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Can Anyone Tell Me Why?
Jesse
Lee, Opednews.com
As
the administration has retreated from its stance that Iraq was an immanent
threat, with many supporters making the befuddling claim that nobody ever
said Iraq was such a threat, the question has to be raised as to why we
really went to war.
Few
in Washington are even willing to contend that Iraq had a serious nuclear
program, or that Saddam had any significant connection to Al Qaeda.
The administration has not been able to point to a single piece of
solid evidence in support of either claim.
And
while many still believe that there were chemical or biological weapons in
Iraq, am I alone in getting little comfort from that possibility?
I would rather my president have fabricated the entire thing than
face the possibility that Saddam is currently at large with those weapons
at his disposal and nothing to lose.
The
war was supposed to eliminate the threat of Saddam giving weapons to
terrorists, but it seems that the administration had either too little
knowledge or too little preparation to contain those weapons once war
began. All the war did was
take a deterrable, impotent dictator and turn him into a freelance
bio-chemical terrorist.
And
while all of our hearts were warmed witnessing the toppling of Saddam’s
statue, and some may argue that liberation justified the war, it can
hardly be claimed that liberation was the motivation for war. After
all, it was hardly mentioned for the first fourteen months of the
build-up. Furthermore, all
sides acknowledge that the plan for implementing democracy was not as
thorough as it should have been, and that it is not exactly going well so
far.
So
honestly, can anybody tell me why we went to war?
And
there are more questions. During
the months preceding the war, the administration seemed to deliberately
alienate our friends and allies. Many
countries in Europe were continually insulted in public, with little
explanation of what we had to gain from such behavior.
Richard Perle, a powerful member of the Defense Policy Board, wrote
an Op-Ed as war was breaking out entitled “Thank God for the Death of
the UN”. Now our actions
have granted us the sole privilege of watching our troops die on a daily
basis, and spending tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to
resurrect the country we just destroyed.
Many
nations across the world have expressed their willingness to lend troops
and funding if the U.S. will only cede partial control to the UN.
But Bush refuses, with his supporters arguing that since other
countries did not fight, they do not deserve control.
Is control such a prize, or is it an enormous burden?
I personally don’t care whether other countries “deserve”
control, why do we want it? Giving control to the UN would prove once and for all that we
are not a neo-colonial superpower, not only to the rest of the world, but
to the Iraqi people. It seems
irrefutable that this would save American lives, get a few more sons back
to their mothers, wives, and children- so why
not give up control?
And
as far as actions that make us look like colonizers go, why did the
biggest contract in all of Iraq, the one relating to Iraq’s oil
industry, go to Halliburton? Giving
this contract, which is worth up to $7 billion, to the corporation which
only a few years ago was headed by Dick Cheney certainly to some degree
gives the appearance that this war was motivated by corporate interests,
and certainly raises the specter of a immense conflict of interests.
It seems to me that in a stage of reconstruction where American
lives will be lost or saved based on whether we are perceived as
colonizers, Halliburton should be completely barred from the bidding
process for this reason alone. Instead,
the administration did not even allow other corporations to bid,
essentially giving Halliburton Carte Blanche to overcharge the government
as it sees fit. This is
especially astounding since Halliburton has been under investigation for
overcharging the U.S. government before.
Can
anybody tell me why?
The
question about the Bush tax cuts hit home in a particularly poignant way
for me recently. A friend of
mine whose combined household income is around $150,000 came to visit.
Jokingly I turned to him and said, “Hey, you’re rich- you’ve
got a big tax cut coming!” He
admitted that his lofty lifestyle was about to be infused with a
government check of between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars.
I make under thirty thousand per year, and a handful of misfortunes
have made the past year particularly difficult for me.
Unlike my friend, I could desperately use $15,000.
I’ll be getting $50, and I already have $150 tax hike from my
state and local governments. The
conversation remained light-hearted, but I cannot deny that it left a sour
taste in my mouth.
Is
the idea essentially that my rich friend is going to use that money to
give me a job? Why did we
just commit to nearly a trillion dollars in deficits in order to give the
minority in this country that is doing fine some extra padding for their
accounts? By the end of the
decade, the interest alone from these deficits will be measured in the
hundreds of billions per year. Our
current education budget is $22 billion.
Under intense pressure, Bush finally agreed to issue Afghanistan $1
billion to slow the pace at which it sinks back into anarchy.
And yet the administration insists that a trillion dollar deficit
doesn’t matter. Can anybody
explain that to me?
I do not ask these questions rhetorically, I truly do not know the
answer, and I cannot help but wonder how many Americans outside the
administration itself actually do know.
I will say this, though: I am haunted by one thought.
While these policies have cost the lives of American working men
and women in the military, compromised the fiscal future of our children,
and left working citizens and families paying more
taxes, every one of these policies has put a great deal of money
directly into the pockets of those in and surrounding this administration.
Halliburton has seen an explosive recovery from the slump they
entered prior to 2000. Most
members of the administration and congressional elite will receive upwards
of $80,000 in government money from the tax cuts.
An examination of the administration’s environmental and labor
policies reveals the same. This
thought is terribly unsettling to me, and I earnestly hope that they
answer some of these questions in a more convincing fashion so that I can
vanquish this thought from my mind.
It is the job of a CEO to extract every possible nickel and dime
from those under him. He
earns millions of dollars per year because the board believes he can make
that back for them and then some. This
may be fine in the business world, and to be sure it is this brand of
capitalism that has made this nation so powerful and raised the living
standards for most citizens. But perhaps this mentality is not always appropriate for our
government, perhaps we need to demand some better explanations.
Why not?
Jesse
Lee lives in Washington, D.C. and is a regular columnist for opednews.
He is also a founding contributor to the platform of 2020 Democrats.
He encourages comments at kirkout79@hotmail.com.
This article is copyright by Jesse Lee and originally
published by opednews.com but
permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so
long as this credit is attached.
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