- President George Bush's denial of the reality of Iraq
is beginning to sound like a stand-up comedy routine.
-
- "Mr. President, the insurgency has spread to the
whole country."
-
- "We're making great progress."
-
- "But Mr. President, the attacks against coalition
forces have escalated dramatically."
-
- "We're making great progress."
-
- "But Mr. President, all but 2 percent of the Iraqi
people want us to leave."
-
- "We're making great progress."
-
- "And the interim government has no support and in
fact can't step outside the Green Zone without being surrounded by American
security."
-
- "We're making great progress."
-
- And so forth. Whether the president is actually in denial
or is misleading the public for partisan purposes, I will leave to your
judgment. It would be less dangerous if he were engaged in deliberate deception.
That, at least, is a sign of sanity.
-
- Some are now speculating that the president's solution
to the morass in Iraq will be to launch an attack against Iran - after
the election, of course. There can be no other reason to sell Israel bunker-buster
bombs. The only possible target would be Iran's nuclear reactors. The Iranians
would retaliate, and, of course, the United States would join the war in
defense of Israel. Widening the war to a country with 60 million people
might sound stupid, but with this administration's record of stupid decisions,
it's not to be ruled out.
-
- Nothing would destroy the democratic movement in Iran
quicker than an attack by Israel and the United States. The same stupid
people who thought we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq, however,
might actually think Iranians would welcome an attack. People who spend
their lives in academic surroundings can be forgiven for not knowing much
about human nature. The most basic response of all humans is to rally around
their country's government when it is attacked by a foreign power. The
Iranians would certainly do that, as they demonstrated in the 1980s when
Saddam Hussein attacked them.
-
- As all democratic nations do, we have uneven luck in
choosing our leaders, but this is the first administration that actually
scares me. There is nothing so stupid and wrongheaded that I can't visualize
them doing.
-
- Bush has no real compassion. That's why he forbids ceremonies
for returning dead. According to Ollie North, President Reagan was at the
airport every time a dead American serviceman's body came home. The British
also formally greet their returning dead with honor and respect. Only in
the United States does the government even forbid news organizations from
greeting the dead.
-
- Bush and his corporate cronies care for Bush and his
corporate cronies. If Reagan was the Teflon president, Bush is the irresponsible
and unaccountable president. Not only has he created a bloody mess in Iraq,
his economic policies have forced many American working men to endanger
their lives by going there to work. Naturally, wages in Iraq, for everybody
but the troops and the Iraqi people, are exorbitant, since the taxpayers
are footing the bills.
-
- I've noticed that Bush has stayed out of Iraq, except
for his short dead-of-the-night sneak into and out of the Baghdad airport
for a photo op. If we are making such great progress, as he keeps insisting
that we are, surely he could visit the country in the daytime. Other national
leaders have done so.
-
- But the Bush policy in regard to Iraq has been a fraud
from the beginning, and it remains a fraud with the appointment of an old
CIA leech as prime minister to oversee the rape of Iraq by the favored
corporate pirates. The Iraqi people know the score. The question is, Do
the American people?
-
- Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years, reporting
on everything from sports to politics.
-
- From 1969-71, he worked as a campaign staffer for
- gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in
several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist
for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He now writes a syndicated
column which is carried on LewRockwell.com. Reese served two years active
duty in the U.S. Army as a tank gunner. Write to Charley Reese at P.O.
Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.
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- © 2004 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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