‘The Moment Has Come to Get Rid of Saddam’
Bush’s Faith Run Over by History
This essay appears in the November 8, 2007 issue of the New York Review of Books and is posted here with the kind permission of the editors of that magazine.
* * *
The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
– Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar to President Bush, from the Crawford Transcript of February 22, 2003
Surely one of the agonizing attributes of our post-September 11 age is the unending need to reaffirm realities that have been proved, and proved again, but just as doggedly denied by those in power, forcing us to live trapped between two narratives of present history, the one gaining life and color and vigor as more facts become known, the other growing ever paler, brittler, more desiccated, barely sustained by the life support of official power.
At the center of our national life stands the master narrative of this bifurcated politics: the Iraq war, fought to eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist, brought to a quick and glorious conclusion on a sunlit aircraft carrier deck whose victory celebration almost instantly became a national embarrassment. That was four and a half years ago; the war’s ending and indeed its beginning, so clearly defined for that single trembling instant, have long since vanished into contested history.
The latest entry in that history appeared on September 26, when the Spanish daily El País published a transcript of a discussion held on February 22, 2003 — nearly a month before the war began — between President Bush and José María Aznar, then prime minister of Spain. Though the leaders met at Mr. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, some quickly dubbed the transcript Downing Street Memo II, and indeed the document does share some themes with that critical British memorandum, mostly in its clear demonstration of the gap between what President Bush and members of his administration were saying publicly during the run-up to the war and what they were saying, and doing, in more private settings. Though Hans Blix, the UN chief inspector whose teams were then scouring Iraq for the elusive weapons, had yet to deliver his report — two weeks later he would tell the Security Council that it would take not “years, nor weeks, but months” to complete “the key remaining disarmament tasks” — the President is impatient, even anxious, for war. “This is like Chinese water torture,” he says of the inspections. “We have to put an end to it.”
Even in discussing Aznar’s main concern, the vital need to give the war international legitimacy by securing a second UN resolution justifying the use of force — a resolution that, catastrophically, was never achieved — little pretense is made that an invasion of Iraq is not already a certainty. “If anyone vetoes,” the President tells Aznar,
“we’ll go. Saddam Hussein isn’t disarming. We have to catch him right now. Until now we’ve shown an incredible amount of patience. There are two weeks left. In two weeks we’ll be militarily ready…. We’ll be in Baghdad by the end of March.”
The calendar has already been determined — not by the inspectors and what they might or might not find, nor by the diplomats and what they might or might not negotiate, but by the placement and readiness of warplanes and soldiers and tanks.
When did war become a certainty? The gradations of the President’s attitudes are impossible to chart, though as far back as the previous July, the head of British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove, on his famous consultations in Washington, had detected “a perceptible shift in attitude.” As Dearlove was quoted reporting to the British cabinet in the most famous passage in the Downing Street Memo:
“Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route….”1
It is on this point — the need of the Europeans to have a UN resolution justifying force, and thus a legal, or at least internationally legitimate, war, and the deep ambivalence among Bush administration officials about taking “the UN route” — that much of the drama of the Crawford transcript turns, making it into a kind of playlet pitting the sinuous, subtle, and sophisticated European, worried about the great opposition in Europe, and in Spain in particular, to an American-led war of choice with Iraq (”We need your help with our public opinion,” Aznar tells Bush), against the blustery, impatient, firing-straight-from-the-hip American cowboy. Bush wants to put out the second resolution on Monday. Aznar says, “We’d prefer to wait until Tuesday.” Bush counters, “Monday afternoon, taking the time zone differences into account.” To Bush’s complaint that the UN process was like “Chinese water torture,” Aznar offers soothing understanding and a plea to take a breath:
“Aznar: I agree, but it would be good to be able to count on as many people as possible. Have a little patience.
“Bush: My patience has run out. I won’t go beyond mid-March.“Aznar: I’m not asking you to have indefinite patience. Simply that you do everything possible so that everything comes together.”
