This Way To The Egress
The Onion this week offered up a satirical view of the growing opposition by having Retired Gen. George Washington criticizing Bush’s bungling of the Oil War to NBC’s Meet the Press:
“This entire military venture has been foolhardy and of ill design,” said Washington. “The manifold mistakes committed by this president in Iraq carry grave consequences, and he who holds the position of commander in chief has the responsibility to right those wrongs.”
Sure, that was satire, but after U.S. military deaths in Iraq passed 3,500 this last week, Sixty-three percent of the American public want the United States to set a date for withdrawing troops from Iraq by 2008. Erin Flanagan, whose brother died in Iraq last year, sought an answer from the Republican candidates at the most recent “debate”, but was brushed off, as CNN reports:
Not only did no one answer her question,
many gave glowing reviews of the Bush administration
and advocated staying in Iraq longer.
An informed source testifies for the contrary position. Far too late to save his historical soul from eternal damnation, Colin Powell admits that Bush went ahead with “the Surge” despite warnings to the contrary from his top military advisors. Powell appears to have decided to bolt the Republican party, taking up the role of foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
So let Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson announce support for a total withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq. It will come to nothing if he and the rest of the Democratic Party fail to heed the warning issued by Democratic party chairman Howard Dean during the weekly Democratic radio address:
“The American people hired Democrats last November to ensure that we end this war,” Dean said. “So let me be clear, we know that if we don’t keep our promise, we may find ourselves the minority again.”
Others in the real world also have had their say in opposition to the Oil War, beginning with Pope Ratz himself:
The Vatican considered the war in Afghanistan to be justified, but not the one in Iraq. Benedict urged Bush to pursue a “regional and negotiated” solution to the violent crises engulfing the Mideast. Benedict has been vocal in his opposition to bloodshed in the Mideast, singling out Iraq this past Easter: “Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees.”
Bush’s response?
“Good to be with you, sir,” Bush said.
This didn’t sit well in Catholic Italy:
Italian journalists immediately noted the breach in protocol: The pope formally is to be addressed as “Your Holiness,” not “sir.”
In addition, Bush’s entire demeanor expressed disdain for the Pontiff:
On his way to see the 80-year-old pontiff, the US leader apparently recognized someone he knew, and could be heard greeting the person with a casual “How ya doin’?” The pool reporters also noted Bush’s relaxed posture, crossing his legs “Texan style” while facing the pope across his desk in the private study of the apostolic palace.
Jon Ponder of Pensito Review notes the kid-glove handling by the American media on this sensitive topic:
Why would Bush deliberately insult the pope?
During the president’s European trip three years ago this month, Benedict’s predecessor and ally, Pope John Paul II, called Bush to Rome, forcing an unprecedented change in the presidential schedule, in order to deliver a public scolding over the war in Iraq and, particularly, the torture of prisoners by U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison. Adding sting to the slap was the fact it came a few months after Bush had bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, his highest honor, on John Paul.
[I]t is unfathomable, or should be,
that a thorough briefing on papal protocol
was not fresh in [Bush’s] mind when he entered the room.Imagine the brouhaha if a normal president — especially a Democrat — had made a similar faux pas. I’ve seen nothing about it on TV today, and don’t expect to. Besides, in the unlikely event a controversy brews, Bush-lovers and their running dogs in the media will write it off as just his usual muddling.
Muddling is what Bush does best. Why else would a former representative of the closest ally to the Oval Office neo-confidence men take a shot at George as did Pope Ratz?
Sir Christopher Meyer, the UK’s former ambassador to Washington, said, “I personally believe that the presence of American and British and coalition forces is making things worse, not only inside Iraq but the wider region around Iraq. The arguments against staying for any greater length of time themselves strengthen with every day that passes.”
Even within the White House staff there is dissention over Iraq:
In a written response to questions by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Bush war adviser Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute confirmed news reports that he had voiced doubts during a White House-led policy review that led to Bush’s Jan. 10 announcement that 21,500 more combat troops would go to Baghdad and Anbar province.
