Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
President As 14-Year-Old Cowboy and Oedipal Victim, Wholly Lacking In Irony
Whoah. It seems when George W. opens his library to commemorate all the swell things he accomplished during his reign, it will feature one of his all-time favorite things: Saddam Hussein's pistol, found when Saddam was pulled in his p.j.'s from a hole in the ground. Bush library spokesman Mark Langdale says it shows the U.S. "disarmed (Hussein) literally." Except, umm, the when the gun was found it was unloaded, a perfect piece of symbolism seemingly lost on W. during the 5 years he proudly displayed his trophy.
“We were getting ready to leave the Oval Office, and he told us, ‘Wait a minute, guys, I want to show you something,’ ” recalled Pete Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom. “The president moved back into his private study and he came out with the gun, inside this glass case. He said, ‘The Delta guys pulled it off Saddam.’ He was very proud of it.”
46 Comments so far
Show AllBush is such a brave man. Will he put all his Medals of desertion on the wall somewhere? Lets name a few. The medal of lying, the medal of stealing elections, the medal of war criminal, the medal of our country destruction, the destroyer of our constitution. I am sure he will be as proud of this as he is a stolden weapon from war profits. Perhaps he thinks this is the weapon of mass destruction. The village have their idiot back now.
Have you ever been in the Reagan Library? These things function as cultist mecca's. Their purpose is hero worship, NOT truth. As has become quite plain since Reagan left office, the truth is that he deserves 'Reagan toilet paper', and little else.
Just when I thought nothing could make Bush look any dumber than he is...
Bush exists, at absolute zero. He is, an absolute zero.
with respect - the new Decider is 0
So his library will feature a gun.
How appropriate.
Its not clear to me that his library will feature anything else.
Why didn't he (Bush) make a tobacco pouch out of his (Saddam's) scrotum? And hang his scalp on his belt?
Wouldn't that have been even more awesome? ??
Mr. President, YOU ROCK!
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Who's to say he didn't? That may come out later, a la Eva Braun and her lampshades.
I read of this incident where W. was involved in one of his drunk driving incidents, waking up the neighbors. And when his dad came out of the house and there was an argument, W. challenged his dad to a fist fight! Apparently daddy-Bush just stared him down. And also, apparently Barbara Bush later talking to someone about this incident said there was no question who would have won, had there been a fight. So, the desire to do one better on his dad goes way back, I guess. There are pychos everwhere - but how come the system allows psychos to get this far in public life? That's the amazing (and tragic) part. It's W.'s birthday today - a tragic day indeed.
Alcyon writes: There are pychos everwhere - but how come the system allows psychos to get this far in public life? That's the amazing (and tragic) part.
That is the sad fact that our society has allowed psychos to reach the highest ranks of our politics, business, and military. In fact, it must be a requirement. The more psycho you are, the higher you will get. We have presidents who have endorsed murder, including Bush, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.
so it goes.
"Some humans ain't human
Some people ain't kind
You open up their hearts
And here's what you'll find
A few frozen pizzas
Some ice cubes with hair
A busted Popsicle
You don't wanna go there."
---John Prine
Did he have to register the gun?
Was a background check done before handing him this weapon?
Or is that bit of bother only for ordinary folks.
I swear - this morning before I even read this - I was joking about how there was more gunpowder spent at an intersection near my house on the 4th than we found in Iraq.
It just doesn't any more ironic than this.
Please don't call him the "President" - it is mis-leading. He was never really legitimate, but at least now, we can call him the "former President".
Not worth two word...whoops!
I hope no one is diminishing the importance of taking a ruthless genocidal dictator out of power. Rest assured, the hundreds of thousands of Kurds who were found in mass graves did not care if Hussein was removed in his jammies or full military dress. I'm sure holding onto this last item of his defense was symbolic for our President...as the disarming was finally complete: a disarming that was necessary if the rest of the world had any sort of conscience at all.
...did you even read the article? The gun wasn't loaded. "last item of his defense"? And uh, in case you forgot, Iraq's military was pretty much a joke, and Iraq hadn't had WMDs in almost 20 years.
