Just when you think George W. Bush has plumbed the depths of goofiness, he bests himself. In a speech today (reported on CNN), Bush said that:
Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government.
When in doubt, blame the guy in jail. So, at what point did George discover that Saddam’s previous grotesque behavior spawned sectarian strife? Is there any chance he heard about this before launching the invasion in 2003 or was he still reading from the script that promised Iraqis, regardless of their sectarian beliefs, would be dancing in the streets?
It would be nice to get an answer on this point. Why?
If the President truly believed that “Saddam was a tyrant and used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power, and that as a result, deep tensions persist to this day”, then why did he fail to send enough troops to keep the warring factions under control? Since our invation in 2003, almost 2400 of our brave sons and daughters have died in this misadventure. I think it is appropriate to ask President Bush to explain why he was unprepared to deal with the sectarian strife since he knew that Saddam’s dictatorial polices sowed the seeds of civil war. Or, is this something he just got briefed on. Maybe the new Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten, gave him a heads up.
From the perspective of the average Sunni or Shia in Iraq, however, the days of Saddam’s rule are looking like the good old days. Sure there was a risk that Saddam could come into your house at night, arrest you without a warrant and haul you off to Abu Ghraib, but at least Saddam kept the lights on, pumped the oil, and provided security. And he was known for brutally killing those who got out of line or threatened him. It was an authoritarian state, but so is Egypt and Pakistan.
Now the Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis who live in and around Baghdad, face US and Iraqi troops who come into their house at night, arrest them without warrants, and haul them off to Abu Ghraib. Only, we are not keep the lights on, the oil pumping, or the torture centers closed. Those are still operating, unfortunately.
Too bad George Bush did not paid attention to history. Perhaps if he had remembered what happened in Yugoslavia when General Tito–the tough guy dictator–kicked the bucket, Bush would have understood that without a strong leader, people accustomed to an authoritarian regime resort to ethnic and sectarian war.
In the face of dozens of daily disappearances, multiple car bombs, ambushes, and mayhem (not to mention infrequent water and lights), it should be no surprise that Iraqis are looking first and foremost to family and tribes in order to protect themselves. The priority now is survival. So who is pulling the strings that allows the insurgents to thrive? Not Saddam.
Blaming Saddam is a pathetic gesture by an embattled President. Josh Bolten needs to smack the speech writer who allowed this drivel to come out of Bush’s mouth. Up to this point the Iraqis may have believed the chaos in Iraq was part of a covert plan we were executing without clueing them in on our true intentions. With this speech they may finally realize that George Bush really does not know what he is doing and is making it up as he goes along.
In other words, gwb’s created a mess and someone will have to clean up after him, just as he has done his entire life. Or, is he gradually stetching the time out, until the bases can be accepted as permanent?
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While the Neocon Empire for the 21th Century is falling apart ::
Russia, he said, hopes to rebuild its influence with the former Soviet republics and the oil-rich states of Central Asia. The Kremlin was stung by the victories of pro-Western governments in Georgia and Ukraine over the past 2 1/2 years, and by NATO’s expansion into the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in 2004.
“A great power humiliated wants to restore its influence worldwide,” said Kalugin, who has lived in the United States since 1995. He was tried in Moscow in 2002 and convicted in absentia of spying for the United States.
● Russia and Putin the Big Winner
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
…didn’t blame Bill Clinton for today’s situation in Iraq.
After all, the PNAC crowd wrote him a letter in ’98:
Bill didn’t take them up on it. So, the fact that 25 or so people a day are being killed in Iraq, the fact that electricity availability is lower than it was three years ago, the fact that Sunnis are cutting off Shi’a heads and Shiite death squads are operating out of government bureaus are all Bill Clinton’s fault.
I knew it!
And I also suspect that Saddam is one of those human/animal hybrids George W. warned us about…that would explain his uncanny ability to influence events from his jail cell…
Well, they tried.
Boy King George and the Cheney misadministration have exhausted the market on their blame game against wicked Bill Clinton (sex is evil; war is good) and the biased liberal media (facts and events disproving BushCo lies are propaganda of biased liberal terrorist sympathizers). With Furious George’s approval rating below Nixon’s during Watergate and 60% of Americans believing invading Iraq was a mistake, the public is no longer buying what they are selling. So, fraudulent advertiser and national security risk Turd Blossom decided it was time to pull out the bogeyman. Three years after toppling Saddam and 27 months after having him in custody, the new advertising slogan for the blame game: Saddam Hussein is responsible for all the mistakes of the Cheney misadministration’s War in Iraq.
This tells it all…NO wonder the ppl of Iraq are so disgusted with their leadership.
riverbend
Then there is this Brilliant Op/Ed piece by Evelyn Pringle that lays out the timeline of lies told by George and company called “Which Soldier Will Be The Last To Die For Bush’s Mistake?”
“The war in Iraq is a mistake. No its worse than a mistake. Lets quit pussy-footing around and call it like it is. The war in Iraq is a grand profiteering scheme gone awry and Americans need to take off their blinders and face the truth.”
She ends this great piece with this:
“For the first time in history, the US went to war because of intelligence reports claiming that a country posed a grave threat to our nation. We should accept nothing less than a full-scale, wide-open Congressional investigation into the issue of pre-war intelligence on the threat from Iraq.
It is in the compelling national interest to examine what we were told about the threat from Iraq to determine once and for all whether the intelligence was faulty or distorted.
The purpose of such an investigation is not to engage in “revisionist history.” It is to get at the truth. The American people have valid questions that deserve to be answered.”
Call your reps now and demand a full nonstop investigation until these fascists are Frogmarched out of the White House.