Aznar, a right-wing Catholic idealist who believes in the human rights arguments for removing Saddam Hussein, finds himself on a political knife edge: more than nine Spaniards in ten oppose going to war and millions have just marched through the streets of Madrid in angry opposition; he is intensely concerned to gain a UN resolution making the war an internationally sanctioned effort and not just an American-led “aggression.” Bush responds to his plea for diplomacy with a rather remarkable litany of threats directed at the current temporary members of the Security Council. “Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, and Cameroon have to know,” he declares, “that what’s at stake is the United States’ security and acting with a sense of friendship toward us.” In case Aznar doesn’t get the point, he describes to the Spaniard what each nation will suffer if it doesn’t recognize “what’s at stake”:
“[Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos has to know that the Free Trade Agreement with Chile is pending Senate confirmation, and that a negative attitude on this issue could jeopardize that ratification. Angola is receiving funds from the Millennium Account that could also be compromised if they don’t show a positive attitude. And Putin must know that his attitude is jeopardizing the relations of Russia and the United States.”
What is striking about this passage is not only how crude and clumsy it is, with the President of the United States spouting threats like a movie gangster — he presumably wants the Spaniard to convey them directly to the various leaders — but how ineffective the bluster turned out to be. None of these countries changed their position on a second resolution, which, in the event, was never brought before the Security Council to what would have been certain defeat. Bush, in making the threats, did the one thing an effective leader is supposed always to avoid: he issued an order that was not obeyed, thus demonstrating the limits of his power. (The Iraq war itself, meant as it was to “shock and awe” the world and particularly U.S. adversaries, did much the same thing.)
Along with bluster comes stern self-righteousness. Aznar asks whether “there’s a possibility of Saddam Hussein going into exile” — “the biggest success,” he tells the President, “would be to win the game without firing a single shot” — and Bush answers that there is: the Egyptians
“say he’s indicated that he’s willing to go into exile if they let him take $1 billion and all the information that he wants about the weapons of mass destruction.”
And would such exile, asks Aznar, come with a “guarantee” (presumably against prosecution or extradition)? “No guarantee,” declares Bush. “He’s a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa.” Though it’s hard to evaluate whether Saddam was really willing to leave Iraq — the Egyptians, Saudis, and others who were then touting the possibility all had an interest in seeing Saddam leave and the Sunni power structure remain in place — it is inconceivable that he would do so without some sort of guarantee, a possibility Bush forecloses.
What is most interesting in this passage, and indeed in the entire transcript, is what it reveals about Bush’s attitudes and character. One moment he blusters and threatens, the next he speaks reverently and self-righteously about how he is guided by “a historic sense of responsibility”:
“When some years from now History judges us, I don’t want people to ask themselves why Bush, or Aznar, or Blair didn’t face their responsibilities. In the end, what people want is to enjoy freedom. Not long ago, in Romania, I was reminded of the example of Ceausescu: it took just one woman to call him a liar for the whole repressive system to come down. That’s the unstoppable power of freedom. I am convinced that I’ll get that resolution.”
He did not get it, of course. Despite his strong conviction, neither Chile nor Angola nor Russia proved ready to change their votes, threat or no threat. There is a difference between being sure and being right. Bush’s conviction, here as elsewhere, came not from an independent analysis of the facts — of the interests and intentions of the nations involved — but from the wellspring of faith. He has confused rhetoric, however uplifting, and reality. Aznar, the sophisticated European, comments wryly on this. It is the most Jamesian moment in the playlet of Crawford; one can almost see the subtly arched eyebrow:
“Aznar: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
Bush: I am an optimist, because I believe that I’m right. I’m at peace with myself. It’s up to us to face a serious threat to peace.”
It is worrying, as Aznar remarks, to rely on optimism grounded only in belief. The Spaniard knows that gaining that second Security Council resolution, and thus the critical international legitimacy for the war, will be very hard; in many nations, launching a war against Iraq, particularly before the UN inspectors have finished their work, is deeply unpopular. Faith cannot replace facts, nor can a historic sense of mission. Both may be personally comforting — they plainly are to George W. Bush — but they don’t obviate the need to know things.
