Amid all the talk of training Iraqi soldiers, heading off a civil war, and protecting a fledging democracy, one overriding agenda has been ignored in the debate over the timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. President George W. Bush will not withdraw our forces until U.S. oil companies have secure access to Iraq’s resources.
Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young’s arrests at the State of the Union for wearing opposing “protest” T-shirts is the latest illustration of how the Iraq War is the nation’s most provocative issue. The attack on free speech for both sides was in fact outrageous. But lost in the T-shirt battle is what really matters: President George W. Bush’s failure to tell the nation about the true costs of the war.
Last year, 5,736 Iraqis died and 845 U.S. soldiers died in the Iraq War, many at the hands of the estimated 2,000 foreign terrorist fighters based in the U.S.-occupied country. If this conflict is part of a larger war on terrorism as President George W. Bush claims, it’s clear the U.S. is losing the so-called “global war on terror.”
Reprinted from Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures
While the nation mourns the 2,000th U.S. combat death in Iraq, instead of looking for ways to plan an exit strategy, Congress is finalizing another payment of $50 billion to continue fighting the war.
As the official rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq—that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” which threatened the national security of the United States and that the Iraqi government had operational ties to al-Qaida—are now widely acknowledged to have been fabricated, and the back-up rationalization—of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq—is also losing credibility, increasing attention is being given as to why the U.S. government, with broad bipartisan support, made such a fateful decision.
The MO–method of operation or, more formally, modus operandi–is clear from even the most cursory look at the externals. Put Commander-in-Chief George Bush in front of an audience that is sure to be friendly (like military cadets), test the themes, wait for the inevitable applause, and depart right after the speech. Progressively move on to fora less hand-picked but sure to contain a number of individuals sympathetic to the White House line. Above all, sound resolute (like Churchill), stand tall, and be assured that there’s no such thing as too much repetition.
Adapted from a session of KQED’s Forum hosted by Michael Krasny. Four guests from across the political spectrum debate the meaning of the results of the elections and the future of Iraq and U.S. military involvement there.
Diverse forces are assembling to bring Bush administration officials to account for war crimes. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother for Peace, insists: “We cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.” 1 Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and assistant secretary of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, charges Bush with “lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture centers” and calls for the president’s impeachment. 2 Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the American Society of International Law, declares: “These policies make a mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans] should be marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques carried out in our name.” 3
President Bush’s speech, outlining a “Strategy for Victory in Iraq” at the U.S. Naval Academy on November 30, 2005, failed to take the opportunity created by the public and the U.S. Congress to engage in a real debate about the Iraq War. Instead Bush put forth a new glossy covered report, polished off some old rhetoric and continued to give a view of the Iraq War clouded by rose colored glasses. Vowing to “Stay the Course” the President made clear that the administration still doesn’t recognize the main factor in the war—that the occupation is driving the resistance.