December 29, 2006
"You have many enemies, that know not why they are so, but, like to village curs, bark when their fellows do." -- Shakespeare
Who is the enemy in Iraq who Bush is afraid would launch attacks on the U.S., and why haven't they already done it? Here we are, bogged down in Iraq with our soldiers suffering record numbers of attacks and deaths, and Bush is refusing to leave because he's worried about some future group who would take over the country and find "safe haven" in Iraq to attack the U.S.. I can't think of a greater ignorance than to keep our soldiers engaged in the killing of Iraqis who resist Bush's propped-up regime, just to prevent "extremists" and "radicals" from becoming "emboldened" enough to attack our country some time in the future.
"If we were to not succeed in Iraq, the enemy -- the extremists, the radicals -- would have safe haven from which to launch further attacks, they would be emboldened; they would be in a position to threaten the United States of America," Bush
warned reporters after meeting with his national security team Thursday.
There must be countless individuals and groups who would harm the U.S. or our interests if given the opportunity, but, it is the height of stupidity to arbitrarily choose a sovereign nation like Iraq to invade and occupy - send the population into chaos by removing the controlling regime in authority - and then claim you're afraid to stop your aggression because you're worried the offended citizens will retaliate.
Bush is posturing as if there was some lasting influence which the Maliki regime could exert (if given more time) to enhance their rule over Iraqis which would discourage the violent resistance to their newly installed government. There isn't just a mere band of "enemies" to be conquered in Iraq. Those resisting the U.S. sponsored regime are, in many cases, the same folks who braved the U.S. induced violence and voted to allow these leaders to ascend to power and influence over them.
What Bush and Maliki are contemplating as they chart a "path forward," is a last-gasp burst of 'shock and awe' to intimidate the resisting population into recognizing and accepting their increasingly autocratic rule. What will likely be achieved, however, will be a widening of the conflict and a deepening of the resentments from the Iraqi population which Bush's own intelligence agencies tell him he's enhancing and fostering with his continued occupation.
Before Bush commits anymore of our nation's resources and defenses to his Iraq folly, he needs to explain what his original reasoning was in destabilizing a country which didn't threaten us at all - leaving us and the region with a cauldron of animosity toward our nation, our interests, and our allies. Forget the nonsense about 'denying "enemies" a "safe haven" in Iraq if we leave. New Jersey was the "safe haven" for many of those individuals suspected of carrying out the 9-11 attacks, not Iraq. What evidence is there that Iraq would be any more ideal as a "safe haven" for terrorists than Afghanistan, where bin-Laden was allowed to escape into the mountains before Bush diverted the bulk of our nation's resources to "draw a line in the sand in Iraq?"
Why would Iraqis allow any outside group of terrorists any more access to their land and resources than they have to our own foreign army? These splinter resistance groups in Iraq who've taken on the moniker of al-Qaeda are engaged in their own battles with the citizens there who are strongly opposed to any outsiders taking a piece of their country, not just against the U.S..
Iraq has become a haven for violence, but, it's in the form of resistance to the U.S. occupation, by Bush's design. We're "fighting them there, so we won't have to fight them here . . . bring 'em on!" he told us at the beginning of the fiasco. Now, three years after his invasion, there are indeed folks in Iraq who harbor ill intent toward us. But, they weren't active there before Bush invaded and occupied. He's fostered and encouraged threats to our nation where there weren't any, and now he expects us to fear the end result of his handiwork, and to allow him to continue elevating terrorists and thugs to a level deserving presidential acknowledgment; declaring these handfuls of miscreants to be more threatening to us than the growing Iraqi resistance to his takeover of their country.
Why was it so necessary for nearly 3,000 American soldiers to die in defense of the plots of Iraqi land they now occupy? What is the benefit for the U.S. in our soldiers fighting and dying in defense of the Shiite-majority government in Iraq which comfortably aligns itself with our nemesis, Iran? Where is the evidence that the new Iraqi regime supports any of the democratic principles which Bush and our military swore to uphold, and which we exercise daily here at home?
"It's important for the American people to understand success in Iraq is vital for our own security," Bush told reporters outside his Crawford ranch. "I'm making good progress toward coming up with a plan that we think will help us achieve our objective," he said. "As I think about this plan I'm always -- have our troops in mind."
"People always ask me about a New Year's resolution," Bush offered. "My resolution is, is that they'll be safe and that we'll come closer to our objective, that we'll be able to help this young democracy survive and thrive and, therefore, we'll be writing a chapter of peace," he said.
It's absolutely amazing that the man who ordered the destabilization of Iraq and the installation of a compliant regime -- sending the country into a spiral of chaos, violence, and killing -- would expect that the product of his aggression would actually author in a chapter of peace. George Bush has a plan for Iraq, but it wasn't just forged in this weekend's meeting with the likely administration suspects. Bush's plan for Iraq was the invention of a banished ruling class - enriched by the selling of the influence of their positions in government - who had nursed their broken ambitions in exile, and had instinctively constructed their sympathetic webs of wealth to obstruct the remedies of the reformers and hatch the next generation of world capitalists who would inherit the patronage of the next conservative presidency.
The invasion of Iraq was a clumsy attempt by President Bush to usurp the power from a vanquished nation of innocents; a suffering class of people who were already devastated by the bombing of the first war, and by the economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. at the insistence of the U.S., which served to enrich Saddam Hussein and steadily impoverish and starve everyone else. This administration pulled the nation into war to compensate for, and to draw attention from, their failure to apprehend the alleged ringleader of the 9-11 attacks. Bush made the appeal to the nation in a manner which exploited our deepest fears as he warned the nation about the potential for a future Iraqi assault on our country, or on our allies, of a magnitude that would far exceed the devastation of the horrendous suicide attack in New York.
Now, Bush has managed to craft a theater of "enemies" in Iraq to parry against as a mimic of the forces who were once able to penetrate our lazy defenses and strike that opportunistic blow of fear Bush so readily embraced in his grab for absolute power. It's not lost on the rest of the world that it is the U.S. invaders and occupiers who most resemble the pernicious danger that Bush says he fears. Is there anyone out there who can fathom his reasoning of destabilizing a country halfway around the world, which never threatened the U.S. in any way, shape, or form, to enhance our security here in America?
Bush has made the U.S. the enemy of a great deal of the world in his overreaching, conniving militarism. He bids us to allow him to continue with his muckraking so that he can, one day, succeed in his ignorant mission. He's creating enemies "over there" -- with scatter-shot violence and aggression against the citizens of Iraq -- just so that one day he can put them down again. It's a warmongering idiot's serendipity; a prescription for a perpetual conflict. Mission . . . to be accomplished.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtreehttp://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_061229_bush_s_enemies_in_ir.htm
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