- Torrents of mail poured in from the US condemning the
Bush administration...
-
- I've received a huge e-mail response from around the
globe in reply to my last Sunday Sun column. In it, I contended that George
Bush's fabricated war against Iraq was a far worse crime than Watergate,
and said the president and his men were either liars or unbelievably inept.
-
- Most messages, about seven in every 10 by my estimate,
came from Americans.
-
- These messages do not represent a reliable cross-section
of U.S. public opinion, of course. They are simply what was known as a
"convenience sample" when I worked in market research. But they
reveal much about the changing mood in America.
-
- Most were well-written messages from intelligent, educated
people appalled by what their government had done.
-
- I was stunned by the volume of bitterly anti-Bush mail
from his home state, Texas.
-
- In response to last week's shocking admission by Bush's
arms hunter, David Kay, that "We were all wrong," a Chicago reader
wrote: "No, David. You were wrong. Do not include me in your idiocy."
-
- United Nations arms inspector Hans Blix, the French and
German governments and their intelligence services, scores of Iraq experts,
U.S. Arab allies, the unfairly slandered Scott Ritter, and this column
all repeatedly warned there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in
Iraq - certainly none capable of threatening the U.S.
-
- Tenet ignored
-
- Readers reminded me that in October, 2002, CIA director
George Tenet informed Congress that Iraq posed no imminent threat. He was
largely ignored.
-
- Typically, half of my e-mail from Americans is hate mail
of the vilest and most loutish kind from Bush-adoring rustics, neo-conservatives,
and enraged religious militants. Last week, the vast majority was effusively
supportive.
-
- In recent months, bitter resentment boiling up across
the U.S., and surging public anger over Iraq, have become evident. More
and more Americans believe they were lied to, misled and/or defrauded by
the Bush administration over Iraq - which one witty reader calls "Mess-Opotamia."
-
- How ironic to see Martha Stewart being pilloried over
a modest stock sale while President Bush, who misled Congress and America
- taking them into a trumped-up war that to date has killed more than 500
Americans and 10,000 Iraqis - is running for re-election. A lot of mail
came from Republicans and conservatives expressing disgust at the policies
of their party, which, they say, has been hijacked by neo-conservative
ideologues.
-
- Pointless conflict
-
- Many Vietnam veterans wrote to say they are deeply shamed
by what their nation has done in Iraq.
-
- Democrats are in full jihad mode, enraged at Bush and
his phony war and the waste of billions on a pointless conflict when America
lacks enough flu vaccine.
-
- Numerous Democrats still believe the 2000 election was
stolen, and are determined to see Bush & Co. ousted from office. Expect
a high voter turnout in November, particularly among women.
-
- Some Israelis wrote, expressing anguish that their nation's
rightist Likud party had, in their view, co-operated with rightists in
the Bush administration to help promote the Iraq war.
-
- Many readers expressed particular anger and contempt
for the pro-war U.S. media.
-
- "Rent-a-journalist" and "fools" were
some of the gentler terms being hurled at the media. As one reader noted,
"The media were not embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq, they were in
bed."
-
- Touche.
-
- Many Americans are furious the media acted as a shill
for the Bush administration's war policy, whipped up hysteria, and eagerly
trumpeted White House propaganda. In their minds, the media, and particularly
the most stridently pro-war newspapers and cable news channels, have been
badly discredited by the Iraq disaster.
-
- During the Iraq war, the Internet became a sort of "Radio
Free America" that gave the lie to all the White House's war propaganda
promoted by the mainstream media.
-
- Media failed
-
- The media deserve censure. Since 9/11, some North American
media have increasingly resembled the old, boot-licking Soviet press in
the days of Chairman Leonid Brezhnev, rather than an inquiring free press.
-
- Most readers viewed the intelligence investigation announced
by Bush as a cynical whitewash and a delaying tactic. British readers say
the same about Prime Minister Tony Blair's investigation and the recent
Hutton inquiry that found the respected BBC guilty, and Blair innocent
- a farce straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
-
- Readers say they are mad as hell, but don't know what
to do. They express a loss of trust in their government I've not heard
since the days of Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. Many think the
Howard Dean campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was sabotaged
by the pro-Bush corporate media - a view I partly share.
-
- Even more fear November's election will again be "stolen,"
or a "terrorism crisis" will occur, staged to win votes.
-
- Finally, Sun Media was roundly blasted for being so stridently
wrong about Iraq. But it was also strongly lauded by readers for printing
and putting online my non-conformist views, however much it disagreed with
them.
-
- Eric can be reached by e-mail at
- margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
- http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_feb8.html
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