"America is engaged in a great ideological struggle -- fighting Islamic extremists across the globe." --Bush in speech before American Legion 8/28/07
No other nations in the region have been more pernicious and destructive in their interference in Iraq as the U.S. and Britain. Yet, Bush has adopted the rhetoric of a true autocrat in arguing to continue defending the regime he installed behind the sacrifices of our soldiers and propped-up against Iraqi resistance; labeling all who would resist his strident military advance as "extremists."
“I want our fellow citizens to consider what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism were allowed to drive us out of the Middle East,” Bush told the audience at the American Legion in Nevada. “The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that could imperil the civilized world,” he warned.
Once again, evoking the images of 'mushroom clouds' and nuclear war, Bush warned the gathering of veterans about the prospect of Iran initiating a "nuclear holocaust" which he says would occur because of their "pursuit of technology which could lead to nuclear weapons."
"We will confront this danger before it is too late." he said.
No matter to Bush that his administration has proliferated U.S. nuclear technology to Iraq's neighbor, India. No contradiction in Bush's mind over his administration's insisting on restarting the nuclear arms race by angling for new, 'usable' mini-nukes which he's directed for use (for the first time in our nation's history) against countries which pose no nuclear threat.
Bush warns of some hostile takeover of Iraq by outside forces in the future as if his own American invasion and occupying forces were some unremarkable adjunct to the faltering regime. There is a similarity to the tyranny of the leaders who've assumed power in Iraq and in the U.S., in that Maliki himself lived in exile in Syria for twenty-one years, providing at least that one shared trait of alienation from Iraqis between the U.S. over-throwers and the Shiite usurpers to Saddam's U.S. assisted rule.
"I want our fellow citizens to consider what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism are allowed to drive us out of the Middle East," Bush told the veterans in Nevada.
"The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that could imperil the civilized world. Extremists of all strains would be emboldened by the knowledge that they forced America to retreat. Terrorists could have more safe havens to conduct attacks on Americans and our friends and allies. Iran could conclude that we were weak -- and could not stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. And once Iran had nuclear weapons, it would set off a nuclear arms race in the region," Bush warned.
"Extremists would control a key part of the world's energy supply, could blackmail and sabotage the global economy. They could use billions of dollars of oil revenues to buy weapons and pursue their deadly ambitions. Our allies in the region would be under greater siege by the enemies of freedom. Early movements toward democracy in the region would be violently reversed," he said.
Imagine, as Bush wondered aloud -- if the U.S. did manage to leave Iraq -- how the news of a U.S. withdrawal would be received by the terrorists who've enjoyed safe haven in the mountains of Afghanistan because of his diversion of the bulk of our military to Iraq. Predictably, they would label the withdrawal a defeat for our cause in Iraq. Yet, our soldiers have already achieved whatever military 'victory' in Iraq that they can reasonably be expected to accomplish with their overthrow of the Saddam regime. Indefinite defense of the puppet government is not an endeavor which can be properly measured as a 'victory' or even a 'success.'
It would, in fact, be a defeat for Bush's ambition to use Iraq as a permanent base of operations against Iran, Syria, and other countries in the region Bush that imagines dominating militarily. An exit from Iraq would also represent a defeat for the Bush cabal's ambition to control the flow and resource from the country's lucrative oil fields. Nothing could be more critical to this administration's imperialistic ambitions than to lose whatever leverage over the regional oil supply and market they imagine they've gained from their invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It is that very ambition of the Bush administration to control the flow and sales of the region's oil that has led to the obsession with Iran that the administration masks behind their inflated, unproved accusations of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Their oil ambitions are clear and unambiguously presented along with their National Intelligence Estimates which regularly list Russia's investments in Iran's oil infrastructure and China's billion dollar oil deals with the most celebrated member of Bush's 'evil axis.'
It's not enough for the U.S. to illegally invade and occupy a sovereign nation in the face of Russian and Chinese objections, now the Bush regime is intent on pressing their aggression and military posturing against Russia and China's economic ally, Iran, to the point of destabilizing the balance of weaponry in Europe which had allowed the decades-old deescalation of tensions and relative peace to prevail. And, they want us to believe that the target of their own destabilizing aggression is the most pernicious threat.
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