Wading through the Bu$hit

Author: Stephen DeVoy
Date: July 18, 2003
http://www.stop-fascism.org

Bush promises us that if we wait we will find that he was right.  Bush's promise is hollow.  The issue is not whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  The issue is whether Bush lied to the American people in order to sell a war that was unsupportable without resort to fraud.  There is no debating the question of whether Bush lied.  The evidence that the CIA warned Bush that the intelligence information provided by the UK was unsupportable and unreliable is overwhelming.  In an effort to frighten Americans into attacking a country for which no evidence of a threat existed, Bush knowingly engaged in fraud during his state of the union address.  This makes Bush a liar.  It also provokes all thinking individuals to demand an explanation as to the real motivations behind his desire to invade another nation unprovoked.

However, before we investigate this second question, the question of why Bush decided to usurp the power of the American people to pursue his personal agenda, we should contemplate the gravity of his crime.  Swept up in patriotism and motivated by a jingoistic arrogance, most Americans are unwilling to look objectively at the actions of President Bush.  In order to remove the emotional baggage that is provoking most Americans into a state of denial, let's begin with a simple analogy in an effort to better understand Bush's actions.  We will explore the issue by engaging in a thought experiment.

Imagine that a new police chief has been assigned to your local police department.  During his first days in office he is overheard telling a member of his staff, "I'm going to have Mr. Jone's ass."  Mr. Jones, it turns out, owns a restaurant that is in competition with another restaurant owned by the family of the new police chief, Mr. Smith.  The families of Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith have a history of conflict.  Once friends, they later became strong competitors.  At one point, Mr. Jones attempted to drive the father of the new police chief, Mr. Smith, out of business.

Less than one year after Police Chief Smith takes his post, a major cache of drugs is found in a warehouse.  No one knows who owns the drugs.  Police Chief Smith is overheard speculating, without evidence, that the drugs must belong to Mr. Jones.  In fact, whenever anything unexplained happens in the town, Police Chief Smith seems to think it is somehow connected to Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones, needless to say, does not trust Police Chief Smith.  Police Chief Smith comes to Mr. Jones' door demanding an unfettered inspection of Mr. Jones' house, suspicious that drugs may be found inside.  Despite the fact that no evidence points to any connection between Mr. Jones and the drug trade, Police Chief Smith persists.  At wits end, Mr. Jones consents to a third party entering his house to look for drugs.  No drugs are ever found.

Police Chief Smith asserts publicly, on television, that Mr. Jones is a threat to the whole town.  He asserts that unless Mr. Jones produces evidence of drugs in his house, Mr. Jones is guilty of hiding drugs and not dealing in good faith.  Most of the town's residents see through Police Chief Smith.  They realize that he is motivated by a personal agenda and they refuse to back him.  Police Chief Smith appeals to a judge for a warrant to impound Mr. Jones' personal property and to seize his house, arguing that Mr. Jones (still without evidence) is in violation of the RICO act.  The judge refuses on grounds of insufficient evidence.

Police Chief Smith, despite resistance from his detectives who point out that the only evidence they have is clearly a forgery, calls a press conference and announces that he has evidence of drugs inside the Jones' house.

Police Chief Smith organizes a group of his officers, deputizes a few citizens to assist him, and using arms and vehicles owned by the town, he surrounds Mr. Jones' house, forcefully enters the house firing his weapons, kills several members of Mr. Jones' family, occupies the house, and puts the remaining members of Mr. Jones' family under house arrest.  Police Chief Smith seizes all of Mr. Jones' property and assigns a partner of his own to administer Mr. Jones' restaurant.

Many of the town's residents are in shock.  Some of the town's residents defend Police Chief Smith.  They can see that Police Chief Smith has become a powerful man and they believe that by aligning themselves with him, they will obtain benefits that his detractors will not.  In time a rumor spreads around the time that despite the fact that Police Chief Smith occupies Mr. Jones' house, no drugs have been found.  In fact, each time Police Chief Smith claims to have found evidence of drugs in the Jones' house, the drugs turn out to be harmless over-the-counter medications found in any home.

