Dr. DigiPol

9/11, terrorism, 9/11, terrorism, 9/11, terrorism, 9/11, terrorism, 9/11, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. Aren’t you glad I didn’t say WMD?

And thus we have the reason why the war in Iraq is “worth it,” according to President Bush. And despite speaking before a sea of troops at Fort Bragg, apparently they weren’t as red as the President expected. Except for when he praised the military directly, they barely applauded at all.

The author of the President’s speech should be added to everyone’s list of great fantasy writers. The text carefully wove some of the greatest myths of our day into a tapestry of jingoism and bravado.

First, there is the 9/11 myth. Throughout the 30-minute speech, the President continued his Administration’s long-standing effort to link Iraq to 9/11. What we know is that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and that the Administration intended to invade Iraq immediately after 9/11 because they wanted to do so BEFORE 9/11.

Consider that Richard Clarke was asked by Donald Rumsfeld to find the links between Iraq and 9/11 almost immediately after the Towers fell. Consider that the Downing Street memo shows that the British Foreign Secretary met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and concluded that, “It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.”

Now the President, PM Tony Blair, and Colin Powell (dusted off for a Daily Show visit) all say that the decision could not have been already made because they were still trying to work through the United Nations for a peaceful resolution. Really? Think about this one carefully. Powell went to the UN to call on Iraq to disclose their WMDs or face an invasion. It was Iraq’s last chance to avoid war. Clearly, the Administration wanted us to believe the decision had not yet been made.

But Iraq had repeatedly stated they had no WMDs to disclose. The UN weapons inspectors agreed. The US weapons inspectors agreed. Claims that Iraq tried to buy cake uranium were discredited. And, even after the invasion, our troops could not find WMDs.

So the last chance opportunity at the UN was a red herring. There was no way Iraq could have avoided the war by disclosing their WMDs, because they didn’t have any. It was a classic ploy: disguise an already made decision to go to war by offering a false opportunity to your enemy to avert the war. That makes it look like it was all Iraq’s fault. After all, all they had to do was come clean about WMDs and this whole thing would have blown over. Right!

Still, the President made five attempts in his speech to link 9/11 to Iraq:

1. “The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent.”
2. “After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom.”
3. “The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch.”
4. “They are trying to shake our will in Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001.”
5. “After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing. Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military.”

But it was Saudis that made up the bulk of the hijackers. It was Afghanistan and Iran that provided bin Laden with safe haven. And the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq emerged AFTER we invaded and destroyed the country’s security infrastructure.

Interestingly, Bush never mentioned al Qaeda in the speech. He has lumped all terrorists together into a giant melting pot. Well, maybe not all terrorists. There is still the case of Venezuelan citizen Luis Posada Carrilles, the terrorist who blew up a Cuban airliner in 1976. Venezuela has called on the US to extradite Carrilles to face charges. Perhaps the Administration is holding out because they only render terrorists to countries that torture prisoners to gain intelligence. Or perhaps they don’t consider him a terrorist because he blew up a communist airliner. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, even if he is a terrorist?

Which leads us to the terrorists in Iraq myth. The President referred to terrorism thirty-four times last night. He wants us to believe that the war in Iraq is a vital part of the war on terrorism. Just as he told us the war in Afghanistan was part of the war on terrorism. The idea is to take the battle to the terrorists, where they live.

Well, we were in Afghanistan chasing down that terrorist mastermind bin Laden when the President decided that we should move on and take the war to Iraq, where there was no al Qaeda presence. As a result, bin Laden is still alive. Al Qaeda has since moved operations into an Iraq that once kept them at bay. And this morning we read reports that the defeated Taliban shot down a US helicopter carrying 17 US servicemen in Afghanistan.

I guess the plan was to take the fight to the terrorists, give them a last minute chance to escape to a neighboring country, then invade a country on the other side of that neighboring country. Hmmmmm, sounds like a pincer strategy. Invade Afghanistan, then invade Iraq, then squeeze bin Laden out of Iran by attacking it from both sides. If only we could do so without Afghanis and Iraqis attacking our rear as we rolled into Iran…of course, we are only going into Iran to stop them from making WMDs. After all, the President told us last night that, “Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.” That clearly implies there will be more battlefields in the future.

The end result is a Middle East rife with war, breeding a new generation of terrorists that hate the US more than ever. You think they hated us when we put bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after the Gulf War? What do you think adding bases in Afghanistan and Iraq will do them, make them want to send us chocolate and flowers? At least they know what address to give to FTD for delivery… 1600….

And now for the newest myth, or as it was referred to by the Vice President, the “last throes” of Christ…. No that’s not it. It’s the last throes of the insurgency. But the insurgents are getting more violent, you say? True, but as Cheney and Rumsfeld both taught us last Sunday, the dictionary says throes are violent. We should expect violence.

But as John Stewart reminded us this week, it is not the word “throes” that is at the root of the lie, it is the word “last.” We have been in Iraq for two years. If this is the last throes of the insurgency, why did Rumsfeld tell us that it might last another 12 years. Sounds more like the insurgency is in its early throes, or at least in its middle throes. But hardly does it seem they are in their last throes.

So the award for best fantasy writer for 2005 goes to… the Bush team. Congratulations.

But for all the fantasy of Bush’s speech, the reality remains… thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, and 52 senior Iraqi government and religious leaders assassinated. At this rate, the last throes of the insurgency will be the death of us all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Rants, Raves, Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.