Bush came to office a man who knew little of the world, who had hardly traveled outside the country, who knew nothing of the practice of foreign policy and diplomacy. Two years later, after the attacks of September 11 and his emergence as a self-described “war president,” he has come to know only that this lack of knowledge is not a handicap but perhaps even a strength: that he doesn’t need to know things in order to believe that he’s right and to be at peace with himself. He has redefined his weakness — his lack of knowledge and experience — as his singular strength. He believes he’s right. It is a matter of generations and destiny and freedom: it is “up to us to face a serious threat to peace.” For Bush, faith, conviction, and a felt sense of destiny — not facts or knowledge — are the real necessities of leadership.2
So Bush is confident — confident about winning the second resolution and thus international legitimacy; confident, because “we’re developing a very strong humanitarian aid package,” that “there’s a good basis for a better future” in a “post-Saddam Iraq.” In fact, of course, at the very moment he is telling these things to the Spanish prime minister in Crawford, Texas, the postwar planning in Washington is a shambles, consisting of little more than confusion and savage internecine warfare between the Defense and State Departments.
The plan for governance in “post-Saddam Iraq” does not exist, all discussion of it having been paralyzed by a bitter dispute between officials in the Pentagon, State Department, and CIA that the President will never resolve. The Iraqi “civil society” that he tells Aznar is “relatively strong” will soon be decimated by the prolonged looting and chaos that follows on the entry of American troops into Baghdad. The “good bureaucracy” he boasts about in Iraq will shortly be destroyed by a radical de-Baathification ordered by the American proconsul that he almost certainly never approved. The Iraqi army that he decides in early March will be retained and used for reconstruction will instead be peremptorily dissolved, to catastrophic effect.
If these radical departures from the President’s chosen plan have dampened his optimism and faith — or indeed have even led him to try to discover what happened — there is no evidence of it. When Bush’s latest biographer, Robert Draper, asked him why the Iraqi army had not been kept intact, as the President had decided it should be, Bush replied, “Yeah, I can’t remember. I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’”3
“This is the policy, what happened?” As a subtitle for a history of the Iraq war, one could certainly do worse. Prime Minister Aznar is gone now, having been fatally weakened by his support for the Iraq war and the failure to obtain United Nations support for it; almost exactly a year after the war began, jihadists targeted the Madrid train station, killing nearly two hundred Spaniards and sending the prime minister to electoral defeat. Tony Blair, the star of the Downing Street Memo, is gone as well, his popularity having never recovered from his staunch support of the war. George W. Bush, on the other hand, nearly five years after he launched the war, remains confident of victory, just as he was confident he would win that second UN resolution. There is no sign that his confidence is any more firmly rooted in reality now than it was then. Instead of reality we have faith — in himself, in the deity, in “the unstoppable power of human freedom.” He stands as lead actor in his own narrative of history, a story that grows steadily paler and more contested, animated solely by the authority of official power. George W. Bush remains, we are told, “at peace with himself.”
Mark Danner, who has written about foreign affairs and politics for two decades, is the author of The Secret Way to War, Torture and Truth, and The Massacre at El Mozote, among other books. He is Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs, Politics, and the Humanities at Bard College. His writing on Iraq and other subjects appears regularly in the New York Review of Books. His work is archived at MarkDanner.com.
Footnotes:
1. Dearlove’s consultations had taken place on July 20, 2002, in Washington and at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and he reported to a meeting of the British “war cabinet” at Ten Downing Street three days later. See Mark Danner, The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History (New York Review Books, 2006), pp. 6-7 and pp. 88-89.
