[Vision2020] About war

[Joan Opyr]

Carl writes:

>How about those Bush campaign ads that have started in select markets.  The 
>recurring theme evidently is "steady leadership."  Steady....arrogance?  
>Smugness?  Hubris?  Incompetence?  All of these and more?  Have I just been 
>unpatriotic?

Is it a virtue to be steady if you're steadily wrong?  Is it a virtue to 
hold fast when the facts on the ground contradict your airy theories?  The 
first Bush argument for tax cuts for the wealthy was that we had a huge 
budget surplus and so could easily afford them.  When that surplus 
disappeared, Bush changed tacks and sold the tax cuts as a "jobs and growth" 
stimulus.  Well, we've got growth (in the stock market, the trade gap, and 
the federal deficit) and jobs (in Mexico, India, and China).  The solution?  
Make those tax cuts permanent.  As Alan Greenspan testified before Congress 
last week, we can pay for them by cutting Social Security benefits for 
future retirees.  When I'm 68 and on some street corner selling pencils, 
it'll do my heart good to know that Dick Cheney, 93 years old and on his 
fourteenth bionic heart, saved $116,000 in taxes in 2003.

(FYI, the median American household income is $42,000.  Isn't it good to 
know that Dick Cheney will save 2.7 times as much as most families make?  If 
my heart had cockles, I'm sure they'd be warmed.)

Of course, since there are a lot of flags flying in those Bush commercials, 
perhaps the "steady leadership" they're referring to has to do with Iraq.  
Okay . . . which of the following statements did George W. Bush make prior 
to the war about the reasons we needed to invade?

"From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had 
several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ 
warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspectors.  
Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities.  He's given no evidence 
that he has destroyed them."

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought 
significant quantities of uranium from Africa.  Our intelligence sources 
tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes 
suitable for nuclear weapons production."

"Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent 
enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass 
destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use 
he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack."

"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements 
by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects 
terrorists, including members of al-Qaida."

Sorry, that was a trick question.  George Bush said all of these things.  He 
said them on Jan. 28th, 2003 in his State of the Union address.  Mobile 
biological weapons labs?  Our inspectors found a couple of empty trucks, but 
despite early administration and media excitement, tests showed that they 
weren't mobile weapons labs after all.  One apparently was for launching 
weather balloons, and the other, well, who knows?  Perhaps it shipped Fritos 
to one of Saddam's palaces.

The claim about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger?  That's an 
interesting one -- the claim was debunked a full twelve months before Mr. 
Bush made it in his State of the Union address by none other than Dick 
Cheney.  Cheney sent Ambassador Joseph Wilson (whose wife, Valerie Plame, 
was later "outed" as an active CIA agent by vindictive members of the Bush 
Administration) to investigate, and Wilson came back with a definite 
negative.  Now, either Cheney failed to tell Bush; or he told him and Bush 
forgot; or Bush used deliberately misleading information in his State of the 
Union.  Perhaps his "steady leadership" trumped his sense of honesty.

Weapons of mass destruction?  Looks like most of them were destroyed after 
the first Gulf War, and whatever was leftover, Clinton took out with his 
bombing raids in 1998.  The implied connection between Iraq and Al Qaida?  
There wasn't one.  A few months after Bush appeared beneath that "Mission 
Accomplished" banner, administration officials finally felt obliged to issue 
a public statement that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11th.  By that 
time, of course, it was too late.  When we went into Iraq last March, 
seventy percent of Americans believed that Saddam was responsible for the 
World Trade Center attacks.

Steady or stubborn?  A leader or a pied piper?  Some people will be swayed 
by the facts and make their decisions accordingly; others won't.  Or, to 
quote Mrs. Yellowbeard, "Learning never taught me nothing."

George, George, George of the Jungle,
Friend to you and me.
George, George, George of the Jungle,
Watch out for that tree!

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

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