[Vision2020] The Deceptions of War
Nick Gier
ngier@uidaho.edu
Sat, 20 Mar 2004 17:20:07 -0800
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Greetings:
While campus politics and the Wilson controversy kept me busy, my Iraq was
overflowing and getting no attention. The anniversary of the war and the
chance to speak at the rally today led me to plow through all the clippings
and print-outs to write my speech. Here is the text for your reading
enjoyment.
THE DECEPTIONS OF WAR
By Nick Gier
Anti-War Rally at Friendship Square
Moscow, Idaho, March 20, 2004
Let me begin with an observation that has been made before but one
that is worth repeating. In the aftermath of September 11th most of the
people of the world united in support of our great loss. A major French
newspaper ran a huge headline that proclaimed that "We are now all
Americans." It was the most good will shown to our country since the
liberation of Europe in 1945.
A wise U.S. president would have capitalized on that good will and
would have built a world-wide coalition to prevent future terrorist
attacks. Instead of focusing on those who attacked us, President Bush
chose to attack Iraq. When major European allies refuse to support him,
Bush turned on them and all others who dared challenged his invasion plans.
Within a period of 16 months, President Bush had destroyed all that
good will by slamming the UN and implying that the Germans and the French
were cowards. Freedom fries were not the worse for me. As a long time
accordion player, the following insult really got me: "Going to war without
France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." (Attributed to
Norman Schwarzkopf.)
Every single reason that Bush gave for going to war has now found to
be misleading or totally inaccurate. A Democratic staff report for the
House Intelligence Committee has now compiled a list of 273 Bush
administration deceptions. Let us take a look at some of these and updates
on them.
The worst deception of all is the conflation of war on terror and
the invasion of Iraq. Even when Bush denied that there was no connection
between September 11 and Saddam Hussein, seventy percent of the American
people, forever gullible and ignorant, still told pollsters that they
thought there was a link. A offer a jingoistic syllogism for your logical
amusement:
Saddam is bad
Osama is bad
Therefore, they are working together
Any beginning logic student can see that this is an invalid argument; it
lacks a middle term connecting the two premises. Perhaps those 70 percent
were listening to the news, but it was only Vice-President Cheney they
heard, assuring them that there was a link and WMDs would be found.
Many postings about the misuse of intelligence have appeared on
the CIA's anonymous complaint board, and what agents are most upset about
are the false allegations about al-Qaeda and Saddam. An article by Mansoor
Ijaz about a working relationship between the two ("The National Review"
6/30/03) has been fully discredited. A "Boston Globe" reporter was on the
ground when U.S. and Kurdish troops raided an Ansar al-Islam camp in
Northeast Iraq. Documents were flying in the air and the reporter and his
interpreter could not find a single one that linked that group with
Saddam. (Recently Al Qaeda rejected a plea for help from Ansar al-Islam,
proving once again how disparate these terrorist groups really are.)
Thousands of documents found in Iraq since the invasion should have
produced a connection to Al Qaeda if there was one.
Other than a brief medical visit to Baghdad, Jordanian Al
Zargawi's alleged links with Saddam has been thoroughly investigated by
European intelligence agencies and nothing has been found. Al Zargawi has
been linked to the Moroccan terrorists who blew up the Madrid trains. One
of his financial bankers is a member of the Qatar royal family, and Qatar
is where we have a major Middle Eastern communications base.
When the UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they reported that all
of Saddam's nuclear capacity had been destroyed. Yet on September 7, 2002,
the Bush administration declared that Iraq would have nuclear weapons in
six months. Remember this was the time when Condolezza Rice warned that we
didn't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. It turns out that the
administration had cited a report from the International Atomic Energy
Association, which denied issuing any such report.
There was also the Niger uranium deception. When Bush gave his
speech in Cincinnati in October, 2002, he must have remembered that the CIA
asked him to remove unsupported claims about Iraq obtaining African
uranium. The CIA again objected to its inclusion in the 2003 State of
Union Address, but reluctantly allowed it if it was attributed to the
British. The British recently admitted that they did not any different
sources than the fraudulent documents that deceived the Italians in the
first place.
And then there were the aluminum tubes that Saddam was going to use
to produce Uranium 235. Even though most experts said that they were most
likely for rocket launchers because they were too thick for uranium
centrifuges, Powell, Bush, Cheney, and Rice pressed the unlikely use for
processing uranium.
Remember the mobile labs that Powell so proudly showed the UN and
the world, the ones that the Bush administration claimed were designed to
disperse biological weapons? Experts from the State Department and the
Defense Intelligence Agency said that they were used to blow up weather
balloons.
Many members of Congress were especially concerned about
intelligence reports that Saddam had the capacity to fly drones along the
Atlantic coast and launch WMDs from them. Air Force intelligence doubted
this before the war and inspectors on the ground in Iraq have confirmed
(cited in an AP release of 8/24/03) that these giant model airplanes had
limited range and could at best carry a camera and a VCR.
Finally, there is the rationale used repeatedly by Bush supporters
and it goes something like this: "It's better to fight terrorists in
Baghdad rather than to fight them in Detroit." During the Cold War
millions of innocent people in the Third World died because both sides
chose to fight that war in some else's country. Thousands of Iraqis died
under the cruel reign of Saddam Hussein, and how many more innocent Iraqis
will die in an US occupation that appears to have no end in sight?
