�We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They�re in
the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.�
--Donald Rumsfeld, (March 30, 2003)
�The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy
[to invade Iraq].� --Downing Street Memo (July 2002)
�Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame
upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to
examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself
that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after
this process of grotesque self-deception.� --Mark Twain. The Mysterious
Stranger 1916
NowKarl Rove, Bush�s political brain, says that the Iraq war
was �Osama bin Laden�s Idea.� This is crazy.
The fact is that the world was ready to accept a case for
destroying and eradicating the terrorist-training camps located in
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, after 9/11. That is the reason the United
Nations Security Council passed two resolutions to that effect in the fall of
2001 and in early 2002. These were Resolution 1373,
adopted on September 28, 2001, and Resolution
1390, passed on January 16, 2002.
But the case for going to war against Iraq is entirely
different: It was a fabrication
from day one. That is the reason the United Nations Security Council
refused to pass a resolution authorizing it, in January 2003. The Bush-Cheney
regime nevertheless went ahead with this illegal war and will carry the
historical opprobrium for having done so. It took the low moral road, thus
reducing the moral stance of Western civilization in the world and doing
irreparable damage to international law and order. It has also brought
discredit on the very institution of representative
government and on democracy in general. This is a scandal of high
proportions, above and beyond all the crimes being carried out on the ground in
Iraq.
The British
ambassador to Australiaand former British
cabinet minister, Helen
Liddell, recently rendered a service to many when she stated the
obvious, i.e. that the Bush-Cheney war of aggression against Iraq had little to
do with a war against terrorism. The Bush-Cheney regime is marketing any
imperialistic and colonialist adventure around the world as an �anti-terrorist� mission and a push for democracy. This is
a lie. It is a propaganda trick to silence critics and chloroform the American
public.
All these wars of aggression are
illegal attempts by the United States and its willing co-conspirators to
dominate militarily the strategic oil-rich Middle East and Caspian region in
order to displace Russia, China and even Western Europe from this region of the
world. It has nothing to do with fighting Islamist terrorism. In fact, it feeds
and exacerbates terrorism.
Therefore, the historical reality remains that the
Bush-Cheney regime disregarded truth and international law in order to justify
taking military control of oil-rich Iraq, without provocation, even though it
knew perfectly well that this country had no ties to the 9/11 attacks nor to
bin Laden�s alleged terrorist organization, and that it had no weapons of mass
destruction. In the process, however, this Karl Rove-inspired Republican regime
took partisan advantage of the anger present in America after 9/11 to run two elections,
in 2002 and in 2004, on the theme of national security and on a
platform of war hysteria, thus profiting immensely politically from this
propaganda scam.
Now that hundreds of people die daily in occupied Iraq, that
they have triggered a religious and sectarian civil
war, and that a majority
of Americans have seen through their lies and machinations, the architects of
this disaster are trying to shift blame and find new excuses. But to no avail.
The truth is now too powerful to be extinguished by crude propaganda tricks and
by lies.
For a while, however, the campaign
of disinformation and propaganda worked remarkably well. For
example, immediately after the events of 9/11, only 3 percent of Americans made
a link between the terrorist attacks and Iraq; by February 2003, weeks before
the March 20, 2003 onset of the Iraq War, a whopping 72 percent of Americans
had been persuaded by the Bush-Cheney regime and their sycophants in the media
that the president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, had been personally involved in the
9/11 attacks. Political analysts will study this propaganda coup for decades to
come.
Even the Democrats in
Congress -- goaded by the pro-Israel
Lobby -- were suicidally content to go along with the Bush-Cheney�s scam
until the 2006 elections. They now adopt the majority view that there is no
military solution in Iraq, that to believe so will only lead to bad policies
and make matters worse, and that a promise to withdraw all American troops from
this country is a prerequisite to reintroduce some stability in this ravaged
country.
But how many thousands more deaths must occur before sanity
prevails?
Rodrigue Tremblay
lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com.
He is the author of the book ��The
New American Empire�.� Visit his blog site at
thenewamericanempire.com/blog.