from AlterNet's PEEK:
It's Another Crappy Iraq War Anniversary
Posted by Attaturk ,
Firedoglake at 5:05 AM on March 19, 2008.
And today, George W. Bush, will go to the Pentagon to give yet another "pep talk" to a captive audience again expressing how awesome it has all been.Today is the Fifth Anniversary of the Decider's crowning glory...upon his intellectual throne, a thunderbucket of immense intellectual bankruptcy causing uncounted and ever mounting death and destruction. Each year adds a new level of intellectual dishonesty and miserable accountability for him and his enablers.
Yes, George Bush who proclaimed there would be "no casualties" has overseen more than five years and 25,000 of them, and thanks to advances in medicine and emergency care slightly under 4,000 have been terminal, so far. But, of course, that's just on the American side of the ledger. No one really knows how many have died because of this war and subsequent occupation. It could be 100,000 it could be a million or more. One out of every five Iraqis has become a refugee within or without their country.
The costs of the war and occupation were always downplayed, criminally, by the Bush Administration. Bush's Chief Economist Larry Lindsey was forced out after saying maybe $100 to 200 billion -- it has so far cost out of the next generation's rear-end more than $500 billion. When one adds up all the economic ramifications welcome to at least the $3 trillion dollar war. At present, the war Paul Wolfowitz said would pay for itself is running you at least $12 billion a month as an occupation.
And after all this time, people who are running for office still cannot tell a Sunni from a Shiia, but they just want to keep dropping those bombs as we enter into our 13th Friedman Unit, the undefined unobtainable victory remains yet another F.U. or two away.
Ah, but the glory of how it all began. In his State of the Union address in 2002, Bush said this:
For too long our culture has said, "If it feels good, do it."
On March 19, 2003, just before addressing the nation to announce his this disastrous war Bush was asked about this feelings:
Moments before the camera began broadcasting to the nation, Knight-Ridder reports that Bush pumped his fist and said, "Feels good."
And today, George W. Bush, will go to the Pentagon to give yet another "pep talk" to a captive audience again expressing how awesome it has all been. Especially for him, and that's what counts. Another half-hour of boogey-men, foot-stomping and ephemeral claims of "winning". And I would imagine most talking heads will not say jack-crap about it, except how "determined" he is. Maybe they can play another cherry-picked Jeremiah Wright sermon out of context again just to prove they're serious journalists without an agenda?
And then George W. Bush, our feckless leader can go home and kick back and play Cowboys & Freedom Haters with the real purpose and justification for this whole clusterf*** in his beady little eyes, Saddam's Gun.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/80174/