BURNING BUSH
ADIOS GEORGE

By: Ed Henry

There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and there never 
will be unless we plant them there. And don't put it past our 
corrupt government to do just that, special effects and all.  

There is no antidote for the venom that spewed from George W. Bush's 
mouth day after day, month after month, about Saddam Hussein and an 
oil rich sovereign nation that had been embargoed for more than a 
decade. No U.S. President has ever used the media so enthusiastically 
to sell an invasion. And no American media, particularly the war 
channels of CNN and Fox News, have ever unquestionably supported 
and extended the drums of war and cowboy diplomacy 24/7 in a 
blunderbuss that they now hope you forget.  

Over and over we were told that Saddam was an immediate and present 
danger to the United States and friends because he possessed 
weapons of mass destruction. Presented from every angle imaginable, 
we were told he had tons of biological and chemical weapons that he 
used on his own people to ongoing nuclear development that he would 
not hesitate to use or give to his buddy Osama bin Laden.  

If it takes one single lie, sixteen words that were part of Bush's 
State of the Union address, to dethrone this megalomaniacuthen so 
be it. But that certainly isn't the end of the story. It's just the 
beginning. There's plenty more where that came from.  

Saddam trying to buy uranium from Niger is just one of the many lies 
we were told and is probably the easiest to weasel out of. Blame it on 
faulty intelligence, our own or from the Brits. Blame it on poor speech 
writing and an inadequate review process by the CIA. Let George Tenet 
take all the blame or perhaps even sacrifice Dick Cheney, but save the 
man in charge of it all.  

Or they can always blame politics. It's just the democrats trying to 
score points for the upcoming elections and unfairly picking on the 
hapless republicans.  

Weigh into the details on this point. Investigate the timeline, the 
flow of misinformation, and the hundreds of people or witnesses involved. 
How many people did it take to write the Gettysburg address on the back 
of an envelope? But for God's sake, don't ask where this penetrating 
analysis was before we rushed off to invade a powerless country and 
kill so many people.  

According to Newsweek's latest poll, George Bush's approval ratings 
have dropped to 45 percent. By now, we should all know how these 
polls work by the questions asked and not asked. If we required 
respondents to name the Vice President of the United States (no 
multiple choice), or some other difficult question like who is 
Secretary of State, we would probably find most of this 45 percent 
comes from people who can't be bothered with news, don't read newspapers, 
use their computers mostly to play games, and would give anyone in power 
a favorable vote so long as Jay Leno and David Letterman don't tell 
jokes or make snide remarks about the guyuthe pathetic side of our 
democracy and the reason for an Electoral College.  

Look at the things the Bush administration has accomplished in just a 
little over two years in office. We abandoned the Anti Ballistic Missal 
(ABM) Treaty without leaving something better behind. We've opened 
space to warfare and plunged billions into the development of the old 
failed Sky Wars shield. We are still the only country to have used 
nuclear weapons and are now embarking on a program to develop 
smaller portable "field nukes" with a third of the killing power of 
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Congress passed the Patriot Act 
without reading it while the administration stonewalled any real 
investigation into September eleventh. We established a "first strike" 
initiative and we've alienated more than seventy percent of the people 
in every nation of the world, including within our "coalition of the 
willing," with our pig-headed insistence on an invasion based on the 
false premise that we were about to be attacked or Saddam would give 
his weapons of mass destruction to the al Qaeda.  

Ironically, now that it's obvious Iraq had no "weapons of mass 
destruction" we are asking for the same sort of patience we denied 
our allies and the UN Security Council. After vilifying the French 
as a bunch of spineless sissy wimps for suggesting we send in more 
inspectors and thoroughly verify the threat from Iraq, possibly even 
rescinding the embargo, we are asking for the same thing. Just give 
us more time and the weapons of mass destruction will eventually show 
up buried in someone's back yard, in documents we can reinterpret, 
or buried so deep they're inactive and useless.  

Just how did the UN inspectors dismantle and dispose of 96 percent of 
the weapons Saddam held after the first war and do so by 1996? Maybe 
we should ask where they buried some of these so we can dig them up 
and claim them as proof of the recent threat. Maybe we can get Geraldo 
Rivera to unlock these treasures.  

President Bush has no compunction about referencing Iraqi weapons 
from 1991 as proof Saddam was evil and trying to reactivate his nuclear 
program. Of course, he fails to mention that the International Atomic 
Energy Association (IAEA) has been continually monitoring Iraq and 
was close to giving them a clean bill of health. Dubya wasn't about 
to let that happen.  

After arrogantly deciding to "go it alone" with a preemptive strike 
against a nearly helpless pipsqueak nation sitting on our oil, we are 
now suggesting that our allies chip in to help pay for rebuilding their 
infrastructure, providing humanitarian aid, and sending troops to help 
maintain law and order. Can't you see all these people jumping at the 
chance to send us people and money? Guess who is going to foot the 
bill.  

So you've been lied to, again. What's new? Ask any Washington 
politician or bureaucrat about Social Security's problems or trust 
funds and see what sort of bullshit answer you get in return.  

While our still loyal newshounds ask whether there might be a "pattern 
of deception" involved, the conspiracy theorists are claiming that George 
W. Bush is just a puppet of the shadow government. A puppet that has 
served his purpose and it's time to get rid of cowboy diplomacy. Just as 
the Iraqi people have traded one oppressor for another, we are about to 
replace a President with another of equal ilk to further the next phase 
of the New World Odor.  


"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this 
notice and hyperlink intact."

                         -==-

Source: EtherZone - http://etherzone.com/2003/henr071803.shtml


Cheers, Steve..

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