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Bushco Blames World
The UK Observer reports today that the administration knew there were no WMD to be found as early as last May. We know Bush lied about Iraq purchasing uranium from Niger in his State of the Union speech a year ago. We now know that Powell's 'evidence' presentation at the U.N. was full of holes and distortions. Cheney said just two weeks ago that we have 'conclusive evidence' of WMD in Iraq.
So now Bush wants a bi-partisan commission to investigate 'intelligence failures' regarding the missing WMD in Iraq. If this goes anything like the 9/11 commission, he'll first try to appoint Kissinger to head it, then he'll deny them access to anything and everything that relates to the White House, he'll stretch out their deadline past the election, and will wait out the storm.
When is this man going to stop blaming the world for his own problems? Wouldn't one who decides to adopt a policy of pre-emption make sure his intelligence was rock-solid before commencing an action driven by that policy? Bush has blamed the CIA, Rice, the U.N., France, Germany, and anyone else he can for his problems in Iraq.
The unavoidable facts for this administration are that they decided to overthrow Saddam on day 1; they used a national tragedy to propel them into the preplanned conflict; they told the country that Iraq was an imminent threat from nuclear weapons; they told the country the war was over on May 1; they bankrupted the government in the process; they gave out no-bid contracts to the VP's buddies; they outed a covert CIA operative to silence their critics; they tried to rewrite history and say Iraq hadn't allowed inspectors into the country before the war; and they are directly responsible for over 500 U.S. solider deaths and the deaths of 10,000 Iraqis.
Who should be investigated here? Is it the CIA or the administration? There is merit in finding out what the CIA knew, how they came to their conclusions, and what they presented to the president--but there is equal if not more merit in finding out what Bush was told, what questions he asked, and how he came to the decisions he made.
You know, one thing to think about is why? What was in it for Bush to put himself in this difficult situation, so close to the election. Bush supporters would say he is just trying to protect the country. Bush campaign staff would say he's just a regular guy doing a difficult job. I would say that at least one main reason comes down to money.
He has to pay back all of the fat cats who put him in office. Remember that George Bush is a failed businessman with a terrible CV that any second-rate journalist could have (and did) uncover during his campaign. But throw enough money at the problem, and it all gets buried in propagandistic bullshit. He's back on this train again, now with an even worse CV than before. And he's been using taxpayer funds every week to jet around the country and collect more money than last time for the second round. Heck, he's already spent $33 million of his campaign money this year, and he's not even running against anyone in the primary. Where'd it all go?
He's spent his administration effectively transferring the wealth of the country into the pockets of large corporations. The wars are all about this. Remember Eisenhower's warning about the 'military industrial complex?' The new warning would be about the 'privatized social service complex.' The Bush formula for payback is: take a large goverment program, bid it out to a private company, and you get in its place a program with reduced effectiveness whose funds are siphoned by administrative costs. Bush wants to try this with everything he can think of, from schools to medicare, from social security to half the federal workforce. In a realm of increasingly large global corporations, this formula accelerates the country's transition to a corporate state, and ensures outside control over federal income (i.e. your checkbook) from a marketplace with a dwindling number of competitors.
You've seen me and others refer to "Bushco" as a toungue-in-cheek reference to Bush as corporation (I first got this from the great satirical cartoonist Mark Fiore). But its not so far-fetched. Bush has overseen the largest and fastest increase in the size of the federal government in modern history. The republican ideal is 'smaller government', or 'government off your back.' Bush seems to think the best way to get government off your back is to turn it over to those ever-responsible Bush-friendly corporations that put him in office, like Enron and Worldcom.
I'm sure there are motivations beyond money that drive Bush to do the things he does. Stupidity comes to mind. So does arrogance, pride, and ignorance. Power was this man's birthright destiny, and his family has made sure he gets it despite his lack of aptitude for much of anything.
Which brings me back to my question, which is why? Why did Bush screw this up so badly? Why didn't he hide the lies better, or wait a few more weeks before attacking Iraq, or build a coalition, or move a bit more slowly? Because he doesn't have to worry about any of these things. Money buys power and power gets money and he's got all he needs of both.
Posted on February 1, 2004 06:30 PM
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