2. And not just for George Bush. The mystique of leadership — of faith over facts — pulled others along in its wake. Condoleezza Rice, for example, makes a curious appearance in the discussion, assuring the President and the Spanish prime minister that she has “the impression” that Hans Blix, whose report is due the following week, “will now be more negative than before about the Iraqis’ intentions.” In fact, quite the opposite: Blix will tell the Security Council that “the key remaining disarmament tasks” can be achieved not in “years, nor weeks, but months.” Here is what Blix told the Security Council on March 7, 2003:
“How much time would it take to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks? While cooperation can and is to be immediate, disarmament and at any rate the verification of it cannot be instant. Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude, induced by continued outside pressure, it would still take some time to verify sites and items, analyse documents, interview relevant persons, and draw conclusions. It would not take years, nor weeks, but months. Neither governments nor inspectors would want disarmament inspection to go on forever. However, it must be remembered that in accordance with the governing resolutions, a sustained inspection and monitoring system is to remain in place after verified disarmament to give confidence and to strike an alarm, if signs were seen of the revival of any proscribed weapons programmes.”
Blix’s conclusions were not only not “more negative than before about the Iraqis’ intentions”; he suggests that inspections of all the suspect sites could be completed in a matter of months. President Bush, needless to say, is not willing to wait for months, or even for weeks, for the additional inspections to be completed. What would have happened if he had been? On the one hand, the administration’s willingness to delay might have secured a deal whereby additional countries would have supported “all means necessary” to deal with Saddam. On the other, the inspectors, given more time, would have discovered no weapons, likely leading the administration to argue that the inspections themselves were useless — not that the weapons didn’t exist. But the momentum for war would have been blunted.
3. According to the New York Times account of this exchange:
“Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein — era military, ‘The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.’”But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, ‘Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, “This is the policy, what happened?”‘ But, he added, ‘Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,’ referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.”
See Jim Rutenberg, “In Book, Bush Peeks Ahead to His Legacy,” The New York Times, September 2, 2007, and Robert Draper, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (Free Press, 2007), p. 211.
Copyright 2007 Mark Danner
Saddam Hussein was lynched. He was a Sunni tried by Shiites during a sectarian civil war. The trial was a farce with a fixed outcome. His appeal was a complete joke. His execution was so unprofessional and malignant that even a staunch supporter of the death penalty would cringe.
He didn’t have chemical weapons. He didn’t have nuclear weapons. The years of sanctions against his country were unjustified. The attack on his country was also unjustified.
I hear people say “Don’t forget that he was a viscious tyrant.”
Oh yeah? How many Iraqis did he kill? How many have WE killed?
I hear people say “He used chemical weapons on his own people!”
So how much DU have we used on the Iraqis?
And no one is held accountable…
extraordinary analysis. thank god for the author and commondreams.
“The only thing that bothers me…is your optimism” - Aznar was pretty close here to telling Bush he was bonkers, but Bush didn’t hear it because he was listening to the voices in his head.
I read elsewhere that the documents Saddam wanted to take with him was “insurance”, that is documentation for some of the shadier dealing he had had with the US. In fact this could be why his offices were trashed after the occupation.
Aznar lost the election after the Madrid bombings, but not as some think, because of Iraq, or the Spainish “caving in to terrorism”. Aznar made the error of blaming — without any proof –the bombing on the Basque ETA. When it soon became apparent that it was foreign terrorists, the Spainish voters through Aznar out on his ear. That the new gov’t withdrew their troops from Iraq was something they had said long before the bombings
“Mr. Bush said, ‘Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, “This is the policy, what happened?””
It takes a stupid man to support republican policies. Which is unfortunate I’m sure, but if you’re a billion dollar corporation that exists solely to make profit, you still better donate to his campaign.
And this is the result. We have an idiot in charge. This article brought that home even more so than the last hundred or so.
There is ample evidence to support the Downing Street memo that the CASE was FIXED for war. The use of a “faith based” contingent for support in contrast with the reality-based community is a fascinating breach from consensual reality; and that’s where Bush’s use of the word freedom comes into play.
Yesterday’s CD offered an article on Gothic literature and its artistic use of the proverbial mirror: that what we don’t own in ourselves we tend to project onto others. Does Bush really think his cause is in pursuit of freedom? If so, why all the surveillance of domestic citizens, why the repressive tendencies of the Patriot Act, why bend law to allow for torture and abuse? These actions are antithetical to freedom, and yet on and on he chants the word. Maybe it’s just for smoke and mirrors. Which is more chilling that he believes his own lies or that he is the Orwellian mouthpiece for l984-style powers?
