- "Not only can they not find WMD in Iraq," I
commented to E. as we listened to the Bush speech, "But they have
disappeared from his speeches too!" I was listening to the voiceover
on Arabiya, translating his speech to Arabic. He was recycling bits and
pieces of various speeches he used over two years.
-
- E., a younger cousin, and I were sitting around in the
living room, sprawled on the relatively cool tiled floor. The electricity
had been out for 3 hours and we couldn't turn on the air conditioner with
the generator electricity we were getting. E. and I had made a bet earlier
about what the theme of tonight's speech would be. E. guessed Bush would
dig up the tired, old WMD theme from somewhere under the debris of idiocy
and lies coming out of the White House. I told him he,d dredge up 9/11
yet again" tens of thousands of lives later, we would have to bear
the burden of 9/11" again.
-
- I won the bet. The theme was, naturally, terrorism -
the only mention of "weapon" or "weapons" was in reference
to Libya. He actually used the word "terrorist" in the speech
23 times.
-
- He was trying, throughout the speech, to paint a rosy
picture of the situation. According to him, Iraq was flourishing under
the occupation. In Bush's Iraq, there is reconstruction, there is freedom
(in spite of an occupation) and there is democracy.
-
- "He's describing a different country" I commented
to E. and the cousin.
-
- "Yes," E. replied. "He's talking about
the *other* Iraq - the one with the WMD."
-
- "So what's the occasion? Why's the idiot giving
a speech anyway?" The cousin asked, staring at the ceiling fan clicking
away above. I reminded him it was the year anniversary marking the mythical
handover of power to Allawi's Vichy government.
-
- "Oh- Allawi" Is he still alive?" Came
the indolent reply from the cousin. "I,ve lost track" was he
before Al Yawir or after Al Yawir? Was he Prime Minister or did they make
him president at some point?"
-
- 9/11 and the dubious connection with Iraq came up within
less than a minute of the beginning of the speech. The cousin wondered
whether anyone in America still believed Iraq had anything to do with September
11.
-
- Bush said:
- "The troops here and across the world are fighting
a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001."
-
- Do people really still believe this? In spite of that
fact that no WMD were found in Iraq, in spite of the fact that prior to
the war, no American was ever killed in Iraq and now almost 2000 are dead
on Iraqi soil? It's difficult to comprehend that rational people, after
all of this, still actually accept the claims of a link between 9/11 and
Iraq. Or that they could actually believe Iraq is less of a threat today
than it was in 2003.
-
- We did not have Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war. We
didn't know that sort of extremism. We didn't have beheadings or the abduction
of foreigners or religious intolerance. We actually pitied America and
Americans when the Twin Towers went down and when news began leaking out
about it being Muslim fundamentalists- possibly Arabs- we were outraged.
-
- Now 9/11 is getting old. Now, 100,000+ Iraqi lives and
1700+ American lives later, it's becoming difficult to summon up the same
sort of sympathy as before. How does the death of 3,000 Americans and the
fall of two towers somehow justify the horrors in Iraq when not one of
the people involved with the attack was Iraqi?
-
- Bush said:
-
- "Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. "
The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior
commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day.
He said, "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad,
or we deal with it when it comes to us."
-
- He speaks of abroad, as if it is a vague desert-land
filled with heavily-bearded men and possibly camels. Abroad, in his speech
seems to indicate a land of inferior people- less deserving of peace, prosperity
and even life.
-
- Don't Americans know that this vast wasteland of terror
and terrorists otherwise known as Abroad, was home to the first civilizations
and is home now to some of the most sophisticated, educated people in the
region?
-
- Don't Americans realize that abroad, is a country full
of people- men, women and children who are dying hourly? Abroad, is home
for millions of us. It's the place we were raised and the place we hope
to raise our children- your field of war and terror.
-
- The war was brought to us here, and now we have to watch
the country disintegrate before our very eyes. We watch as towns are bombed
and gunned down and evacuated of their people. We watch as friends and
loved ones are detained, or killed or pressured out of the country with
fear and intimidation.
-
- Bush said:
-
- "We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who
exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one
outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent
a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul"
-
- Yes. And Bush is extremely concerned with the mosques.
He might ask the occupation forces in Iraq to quit attacking mosques and
detaining the worshipers inside- to stop raiding them and bombing them
and using them as shelters for American snipers in places like Falluja
and Samarra. And the terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching
hospital in Mosul? Maybe they got their cue from the American troops who
attacked the only functioning hospital in Falluja.
-
- "We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their
country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and
rebuilding while a country is at war is even harder."
-
- Three decades of tyranny isn't what bombed and burned
buildings to the ground. It isn't three decades of tyranny that destroyed
the infrastructure with such things as "Shock and Awe" and various
other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn't
have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off
for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of
electricity daily. In several areas they aren't even getting that much.
-
- "They are doing that by building the institutions
of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly,
freedom of religion and equal justice under law."
-
- We,re so free, we often find ourselves prisoners of our
homes, with roads cut off indefinitely and complete areas made inaccessible.
We are so free to assemble that people now fear having gatherings because
a large number of friends or family members may attract too much attention
and provoke a raid by American or Iraqi forces.
-
- As to Iraqi forces"There was too much to quote on
the new Iraqi forces. He failed to mention that many of their members were
formerly part of militias, and that many of them contributed to the looting
and burning that swept over Iraq after the war and continued for weeks.
-
- "The new Iraqi security forces are proving their
courage every day."
-
- Indeed they are. The forte of the new Iraqi National
Guard? Raids and mass detentions. They have been learning well from the
coalition. They sweep into areas, kick down doors, steal money, valuables,
harass the females in the household and detain the men. The Iraqi security
forces are so effective that a few weeks ago, they managed to kill a high-ranking
police major in Falluja when he ran a red light, shooting him in the head
as his car drove away.
-
- He kept babbling about a "free Iraq" but he
mentioned nothing about when the American forces might actually depart
and the occupation would end, leaving a "free Iraq".
-
- Why aren't the Americans setting a timetable for withdrawal?
Iraqis are constantly wondering why nothing is being done to accelerate
the end of the occupation.
-
- Do the Americans continue to believe such speeches? I
couldn't help but wonder.
-
- "They'll believe anything." E. sighed. "No
matter what sort of absurdity they are fed, they'll believe it. Think up
the most outrageous lie" They have people who,ll believe it."
-
- The cousin sat up at this, his interest piqued. "The
most outrageous lie? How about that Iraq was amassing aliens from Mareekh
[Mars] and training them in the battle art of kung-fu to attack America
in 2010!"
-
- "They,d believe it." E. nodded in the affirmative.
"Or that Iraq was developing a mutant breed of rabid, man-eating bunnies
to unleash upon the Western world. They,d believe that too."
-
- http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/archives
/2005_07_01_riverbendblog_archive.html
|
