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. |