And Bush came pretty close to Saddam's death toll, except it took him only 6 years instead of several decades. Which was the more ruthless genocidal dictator?
One forth the number of the mass grave alone...many many more were starved out, or executed in their homes and on the streets at the hands of Hussein. And the lives lost since cannot fairly be assigned to a particular individual. The alternative would have been to ignore those atrocities. That's ruthless in itself. That's the disarming I'm speaking of...WMD's or none...Hussein, and his close knit circle were murdering madmen. The deaths in Iraq at their hands were not casualties of war...they were a systematic elimination of a people that held an opposing view.
I don't pretend to know what goes on inside another man's head, and so I won't debate motivation. Just wouldn't be very proud of a country that chose to ignore such a slaughter. I'm just sorry it took so long to take action. And this wasn't over several decades...182,000 were executed and dumped in 1988 alone.
you're forgetting - or ignoring - the fact that it was the USSA that armed him.
Not unlike assigning blame to a gunsmith for selling to an individual who then uses the gun in unlawful, often murderous, acts. But I'll acknowledge that as a valid point...most of the world has been armed by one of the two...over the course of many years and many administrations.
The American government has always maintained the right of its citizens to ship arms to belligerents. President Washington, through his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, and his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, took this position when France protested against the sale of arms to England in 1793, the answer being that "the exporting from the United States of warlike instruments and military stores is not to be interfered with." - Theodore Roosevelt's "Fear God..."p.160
Saddam Hussein was never a nice guy.
Did the US think he'd just hang all that armory on his den wall?
And what was the idea behind supplying both Iraq AND Iran during their 80s war?
The right to share arms?
Kiroc July 6th, 2009 5:47 pm...How many Palestinians have been slaughtered by Israel through the years? We had better hop on that right away, no?
Cynical, that's a terrible conflict in another part of that unstable region. But what Hussein did was not sword against sword...it was an extermination. None of it is black & white. I've heard people say, "we're not the world's police," and I can understand that thinking. But where helpless human beings are oppressed and/or slaughtered, I'm just grateful to hear that end. So much more we don't hear I'm sure, but I can only form opinions on what limited scope I'm allowed.
Kiroc July 6th, 2009 6:47 pm..I understand your position ...to a degree. BUT, do you think the million plus women, children and men we slaughtered indiscriminantly, the millions of refugees we created, the treasures belonging to humanity that we destroyed, the DU that will basically forever poison that area, the thousands we tortured and hundreds we killed through torture and the "theft of the Iraqis oil...all under a false pretense of lies, obfuscation, corruption and deceit.....was worth possibly the ONE positive result of ridding the world of Hussein? Why not just assassinate him as we have done in countless other countries through innumerable covert operations. And again, is a Palestinian childs life worth any less than an Iraqi child?
Cynical
Intelligently and persuasively well stated. The bottom line is that the United States has no right interfering, especially militarily, in the internal affairs of other countries. Is it not curious that the U.S. has no hesitation in sending its soldiers to third world countries while keeping its military out of such powerful countries such as North Korea and China.
Erroll July 6th, 2009 9:29 pm................And let us also not forget the Clinton sanctions that served no purpose other than the starvation of hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT children. Someone have mercy on our collective soul!
Hopefully, Kiroc had something to say about this Kurd injustice when Ronald Reagan was arming Saddam with the weapons he used against the Kurd insurrection.
Yes, 1988, when Daddy Bush was Prez. And his reply to a citizen who wrote to complain about US support for the murderous Hussein? GHWB replied that the US considered Saddam a "stabilizing influence" in the region.
"I hope no one is diminishing the importance of taking a ruthless genocidal dictator out of power."
I couldn't agree more - thank gawd bush is gone!