The local newspaper prints an article questioning whether Police Chief Smith will ever find drugs in the Jones' home.  Police Chief Smith states confidently that in time drugs will be found.  A detective working for Police Chief Smith leaks information to a detective in another police department proving that the evidence cited by Police Chief Smith was forged.  The detective in the other police department comes forward.  Police Chief Smith is indignant, he claims that whether or not the evidence is forged, it is certain that he will find drugs in the Jones' house.  Despite the fact that Police Chief Smith has occupied the house for months and never found drugs, he continues to make this assertion.  Police Chief Smith begins to move the goal posts justifying his illegal invasion of Mr. Jones' house.  Rather than stating that it was his belief that Mr. Jones was in possession of drugs, Police Chief Smith begins stating that it was always his belief that Mr. Jones had plans to obtain drugs and that he would prove it.  Police Chief Smith makes accusations of revisionism against those that remind him that he originally accused Mr. Jones of actually having drugs.  Meanwhile, the agents of Police Chief Smith find stained underwear in Mr. Jones' house.  On the basis of the stained underwear, Police Chief Smith insists that Mr. Jones was a pervert and that it was a good thing he had stopped him in time.  Police Chief Smith finds that Mr. Jones occasionally erred on his taxes.  This is used as further, after the fact, justification, for invading Mr. Jones' house and killing his family members.

As a growing number of people begin to question Police Chief Smith and some begin to demand an investigation into his actions, Police Chief Smith sets up multiple photo-ops where he struts about, chin up high, look of confidence on his face, smugly stating, "just wait, drugs will be found, you will see."

What is any reasonable person to make of this last claim?  After all, the evidence is clear that Police Chief Smith is a liar.  He has abused his authority.  He has violated the law.  He has murdered innocent people and stolen their property.  He has attempted to distort history.  Any reasonable person will assume that if any drugs are found in the house that Police Chief Smith has occupied for many months, they will be the drugs that Police Chief Smith, himself, has planted.

To make matters worse for Police Chief Smith, a judge forces the release of the minutes of a meeting during the first days of Police Chief Smith's official duty as police chief where his subordinates discussed the value of Mr. Jones' property, the disposition of his assets, and sought legal advise on how they could use RICO to steal his property.

In a just world, Police Chief Smith would be arrested and charged with abuse of authority, murder, theft, breaking and entering, false arrest, civil rights violations and criminal conspiracy.  Unlike President Bush, Police Chief Smith would have invaded only one home and killed only the members of one family.  President Bush, on the other hand, violated his oath of office, lied to an entire nation, invaded another nation, murdered thousands of people, caused the deaths of American soldiers, and tarnished forever the goodwill of the United States of America.  If Police Chief Smith should be charged with the crimes listed, how many orders of magnitude more serious are the charges that should be leveled against President Bush?

As to the second question, why did Bush invade Iraq?  Clearly, all of the evidence indicates that Iraq posed no threat to the US.  Let us ask what Bush has done, with respect to Iraq, since the invasion.  He has protected Iraqi oil reserves while providing little or no protection for Iraqi citizens or non-oil concerns.  Israel has been working towards securing a steady flow of oil from Iraq to Israel.  That's about it.  Bush has not committed enough troops to bring security to the Iraqi people.  He has supplied just as many as he needs to secure the oil flow.  This war was about one thing and one thing only - Bush's dedication to the oil industry.  He is an oil man from an oil family.  His loyalty is to oil, not to America.  He is not only willing to send underpaid American youth to murder for the acquisition of more oil, under false pretenses, but he has actually done it.  He has lied to the American people in order to use the treasury of the American people as a tool to obtain better oil deals for American oil companies.  This translates into exactly what the antiwar movement accused him of being, a corporatist monster dedicated to trading the blood of innocent individuals for the benefit of corporate oil.  Such a man belongs in prison and does not belong in the White House.