Apparently, nothing is safer for Americans now than it was when Bush first began his 'hunt' for terrorists, and became distracted invading and occupying Iraq. He said so at the Wednesday fundraiser:
"The stakes are high," Bush said, "It's very important for the American people to understand that the security of the United States of America, the capacity of our children to grow up in a peaceful world, in large part depends on our willingness to help this young Iraq democracy succeed.
Some democracy. Bush thinks that the elections staged and facilitated by our foreign occupation of Iraq represent democracy. I can't imagine that he actually believes the Maliki regime, hunkered down in the Green Zone behind our soldiers, represents democracy. A true democracy would have vehicles and levers for redress and opposition from the citizens who intend for the leaders to lead, effective with the votes cast.
Iraq's elite has only as much influence that they can intimidate out of the residents who are regularly harassed, killed, maimed, arrested without charges by their U.S. sponsored army and police. Our soldiers are effectively killing Iraqis from one side of a multi-front civil war. It's no secret that some of the very Iraqi troops the U.S. has funded, equipped, and trained, have devolved into deadly militias bent on reprisal killings of rival sects and factions.
Today, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon wants to shell out another $20m of out tax dollars to troll the U.S. and Middle East for positive press on Iraq. It's presumably part of the 'freedom agenda' that Bush trumpets. 'Perception management' of the Iraq occupation has been the job of a public relations firm with connections to the Iraqi National Congress. 'Rendon Group' is Chalabi's old posse who got millions of U.S. dollars for the lies they provided Bush to justify his invasion of Iraq. The next 'firm' selected will have to far surpass Rendon in dressing up Iraq's bloody descent into civil war and the U.S. role in its unraveling.
It's almost inconceivable that Bush would choose to dig his heels in and promote and continue his devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. But, there he is . . . insisting that his failure there is actually resounding success, that some sort of victory is at hand, that his actions are a model for 'spreading democracy.'
All the while, Bush is using the chaos and heart-wrenching mayhem his occupation has created and aggravated to strike another round of fear in the heart of Americans who intend to change the course of our own democracy in the November midterm congressional elections. It's Bush we should fear, not the 'terrorists' our soldiers are 'fighting over there' in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Out of the handful of significant bombings around the world that have occurred since September 11, 2001, and among the handful of 'terror plots' presented as evidence of a threat against us, none have been in any way connected to the other, except in the occasional adoption of a name or moniker of some notorious assailant. None of these have been directly linked to those individuals our government holds responsible for the tragedies of September 11.
So, who is our nation's enemy? Who most threatens America? How does Bush intend to complete the job he was originally tasked to do in the Authorization for use of Military Force resolution he claims gives him the power to disregard laws and wield power supreme?
Where are the those 'nations, organizations, or persons he's determined planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons' as Congress mandated he pursue in the congressional resolution, Public Law 107-40? Why aren't the bulk of our resources being spent on that pursuit instead of the $8b a month we are pumping into Iraq alone?
At Edwardsville, Illinois, on September 11, 1858, Abraham Lincoln said:
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoast, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle."
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere." Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your down doors."
"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage," Lincoln warned, "and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
This government and this administration have become accustomed to trampling, and bondage. And we have allowed them to skirt accountability for their sly justifications for their attacks on our civil liberties; demagogic appeals to patriotism and to our nationalism; the deliberate inflaming, and careful stoking of the sparks of fear that flashed from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center; and the mortgaging of ours and our children's future toil and tribute to the subsidizing of both of the Bush president's bloody and costly wars of opportunity.
We are not any safer for our invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq. We are, in fact, less safe as a result of Bush's blundering mimic of military commander. In his occupation, he contradicts the most basic of our nation's values of freedom, liberty, and democracy.
"The stakes are high," Bush said, "It's very important for the American people to understand that the security of the United States of America, the capacity of our children to grow up in a peaceful world, in large part depends on our willingness to help this young Iraq democracy succeed.
Some democracy. Bush thinks that the elections staged and facilitated by our foreign occupation of Iraq represent democracy. I can't imagine that he actually believes the Maliki regime, hunkered down in the Green Zone behind our soldiers, represents democracy. A true democracy would have vehicles and levers for redress and opposition from the citizens who intend for the leaders to lead, effective with the votes cast.
Iraq's elite has only as much influence that they can intimidate out of the residents who are regularly harassed, killed, maimed, arrested without charges by their U.S. sponsored army and police. Our soldiers are effectively killing Iraqis from one side of a multi-front civil war. It's no secret that some of the very Iraqi troops the U.S. has funded, equipped, and trained, have devolved into deadly militias bent on reprisal killings of rival sects and factions.
It's almost inconceivable that Bush would choose to dig his heels in and promote and continue his devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. But, there he is . . . insisting that his failure there is actually resounding success, that some sort of victory is at hand, that his actions are a model for 'spreading democracy.'
All the while, Bush is using the chaos and heart-wrenching mayhem his occupation has created and aggravated to strike another round of fear in the heart of Americans who intend to change the course of our own democracy in the November midterm congressional elections. It's Bush we should fear, not the 'terrorists' our soldiers are 'fighting over there' in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Out of the handful of significant bombings around the world that have occurred since September 11, 2001, and among the handful of 'terror plots' presented as evidence of a threat against us, none have been in any way connected to the other, except in the occasional adoption of a name or moniker of some notorious assailant. None of these have been directly linked to those individuals our government holds responsible for the tragedies of September 11.
So, who is our nation's enemy? Who most threatens America? How does Bush intend to complete the job he was originally tasked to do in the Authorization for use of Military Force resolution he claims gives him the power to disregard laws and wield power supreme?
Where are the those 'nations, organizations, or persons he's determined planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons' as Congress mandated he pursue in the congressional resolution, Public Law 107-40? Why aren't the bulk of our resources being spent on that pursuit instead of the $8b a month we are pumping into Iraq alone?
At Edwardsville, Illinois, on September 11, 1858, Abraham Lincoln said:
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoast, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle."
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere." Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your down doors."
"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage," Lincoln warned, "and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
This government and this administration have become accustomed to trampling, and bondage. And we have allowed them to skirt accountability for their sly justifications for their attacks on our civil liberties; demagogic appeals to patriotism and to our nationalism; the deliberate inflaming, and careful stoking of the sparks of fear that flashed from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center; and the mortgaging of ours and our children's future toil and tribute to the subsidizing of both of the Bush president's bloody and costly wars of opportunity.
We are not any safer for our invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq. We are, in fact, less safe as a result of Bush's blundering mimic of military commander. In his occupation, he contradicts the most basic of our nation's values of freedom, liberty, and democracy.
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