LOL - good'n
"I hope no one is diminishing the importance of taking a ruthless genocidal dictator out of power"
No, but a lot of people are saddened that Saddam's power was then added to a much bigger genocidal dictator's arsenal of power. Exxon might get some of Iraq's loot now - at the expense of poor Iraqis (ruthless). The USA has genocided many more people than Saddam has in the last half century (and in past centuries, more than the rest of the world combined), and the USA has also destroyed more democratic self government than Saddam ever did (dictatorship defined).
Ah yes, the never ending wheel of justification. The proper time to rescue the Kurds was before they were killed, yes? 9/11 and WMD were the proximate reasons given for this invasion, and the deaths of 5000 Americans and half-a-million Iraqi's must be judged against that reason. By that measure, the invasion was an abject failure.
But, lets discuss it the way YOU want it discussed. I take it that the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's who died as a result of our 'rescue' don't quite add up, for you, to the hundreds of thousands of Kurds who were already dead? LOL.
"Justification" is an odd word where deaths are concerned. I'm relieved that Hussein is no longer allowed to execute at whatever mad whim he had that day. I can't debate the source of his tools of murder, because I simply do not have the data to do so.
The country we live in is obviously not infallible, but generally speaking, I consider it a nation with a conscience. There is no single individual or even administration that can answer for all of the charges being slung in these pages. The U.S. does stand for freedom and liberties, and as a world presence we've tried to help other people realize some of that freedom. The world is a complicated place, and those attempts have...at times...been futile, and even disastrous. That doesn't mean I should be ashamed of my country. It means I should continue to express my opinions through my votes, and informing my representatives of where I stand. We do need to learn from historical mistakes, and hopefully we do as we go forward. It's easy to sit at our keyboards and criticize...but sadly, there really haven't been viable alternatives offered. Unless stoicism is an alternative, and by its nature...it is not.
here's an alternative - stop being an American and join the world.
you'd be amazed at how liberated you will feel as a man without a country.
The Kurds were gassed using the chemical weapons supplied by us. When the crime was discovered, we covered up for him, claiming that the crime was Iranian. That year, we gave Saddam a billion dollars of "aid". "aid" to a country with the better health and education resources than we had, unless you happened to be rich. The year after, Saddam was awarded with 2 billion dollars of "aid". So we definitely were accomplices in those crimes.
Those crimes are definitely not why we invaded. And those crimes are definitely do not excuse us for killing 1.5 million using the sanctions or 1.5 million since the invasion or the 4 million refugees we created.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq based on a pack of lies, would have to be one of the greatest crimes in recent history. If the world has any conscience at all, how do you propose to take out Israel and the USA?
No bullets in Saddam's pistol, no WMDs in Saddam's Iraq.
"when the gun was found it was unloaded, a perfect piece of symbolism"
Saddam's hole appears to have been littered with symbolism!
When the footage of Saddam's capture was aired all those years ago I saw something amongst the litter on the floor of his hideout which made me burst out in laughter.
Talk about ironic "product placement"!
My wife asked me what was so funny and, when I told her what I'd seen, she said she hadn't noticed it.
For some time I wondered if this was just a confection of my twisted imagination, and eventually forgot about it.
Something reminded me of it recently and so I did some "research" via Google.
I wasn't imagining it!
MARS Bars!*
http://www.heraldextra.com/lifestyles/article_e01c6069-dbfd-5a11-939b-fc5ea5de2e07.html
*of course these probably weren't the macho American version, but the effete, nut-less European.
A more apt exhibit at the Dubya Library would be some contaminated rubble from New Orleans, with the inscription, "You're doing a heck of job, Brownie!"
How about the rope they use to hang Bush for war crimes?
That man (W) is so ignorant.
really?
so how's he getting off scott free?
a better word for him is immoral.
vdb July 6th, 2009 6:57 pm..........His father pulls the strings.
And, of course, right next to Saddam's pistol will be desplayed Bush's treasured copy of "My Pet Goat;" upside down, of course.
If you look at pictures of bush that day, he wasn't wearing his flag pin!
no wonder his super powers failed him!
One view of president bush (maybe not even funny because it is too true)
http://www.notonemore.us/staythecourse.htm