Polls in the United States show unprecedented support for George W. Bush and
his leadership in the victory of the world's sole super-power over the
destitute nation of Afghanistan, and its rag-tag Taliban government. Bush
has become enormously popular and empowered by war. He is cheered on by a
jingoistic and flag-waving media, from pandering pundits and admiring
anchors to the travel industry employing Bush's visage in television
commercials telling you that to be a good American and help win the war,
you must hurry and buy your tickets. Bush destroyed the tattered Taliban in
Afghanistan with a mighty display of hi-tech bombing aided by local warlords
and warriors on the ground. He and his fellow warlords in Washington are
planning where and how to keep the war momentum going now that the "the most
evil one," Osama bin-Laden, appears to have vamoosed. In his Texas cowboy
cockiness that thinly disguises his rich Ivy League frat boy roots, Bush has
said he would get Osama "dead, or alive," but, at least for now, the object
of the greatest manhunt since Jesse James has escaped the noose.
Luckily, for George W., the perfect stand-in for the elusive Osama bin Laden
is the arch-villain of his father, Saddam Hussein. Under his father,
President George H. W. Bush's leadership, Saddam's relatively affluent
country of Iraq was reduced to poverty by the Persian-Gulf War of 1991 and
by the U.S.-driven economic sanctions continuing since the War. In that
War, more bombs were dropped on Iraq than the total dropped by both sides in
all of World War II. An estimated 150,000 Iraqis were killed with at least
1,000,000 more dying since due to the economic sanctions. The elder Bush
demonized Saddam as another Hitler, but withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq
before finishing off Saddam Hussein and his government after Kuwaiti oil
fields were secured for U.S. oil interests. The elder Bush also received
the adulation of the American public with favorable ratings of 90% in the
polls at the height of the patriotic fervor of winning the war against Iraq.
The passion of patriotism cooled with the layoffs of a recession and the
elder Bush lost the election to Bill Clinton in 1992. But now the war
against terrorism is an all-encompassing global struggle, so with Cowboy
George, it is on to other impoverished Islamic countries "who might be
harboring terrorists."
While there is military action brewing in the squalor of smaller Muslim
countries like Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, the big enchilada for Cowboy George
the younger could be Iraq. Saddam is like Osama in that he came into his
own in militaristic terrorism in a United States-backed war against Iran in
the 1980s, killing 1,000,000 people - much like the U.S. recruited Osama
into the military business as a mujahedeen leader to terrorize the Soviets
out of Afghanistan in the early 1980s. Anthrax cultures were supplied to
Iraq by a Virginia firm, the American Type Culture Collection Company in
1985. Saddam has been demonized as a fiendish monster for more than ten
years and there is an ol' family score to settle.
Cowboy George has demanded Iraq allow U.N. inspections for chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons or they will find out what happens if they
don't. Scott Ritter, an ex-U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from the United
States, has repeatedly said that such weapons had "been destroyed or
rendered harmless by 1998." On December 20, the New York Times ran a front
page story about a "defector" from Iraq, who is Kurdish and a member of a
group opposing Hussein called the Iraqi National Congress. He said he was an
engineer who had "personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for
biological, chemical and nuclear weapons." The story said the Iraqi
defector "had been interviewed twice by American intelligence officials"
according to "government experts."
On December 19, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said, "The evidence
is increasingly looking like it was a domestic source" in reference to the
anthrax spores used to kill five Americans in mail attacks. The Associated
Press reported on December 19 that several government laboratories are being
investigated who conducted anthrax research for the CIA and the Department
of Defense. The labs received samples form the U.S. Army Research Institute
of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Military officials have
also admitted that the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah has been working
with anthrax for bio-warfare since 1992. Last summer the Bush
administration killed the inspection enforcement provision of the 1975
Biological Weapons Convention saying it might expose the industrial secrets
of U.S. biotechnological and pharmaceutical companies.
Cowboy George wears his white hat into the continuing war against evil ones
like Saddam Hussein to the praise of an adoring American public and
Congress. On December 19 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a
resolution by Rep. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina by a vote of 392-12
that names Iraq as "a mounting threat to the United States, its allies, and
international peace and security." The same day, U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan warned the United States against attacking Iraq and said it would
"exacerbate the situation and raise tensions in a region that is already
under strain."
Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and civil rights activist in Columbia,
South Carolina. www.turnipseed.net
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