Ahem...I did announce in my very first post that I wouldn't write unless I was imbibing. Today, I broke that promise. I would like to apologize to all none of you reading this and make up for it right now. The following article is enough to make me drink (if i wasn't already):
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=595860
---"Bush mentioned Saddam's use of chemical weapons in the past, but not the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons — a key U.S. prewar justification for military action — that were not found after the invasion.
"On this day two years ago, we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to disarm a brutal regime, free its people, and defend the world from a grave danger," Bush said.
"We knew of Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew of his long history of pursuing, even using, weapons of mass destruction, and we know that September the 11th requires our country to think differently," he said.
"We must, and we will, confront threats to America before they fully materialize," Bush said. "Now, because we acted, Iraq's government is no longer a threat to the world or its own people."---
...Yeah. What he forgot to mention was that he and his boys had a plan in place before 9/11 to take out Saddam and were actively working on putting it into action. He forget to mention his very callous comment about "winning the Trifecta" after 9/11, because the event allowed him to declare war without Congress's approval, circumnavigate our civil liberties and take ownership of all monies not being used for a military build-up.
And when did Saddam retake his role as uber-boogeyman? He had been proven to be a toothless tiger (except to his political opponents inside Iraq). He beat up and had killed large numbers of his fellow countrymen (we do the same thing, but more slowly with the aid of regressive and repressive laws that make the bleeding barely noticeable). BUT Saddam had NO weapons of mass destruction, he was not involved with al-quaeda, he was not successfully pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Remember the "yellow cake" incident? The so-called evidence was forged (think Bush's national Guard papers that got Dan Rather screwed). Remember the drone planes that we were told were capable of loosing a nuclear weapon on our soil within 45 minutes? They couldn't fly more than 500 miles and weren't capable of carrying the kind of weight required for a nuclear missile. Remember the guy who exposed the "yellow cake" fiasco? His wife's undercover CIA status was leaked to the Press by our government as retaliation (but I digress).
Remember how the majority of Americans in the aftermath of 9/11 were convinced that Saddam was 100% responsible for it? Guess what: they still do. Why? Because Bush and group won't give up on it. They have given out "proof" that they say is definitive. Every time their "proof" is struck down as false. Remember when Colin Powell went before the UN and argued that Iraq could kill us all? Remember when Condoleeza Rice talked of the "mushroom cloud" as did Rumsfeld, Bush and Ashcroft? Remember when the UN agency in charge of maintaining monitors on Iraq and its weapons manufacturing said just before our invasion that the sanctions were working? And, then, they were told to get out by us? Remember how our government spun that to suggest that it was Saddam's fault that the UN workers were almost put in harm's way? Saddam had caved in to us and the UN a month before we invaded. But we didn't care, because we wanted a war. We needed to kill in order to revenge the 9/11 victims and our government needed a war, because Bush's poll numbers were in the tank (remember when he said he never read poll numbers? Remember when he said he disdained them? Remember when he called the tens of millions protesting the invasion across the world as a "focus group" not to be taken seriously?).
Remember when? Do you?
Do you, also, remember Tom DeLay's legal problems? Do you remember that he has had his hand slapped three times within the last year or so for improprieties? Do you remember his involvement with the Texas redistricting scam? As a Congressional head? Getting involved with state politics?
Do you remember the Enron scandal and Vice President Cheney's refusal to disclose which energy companys' hatchetmen were at the meetings he held? And that he said disclosure would somehow compromise national security? Do you remember the California energy crisis and the emails found that suggested it was a set-up by the energy companies to create a fake crisis and, thereby, drive their profits to obscene heights? Remember "let grandma burn"?
Do you remember how we crucified Bill Clinton for getting his knob polished while on the clock? Do you? Because, if you do, you seem to have developed a late sense of amnesia or forgiveness for these types of transgressions.
Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Thompson, et al have proven themselves to be the biggest group of liars in the history of our country. Some say since the Nixon administration. I say, no. Nixon got caught and his fellow liars rolled on him for much less. This ain't gonna happen this time. We have become too pacific in nature, We have become so jaded that we just accept they are liars and shrug our shoulders. We ask what we as individuals can do. And it's pathetic. We used to believe our vote counted. We used to believe in standing up to the powers-that-be and make them account for their deeds. We used to...
Now, we accept "fair and balanced" to be the unvarnished truth. We accept that Janet Jackson's tittie (what we saw of it after repeated internet searches. don't shake your head, most of us went looking, because we missed it on the live feed) as the ultimate arbiter of communications decency. Never mind that we let a guy smack his wife around on "Amazing Journey". Don't worry about the dog-eat-dog ethics of "Survivor". Let's focus on a breast, a Super Bowl commercial, and the fact that "Saving Private Ryan" wasn't be aired by a host of network television stations, because it includes "indecent" language that is used in context in the movie and is used hourly by teenagers in front of their own parents. Let's focus on the rights we have lost, the inability we've been told we have to come to our own conclusions regarding what is acceptable and what isn't.
Aw, the hell with it. let's focus on the next war game coming to us on the XBox, because it's not really about killing. It's about hand/eye coordination. Right?
Remember when Pong was destroying the next generation? Neither do I.