.
Perhaps it might be good to remind all y’all of why we went to war in Iraq in the first place. We were told repeatedly that Saddam Hussein’s regime was harboring weapons of mass destruction, including perhaps even nuclear and chemical weapons, and that the Iraqi regime MUST be stopped from ever being able to use them. Well, guess what? There never were any WMDs, and it appears that Bush had made his mind up immediately after 9.11 to go to war against Iraq- despite the fact that there was absolutely no evidence to connect Saddam Hussein to 9.11. More than 2000 young Americans are dead because of the lies and deceptions that were peddled by various members of the Bush Administration in the all-out media blitz to sell the American public on the need to invade Iraq.
George W. Bush must have taken a single history lesson from his expensive education: The best defense is a good offense.
The president picked Veterans Day to attack Iraq-war critics. His speech in Pennsylvania rounded up most of the usual suspect lines of a leader in trouble: Critics are undercutting U.S. forces. “Politicians” are making “false charges.” Opponents are trying “to rewrite the history of how that war began.”
When critics warned there was no case for war, the public gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. But now, the president needs real evidence to change minds. He should produce unvarnished versions of studies already done, which seem to suggest pre-war intelligence was distorted even as it was written. That might be a good start at an honest accounting to Americans, the world and history.
It might be, but it will never happen. This President seems incapable of doing anything that will allow the American public unfettered access to the truth about the push for war in Iraq. If nothing else, he will continue repeating the same thing he has for two and half years: that 9.11 made the war against Iraq both necessary and just. In fact, the war was neither, but Bush’s continuing to repeat the Big Lie has been enough for many True Believers to swallow it whole.
Two and a half years ago, Our Glorious Leader stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in San Diego harbor and declared that the war was all but over. Now, he is going on the offensive against those who question his honesty and his culpability for a wasteful war with no end in sight. This is a President who has the balls to accuse those of us demanding answers of practicing “revisionist history” when he is guilty of doing exactly the same thing. I have little doubt that George W. Bush believes in his heart of hearts that the war in Iraq is both necessary and just. I also have little doubt that the reason he so wholeheartedly believes this is that he has so much invested in the war, and he’s convinced himself of the righteousness of his cause. The problems with demagogues is that they are phenomenally adept at adjusting reality to fit their needs. Our Glorious Leader NEEDS to be the architect of a just and righteous war in Iraq, because to be anything else would make him a war criminal…and at some level, he has to know that.
WE DESERVE BETTER. And so do more than 2000 of our war dead.