SiouxRose “… why all the surveillance of domestic citizens, why the repressive tendencies of the Patriot Act, why bend law to allow for torture and abuse?”
We shouldn’t forget Blackwater with their hundreds of acres of military training facilities in Illinois, North Carolina, and soon to be California; plus all the no-bid contracts Bush has handed them.
What Bush says and what Bush does never has matched up. But while he keeps our attention on all those other things, we’re getting sewn up tightly in a net we aren’t even aware is being woven.
Do not focus on Bush. It takes more than 1 man to steal an election(s), lie a nation into a war, and completely drain its surpluses.
There are many people and organizations involved who gain from endless war and the oil economy. They are the ones who direct his many actions.
I have been in and out of Iraq many times, my first visit being thirty years ago. Saddam’s regime was built on the Stalinist model and was mostly a danger to itself. While Saddam was a maestro at ruling his own country, things became complicated after the Islamic revolution in Iran. (Iran was very much a terrorist state at the time of the revolution and tried to destabilize the region.) Saddam never really understood how the outside world functioned and felt justified in attacking Iran and the invasion of Kuwait was largely because Iraq was bankrupt following a proxy war for America. Being king of the roost in Iraq gave Saddam a great sense of confidence. Of course the population lived in fear, but the state was well ordered in a socialist secular manner with education, jobs and schools–you name it. Folks who were not political had little to fear. I lived in Baghdad and Mosul off and on for five years and Saddam was on tv virtually every night talking for hours and it was obvious that he, like George Bush, was dazzled by his own inner light and, because he knew virtually nothing of the outside world (except Egypt), he of course acted out of ignorance–just like W. The irony is that Saddam was totally secular while our President is the real holy warrior. And now “W” is talking about WW III. In final analysis, I think that Bush worships the the god of war–just like the people he hates.
We know the Smirk wanted a war because a war would give him a ’successful presidency’.
We know that Bill and the Demoticons wanted ‘regime change’ & bombed Iraq every single day of his presidency.
Though Phony Tony is gone, Gordon Brown is only maneuvering to show that he’s “different” from Tony — there’s no substantive change. Aznar is gone from Spain but the abominable Sarkozy is in in France & eager to be the Blair of war on Iran.
Why does Mark Danner assume we have “the unending need to reaffirm realities that have been proved, and proved again?”
As Tonto once said, what do you mean “we,” white man?”
Maybe some of us have the need to take down the corporate media that sold this war, and the two sold-out political parties that keep it going.
But if you are totally afraid to think a radical thought, and yet somehow you absolutely have to keep writing “political analysis” for the NYRB, then maybe you have “the unending need to reaffirm realities that have been proved, and proved again.”
The rest of us, not so much.
What was good enough for Saddam is good enough for George!
As one example–
December 1988 - Dow Chem sold $ 1.5 million worth of highly toxic pesticide to Iraq (can you say precursor? I knew you could)
The neocons were ’sure’ that Saddam had WMDs because they had the bills of sale from American corporations to prove it.
So when (re: TheLorax 3:08) anyone says that Saddam killed his own people (and a lot of Iranians), point out that he was able to do so because ‘we’ sold him the killing tools…and satellite imagery to pinpoint where the most people could be killed.
Or do people think he made chemical weapons out of sand?
And Rumsfeld shook Saddam’s hand to seal the deal.
Is the United States of Israel the Master or has it been mastered out of good sense and morality by its possession of unthinkable quantities of WMD and insatiable lust for Oil?
The USI is a real Saddam of nightmarish intensity. So powerful that everyone hides under their blankets, and tries to go to sleep again, pretending its just a dream, that the USI is really quite a friendly teddy.
The USI now trying the rules of intimidation and force with Iran, the only kinds of relationship it seems capable of.
The best sanctions against the USI would be financial. Get together, move the money, Dip the exchange rates, the stock prices, drop the US dollar, every time a Zionist Zealot rattles the sabre, and the USI might just start to feel it in the only organs of sensation they have left, the money balls.