Gen. Lute also doesn’t think much of the program to turn over the war to the Iraqis:
“The question in my mind is not to what extent can we force them … to a particular outcome but rather to what degree do they actually have the capacity themselves to produce that outcome,” Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
It doesn’t help when a major representative of the Iraqi government suffers the loss of numerous relatives in an attack upon his home at a time when efforts are underway to combine the various factions in the common cause of ousting the United States forces from Iraq and elsewhere in Southwest Asia.
The recent moves by the Iraqi puppet regime against the Basra oil pipeline workers isn’t going to help Bush remain in control of Iraq’s oil. Neither will the news of the destruction of Iraq’s historical heritage by American forces.
But, warns Brent Budowsky, as bad as these things are, they pale in comparison to the openly stated desires by Bush - and those seeking to take his place - to use nuclear weapons on Iran.
Many people oppose Bush’s mad obsession to outdo Harry Truman’s vaporization of two Japanese cities in 1945, including someone who helped to make Truman’s attack possible:
Ed Grothus worked for 20 years as a machinist at R Site, part of the Los Alamos, N.M. birthplace of The Bomb. “We did the hydrodynamics of implosions,” he told me. “We reduced the size of a bomb by 30 times while we increased the yield by 30 times.”
During the Vietnam War, while watching war coverage on TV, he lost his protective illusion that this was honorable work, ultimately bringing good to the world. “Everyone from Einstein on down failed,” he said. Failed, that is, to curb that establishment or even spread the alarm sufficiently, so that most of the human race grasped the danger they were in.
Grothus wants to repair that failure and install at the entrance to Los Alamos a pair of 30-foot-tall white granite obelisks he had made, engraved with the following message of clear warning in fifteen languages:
“Welcome to Los Alamos, New Mexico, the United States of America, the city of fire. Our fires are brighter than a thousand suns. It was once believed that only God could destroy the world, but scientists working in Los Alamos first harnessed the power of the atom. The power released through fission and fusion gives many men the ability to commence the destruction of all life on earth. . . .”
Walter C. Uhler also hopes to raise awareness of the nuclear threat represented by George W. Bush, and insists that the White Knight coming to our rescue is ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin:
When it comes to the rank incompetence of our pathetic President, George W. Bush, and his reprobate Veep, I’m often reminded of Samuel Johnson’s observation about “a foolish thing well done.” Yet, the abysmally poor performance of the Bush administration during the past six years has me clinging to Dr. Johnson’s phrase, even if in a slightly revised form. Now it’s “a foolish thing poorly done.”
Putting aside the illegality and immorality attending his decision to invade Iraq, Bush’s war there certainly qualifies as “a foolish thing poorly done.” It’s his catastrophic gift to the world. And it “keeps on giving.” For that alone, his infamous place in the history books is secure.
Bush’s excuse is that he is promoting the spread of “freedom and democracy”, but the White House-friendly Washington Post reports that Bush Is Losing Credibility On Democracy. Slate’s Fred Kaplan cuts to the quick by noting:
“To George W. Bush, at a time of steady deterioration in America’s standing and credibility, freedom is just another word for nothing left to say.”
What there is to say is that freedom and democracy are not being spread by George W. Bush. Instead, Dilip Hiro clarifies what Bush is spreading:
For countries — small, middling, or great — acquiring nuclear weapons is all about the most basic requirement: the survival of the regime or nation. Joining the “nuclear club” has proved an effective strategy for survival.
The possession of city-busting, potentially planet-ending weaponry threatens to bring about a MAD — the Cold War acronym for “Mutually Assured Destruction” — world. While the “madness” of this strategy is apparent, a rarely mentioned aspect of today’s geopolitics is that acquiring nuclear arms has proven a logical step for a regime to take when its survival is at stake.
As The Onion had Washington say:
“[I]n truth, it is the duty of any people that wishes to be free to fight for its own independence.”
As the oil workers of Basra demonstrate, they are fighting for their freedom. Others around the world are taking up the cause.
It’s time that the American people did as well.
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“Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” — Albert Einstein