Nick Gier
--Boundary_(ID_bIyXSzlofFnrxdNRqLiBqQ)
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<html>
<font face="Courier New, Courier" size=1>Greetings:<br><br>
While campus politics and the Wilson controversy kept me busy, my Iraq
was overflowing and getting no attention. The anniversary of the war and
the chance to speak at the rally today led me to plow through all the
clippings and print-outs to write my speech. Here is the text for
your reading enjoyment.<br><br>
THE DECEPTIONS OF WAR<br>
By Nick Gier<br>
Anti-War Rally at Friendship Square<br>
Moscow, Idaho, March 20, 2004<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Let me
begin with an observation that has been made before but one that is worth
repeating. In the aftermath of September 11th most of the people of
the world united in support of our great loss. A major French
newspaper ran a huge headline that proclaimed that “We are now all
Americans.” It was the most good will shown to our country since
the liberation of Europe in 1945.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
A wise U.S. president would have
capitalized on that good will and would have built a world-wide coalition
to prevent future terrorist attacks. Instead of focusing on those
who attacked us, President Bush chose to attack Iraq. When major European
allies refuse to support him, Bush turned on them and all others who
dared challenged his invasion plans.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Within a period of 16 months, President
Bush had destroyed all that good will by slamming the UN and implying
that the Germans and the French were cowards. Freedom fries were
not the worse for me. As a long time accordion player, the
following insult really got me: "Going to war without France is like
going deer hunting without your accordion." (Attributed to
Norman Schwarzkopf.)<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Every single reason that Bush gave for
going to war has now found to be misleading or totally inaccurate.
A Democratic staff report for the House Intelligence Committee has now
compiled a list of 273 Bush administration deceptions. Let us take
a look at some of these and updates on them.<br>
<br>
The worst deception of all is the
conflation of war on terror and the invasion of Iraq. Even when
Bush denied that there was no connection between September 11 and Saddam
Hussein, seventy percent of the American people, forever gullible and
ignorant, still told pollsters that they thought there was a link. A
offer a jingoistic syllogism for your logical amusement:<br>
<br>
Saddam is bad<br>
Osama is bad<br>
Therefore, they are working together<br>
<br>
Any beginning logic student can see that this is an invalid argument; it
lacks a middle term connecting the two premises. Perhaps those 70 percent
were listening to the news, but it was only Vice-President Cheney they
heard, assuring them that there was a link and WMDs would be found.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Many
postings about the misuse of intelligence have appeared on the CIA’s
anonymous complaint board, and what agents are most upset about are the
false allegations about al-Qaeda and Saddam. An article by Mansoor Ijaz
about a working relationship between the two (“The National Review”
6/30/03) has been fully discredited. A “Boston Globe” reporter was
on the ground when U.S. and Kurdish troops raided an Ansar al-Islam camp
in Northeast Iraq. Documents were flying in the air and the
reporter and his interpreter could not find a single one that linked that
group with Saddam. (Recently Al Qaeda rejected a plea for help from
Ansar al-Islam, proving once again how disparate these terrorist groups
really are.) Thousands of documents found in Iraq since the invasion
should have produced a connection to Al Qaeda if there was one.<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Other than
a brief medical visit to Baghdad, Jordanian Al Zargawi’s alleged links
with Saddam has been thoroughly investigated by European intelligence
agencies and nothing has been found. Al Zargawi has been linked to the
Moroccan terrorists who blew up the Madrid trains. One of his financial
bankers is a member of the Qatar royal family, and Qatar is where we have
a major Middle Eastern communications base.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>When the
UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they reported that all of Saddam’s
nuclear capacity had been destroyed. Yet on September 7, 2002, the
Bush administration declared that Iraq would have nuclear weapons in six
months. Remember this was the time when Condolezza Rice warned that
we didn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. It turns out
that the administration had cited a report from the International Atomic
Energy Association, which denied issuing any such report.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
There was also the Niger uranium
deception. When Bush gave his speech in Cincinnati in October, 2002, he
must have remembered that the CIA asked him to remove unsupported claims
about Iraq obtaining African uranium. The CIA again objected to its
inclusion in the 2003 State of Union Address, but reluctantly allowed it
if it was attributed to the British. The British recently admitted
that they did not any different sources than the fraudulent documents
that deceived the Italians in the first place. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
And then there were the aluminum tubes
that Saddam was going to use to produce Uranium 235. Even though
most experts said that they were most likely for rocket launchers because
they were too thick for uranium centrifuges, Powell, Bush, Cheney, and
Rice pressed the unlikely use for processing uranium.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Remember the mobile labs that Powell so
proudly showed the UN and the world, the ones that the Bush
administration claimed were designed to disperse biological weapons?
Experts from the State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency
said that they were used to blow up weather balloons.<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Many members of Congress were especially
concerned about intelligence reports that Saddam had the capacity to fly
drones along the Atlantic coast and launch WMDs from them. Air
Force intelligence doubted this before the war and inspectors on the
ground in Iraq have confirmed (cited in an AP release of 8/24/03) that
these giant model airplanes had limited range and could at best carry a
camera and a VCR. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Finally, there is the rationale used
repeatedly by Bush supporters and it goes something like this: “It’s
better to fight terrorists in Baghdad rather than to fight them in
Detroit.” During the Cold War millions of innocent people in the
Third World died because both sides chose to fight that war in some
else’s country. Thousands of Iraqis died under the cruel reign of
Saddam Hussein, and how many more innocent Iraqis will die in an US
occupation that appears to have no end in sight? <br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Nick Gier<br>
</html>
--Boundary_(ID_bIyXSzlofFnrxdNRqLiBqQ)--