ROBERT MAJURE says, “I think that Bush worships the the god of war–just like the people he hates.” Thank you for THAT observation as I think it cannot be under-stated. To align the huge fundamentalist religious base in this nation with the policies of unapologetic warfare is a diabolical mis-interpretation of EVERYTHING that Jesus (Bush’s purported “father” and “consultant”) stood for. I tried to write something on this topic in the forum following James Carroll’s recent piece, but after an elaborate effort on my part, a computer glitch erased it. Mercury, the winged wonder and planet with direct impact on communications and related technologies is now in retrograde: prepare for lots of weird twists and turns with electronics, messages, and communications in general.
Those that make war for profit serve one god only, mars god of violent ends justify the means initiatives.
Well it’s certainly time to get rid of somebody thats for sure.
On the basis of his utterance in the article, Bush appears to be in a trance, a weakling acting under the influence and the power of AIPAC.
———————–
TheLorax,
If Bush killed more people than Saddam, and if he used more DU than Saddam used chemical weapons, that does not exonerate Saddam. Among his other atrocities, he was a US lackey who started a war of choice with Iran on US orders that killed and maimed about two million. He got what he deserved. However, I agree with your conclusion that he was a lesser criminal than your president. What are you going to do about him?
@locust
“December 1988 - Dow Chem sold $ 1.5 million worth of highly toxic pesticide to Iraq (can you say precursor? I knew you could)
The neocons were ’sure’ that Saddam had WMDs because they had the bills of sale from American corporations to prove it.”
Even better - if you’re a recent migrant to say, California, and are working on one of the huge factory farms, you can get first-hand experience of those self-same highly toxic weapons of mass destruction. Or to put it in a Vietnam War context, you can get defoliated for the sake of the average US consumer.
The things we do for love …
Like working in the defoliant and pesticide
And there’s nowhere to go
And you feel like a part of you is dying
And you’re looking for the answer in her eyes
And you think you’re going to break up,
And she says … she coughs her lungs out …
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe pesticide,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my spray-gun beside the golden door!”
Despite the cleaver use of the oxymoron phrase “compassionate conservative” this type of behavior is not possible among republicans.
And they know it is not possible to demonstrate compassion for anyone or anything except the bottom line of their bank account.
This is why Heir Rove had to devise a distorted deceitful phrase that would counteract the general conception that republicans are just not compassionate.
They seem to be born with the greed Gene.
From my perspective republicans and quite a few democrats masquerading as progressives are apparently born with a special DNA Gene, which makes them lying, thoughtless, selfish, greedy warmongers.
Unfortunately about 50 percent of the electorate is cursed or blessed with this evil Gene depending upon your point of view.
Hypocrisy America is thy name and republicans its standard bearer. My beloved country has fallen into the hands of those possessing the selfish Gene.
The results are all around us; oil prices are up three times what they were in 2000 (mission accomplished) war and the threat of war is everywhere, our social structure is being dismantled brick by brick and yet we seem powerless to stop this degeneration of our ideals.
Where is Monica Lewinsky when we need her?
If a little fellatio in the oval office would help distract this madman in the white house from his obsession with war, I am all for it, we promise no impeachment for sex between consenting adults.
I realize that sex is the most horrific crime imaginable among Christian republicans and war death and destruction is simply the American way of doing business, but my main point being is there really any hope that America will survive this massive assault on her foundation?
“There is ample evidence to support the Downing Street memo that the CASE was FIXED for war.”
Is there ample evidence? You are likely referring to this part, most often cited:
‘But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.’
The question as to whether this means there were lies or falsifications remains unsettled. But I wonder what you think of this from the same document, referring to consequences of an invasion, not very well known:
‘For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.’
Would people who knew that there were no WMD use language like the above? Just trying to point out the Downing Street Memo does not appear to be much of a smoking gun.
sequoiabison,
The answer to your question regarding whether “America will survive this massive assault on her foundation” seems to be obviously “No.”
