Exactly 12 years ago this time, President George Herbert Bush was trying to convince American people and the Congress as to why the USA should attack Iraq and free Kuwait.
Now after 12 years, his son, President George Walker Bush is doing the same thing, that is trying to persuade Americans as well as the Congress as to the reason for attaching Iraq. His father’s administration misled Americans and now his son is doing the same thing.
President Bush, Sr. first argued that the oil is the reason for attacking Iraq. Because Saddaam would have stronghold over the flow of oil from Persian Gulf and would cause economic havoc in the world. This did not work well with the Americans, then, his administration started a human right campaign by reaching to American’s heart and soul. Who can forget the testimony of the Kuwaiti Nurse in the Congress when she testified that she witnessed that Iraqi soldiers went to a pediatrics hospital and removed the infants from the incubators and took the incubators to Iraq.
No Americans regardless of race, religion, national origin would stand for such outrageous act. But what the Americans did not know then was that the nurse was the daughter of Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US and was not a nurse at all. It was just a campaign and a PR which worked very well. In fact the Kuwaiti government had hired a PR company to come up with ideas to persuade the American masses to support the Kuwaiti people and government and approve the attack on Iraq. It worked very well.
The United States and the rest of the world joined together to free Kuwait. But at what cost? During the Operation Desert Storm, tens of thousands of Iraqis died, mostly were buried alive when the troops ran over their bunkers in the desert with tanks where they were housed. Thousands of Shiites in the South of Iraq and thousands of Kurds in the Northern Iraq also were killed when President H. Bush recklessly encouraged them to up-rise against Sadaam leading them to believe that US was with them, which in fact they were left alone to defend for themselves.
Although the operation Desert Storm was thought to be a success at that time, but now we know it was not. This is because, Saddaam Hussein, truly a war criminal was not contained, nor was he arrested to be brought to justice. He was left to rule Iraq with iron fist and commit more crimes.
Also whom did we save? Two dictatorial governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The two regimes which do not care about human rights and punish their citizen in the most barbaric manner. The countries where half of the populations do not have any rights and are treated like chattel, the women. Was it worth it? The world kicked out one tyrant and installed another one back in power, the Amir of Kuwait and his families. We now support another corrupt and tyrant government, Saudi Arabia. Some people will say yes it was worth it. If not for humanitarian reason, but at least we secured the flow of oil to the West.
One could argue that at least the purpose of Desert Storm was to free a nation from invaders. What could we say about the new campaign for attacking Iraq? Iraq has not invaded any countries recently, nor is there any sign of such intent. The weapon inspectors destroyed most of the weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi’s economy is in shamble. There is no evidence that Saddaam Hussein has had any hand in the September 11 attack.
The Bush administration is arguing that Iraq will have weapons of mass destruction so we should attack them now. If one accepts that argument, then we should start attacking other countries too, because they will have such weapons soon or later. The fact is that President George W. Bush and Vice-president Dick Chenney are trying to divert the attention from their personal and embarrassing situations. hAs we all know by now over ten years ago president Bush received over $800,000.00 profit from sale of thousands of stocks and waited over six month before reporting the sale to SEC which he should have done almost immediately. This became a very sensitive matter given the corporate environment of today.
Also Dick Chenney is being sued by shareholders when he was the CEO of the oil Pipe Company whereby he and other executive made substantially and the other investors lost due to creative accounting. He is also being sued for refusing to provide the list of the names of the individuals with whom he had meetings for Energy Policies at the White House.
We must not forget that this is an election year and these news are not helpful at all and could cost the Republican Party votes which could mean loss of control of House of Representatives to the Democrats and solidification of power by the Democratic party in the Senate.
Also prior to September 11, the popularity of Mr. Bush was way below 50 percent and in fact Mr. Chenney was more in the news than Mr. Bush and one could argue that it was Dick Chenney who was running the show and Bush was the just the figure head.
September 11 changed the situation for Bush and made him a highly popular president. How ironic, about 11 months earlier he lost the presidential election in popular vote and 11 month later he became the most popular president.
Ever since George W. Bush became president, the economy has been going down despite his tax rebate and tax cut program which would have made him more unpopular had it not been because of the September 11.
Historically when a government has been in trouble, they start a war. The US is no exception. In the name of war on terrorism and scaring the public with Saddaam, the Bush administration is really diverting the attention from himself and his failure in managing the economy and securing the American future.
Nobody is asking the Bush Administration what happen to capturing Osama Bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Omar? Has the US finish with Afghanistan before starting another war? What has Iraq done to US to become the next candidate for attack and bombings?
It seems that so far there is no evidence of any sort to suggest that Iraq had anything to do with September 11 or its aftermath. Neither is there any evidence that Iraqi regime is harboring the Talabans or Al Qeada groups. As to production of weapons of mass destruction, again there is no solid proof of any kind that Iraq has or is close to completing such weapons. The Bush Administration has a lot to answer to the American people as to Corporate corruption where most of corporate CEO are supporters of the Republican Party. In the Enron case, its CEO Kenneth Lay played a very important in making George Bush governor of Texas and later the President of US.
Also he must answer as to his tax rebate failure, the economic failure, and alienating the rest of the world with his trigger-happy attitude.
Just recently Bush Administration has adopted the policy of preemptive strikes. That is if the US feels that a country could be a threat to US, the US will unilaterally attack that country and remove the threat. This is undoubtedly a very risky policy as will promote rivalry among the nations in order to out do each other and become super power, in particular, China, Russia, and India. Rather than misleading American Public with threat of Iraq, the Bush Administration should clean house an pay more attention to the domestic issues and more importantly the economy.
His father won the war, but lost the election, because he failed to pay attention to the economy. British have a saying “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Just not too long ago, a disc was found in the White House which outlined the campaign policy for this season, which was the Administration should start talking about war starting the day after Labor Holiday. This is the day that election campaign officially starts.
Reporters have asked Ari Fleischer, White House Spokesperson, as to why the Bush Administration started talking about war with Iraq now. The reply was that “you don’t introduce new product in August”.
It is quite clear that the Administration has ulterior motive which has nothing to do with making America safe.