The neocons love the concept of “creative destruction” as they attempt to remake the Middle East to make it much more profitable for well-connected corporations and more compliant to Israel’s wishes. As they experience catastrophic failure in that task, and as other catastrophes of fascist rule accumulate, possibly opportunities will arise in Amerikkka for progressives and other well-meaning citizens to engage in a little creative destruction of their own (non-violent of course), to remake Amerikkka into a land on the cutting edge of humanistic civilization.
The old Amerikkka is fading fast. It is futile to try to ever bring it back. It was not that wonderful anyway, and we need to work for the day when we will hardly miss it.
“The neocons love the concept of “creative destruction” ”
So do economists and naturalists.
If you are invested in the Perpetual War Portfolio, you have made 108.86% on your investment since the war in Iraq began. How you gonna argue with that?
Just a short remark about Aznar. Even in their need to distance themselves from BushCo, many authors and posters to this website tend to be US centred. Yes, you carry the greatest evil within your boundaries, I admit so much, but let me tell you that José Maria Aznar was NOT a right-wing Catholic idealist who believed in human rights arguments. He was, and still is behind the scenes of Spanish politics, a plain old fascist Franco lover who only was in the bargain with Bush because he enjoyed a little global spotlight. For that he sent soldiers to Iraq and for that 200 commuters were killed on 11 March 2004. Aznar is just as much a war criminal as is George Bush.
Demerara October 17th, 2007 5:50 pm
“Do not focus on Bush. It takes more than 1 man to steal an election(s), lie a nation into a war….There are many people and organizations involved who gain”
Yes - regrettably, the political decay involves more than concentrated political-economic power at the top. The right wing of the U.S. has a large mass base - which is to say, your Mr. Bush is the kind of politician elected by a right wing nation.
jakenewton October 18th, 2007 11:32 am
“The question as to whether this means there were lies or falsifications remains unsettled.”
Lied? Can anyone doubt Bush sincerly believed Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles for the purpose of delivering its biological toxin payloads deep into U.S. territory?
The final killing of Saddam Hussein would be declared by Bush as a victory in the name of justice. The Republicans have always seen us Democrats as Big Brother for our call for Big government that takes from the rich and gives to the poor. The real evil all watching government has been George W. himself, as his face shows up on our screens and mesmerizes the idiocracy of justice in the name of death. And he calls himself a Christian. Wasn’t it he that won his Pesidency via his little Brothers state of Florida. If the pilgrims on the Mayflower could have seen that their embarkment would bloom, they never would have thought it would be like this. Comedian actor George Burns, known for his funny portrayal of God, is turning over in his grave because the world is blind to the second coming of the Burning Bush. Yet Bush still thinks he is the chosen one as the second coming of a Son to the Presidency. In God We Trust? Love was the answer, Who’s Sane? was the question.
“Lied? Can anyone doubt Bush sincerly believed Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles for the purpose of delivering its biological toxin payloads deep into U.S. territory?”
Of course, I was reffering to the Downing Street Memo. The drone technology you refer to doesn’t seem too hard to pull off. Tell me about the evidence pro and con, and what you think Bush knew, and why.
jakenewton October 20th, 2007 10:49 am
“The drone technology you refer to doesn’t seem too hard to pull off.”
You should excuse me, sir, but I am surprised that anyone would “lead off” like you. Naturally it is not a matter of technical possibility in the abstract, but of a most specific allegation by your American President that the government of Iraq was developing unmanned airplanes for the purpose of attacking the U.S.
Did you not know of this allegation?
“Did you not know of this allegation?”
Yes, it’s old news. It also has nothing to do with the Downing Street Memo.
abramawicz October 21st, 2007 4:06 pm
“Did you not know of this allegation?”
jakenewton October 22nd, 2007 7:49 am
“Yes, it’s old news.”
I thank you for the admission, sir, however testy: yes, naturally you knew of the specific allegation - making talk of technical possibility in the abstract a distractor from the essential question: the allegation that the government of Iraq was, in fact, developing unpiloted airplanes for a specific purpose, the delivery of supposedly existing biological payloads onto U.S. soil.
“it’s old news.”
From new graves come a hundred laughs.