I BelieveBy William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 8 September 2003
On most nights, you can find me belly to the bar at Charlie's in Harvard Square, feasting on the meatloaf special and a glass of Harpoon I.P.A. I like to take my dinner there because they have four televisions in a row above the mirror, and because the other regulars are as interesting a mob as you will find in the city. Two of the televisions will usually be showing the Red Sox game, and the other two will be tuned into CNN or MSNBC.
Jen, the bartending warrior-goddess who runs the ship at Charlie's, is as news savvy as anyone can be from watching television. One of these days, on a slow night, I am going to sit down with her and fill in the gaps that linger still in her understanding of present matters within and without the United States of America. Those gaps are not her fault. She goes to the television for her information, and the television is a liar. In this, she is like many Americans. I can't sit down with all of my fellow citizens, but I can bend Jen's ear the next time things are dull. I can tell her what I believe.
I believe, first of all, that none of George W. Bush's words on Sunday night can explain away what I believe.
I believe we were lied to about the threat posed by Iraq. The American people were bombarded on a daily basis for months with dire reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction being handed off to al Qaeda terrorists for deadly delivery to our shores. The threat, we were told, was so pressing that war was the only option. The threat was so pressing that George W. Bush piled hundreds of thousands of troops on the borders of Iraq before any proof of the necessity of war was presented. That proof, over six months later, still does not exist. The war was based upon a barrage of lies, a domestic version of 'Shock and Awe' that was monstrous and criminal and wrong.
I believe that the leaders in America and Britain who propagated these lies have run out of room to maneuver. The British newspaper, the Independent, ran a story on September 7 entitled, "Britain and US Will Back Down Over WMDs." The first paragraph begins like so: "Britain and the US have combined to come up with entirely new explanations of why they went to war in Iraq as inspectors on the ground prepare to report that there are no weapons of mass destruction there." The third paragraph begins like so: "The 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, sent out in May to begin an intensive hunt for the elusive weapons, is expected to report this week that it has found no WMD hardware, nor even any sign of active programmes."
I believe this is a far cry from the terrifying threats we were bombarded with by this administration. Let us not forget that Bush and his people claimed ad nauseam that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents (500 tons equals one million pounds), 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, possession of mobile weapons labs, connections to al Qaeda, and had their grubby little fingers digging for uranium in Niger to build a bomb. All of these claims remain on a White House website page called "Disarm Saddam Hussein." The mobile weapons labs were, in fact, weather balloon platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s. The Niger lies, by now, are evident, and yet the data remains on the White House page. None of the rest of this has been found. According to the Independent story, the administration would have you believe they were never the reason at all.
I believe the newest apologia for this war is a bunch of stinking garbage. "I can't believe you want Saddam Hussein back," goes the line. "The Iraqi people are free now, and a really bad guy is gone." I believe that if what the Iraqi people are experiencing - terrorism, deprivation, civil war, massive death - is our definition of freedom, then I want no part of it. I believe that if our new foreign policy is going to be a "Get The Bad Guys Everywhere" program that goes to war against "Bad Guys" whether or not there is a threat against America, we as a nation will very quickly fall apart. I believe that I would be amenable to have Saddam back if I can also have back the hundreds of American soldiers who have been killed, the thousands of American soldiers who have been wounded, and the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been slaughtered and maimed. I believe, as bad as Hussein demonstrably was, that he was not worth the price we have paid, and will continue to pay.
I believe the lies were exposed by an Air Force Lt. Colonel named Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the Pentagon until her retirement last April. Kwiatkowski is one of many whistleblowing intelligence insiders who have come forward in the last months to expose the shoddy manner in which the Bush administration took us to war in Iraq. Kwiatkowski worked with the
Office of Special Plans, the special unit formed by Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld specifically to second-guess and manufacture 'proof' that Iraq was a threat. "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline," Kwiatkowski wrote recently. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense." She described the activities of Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans as, "A subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress."
I believe the lies of this administration regarding this war, and the war itself, have made our country far less safe from further terrorist attacks. We were told time and again that Iraq was a nest of al Qaeda terrorist activity. We went to war, ostensibly, to put an end to this threat. No evidence of al Qaeda activity, or al Qaeda connections to Hussein's regime, or weapons of mass destruction of any kind whatsoever, have been found. The chaos unleashed by this war, however, has been nothing more or less than a gilded invitation to Arabic terrorists like al Qaeda to flood into Iraq and make trouble. The Bush administration created, with its lies, the very situation they supposedly went to war to get rid of. This puts Americans over there, and right here, in mortal peril.
I believe the incalculable horror of September 11th was used against the American people to justify a war that did not need to be fought. The newest poll states that some 70% of the American people believe Saddam Hussein was among those responsible for the attacks; in short, 70% of the American people believe in something that is a flat lie. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are blood enemies, and have been for years. Their hatred runs so deep that one would not urinate on the other if the other was on fire, because that urine would help. Never mind sharing weapons. Why do the American people believe in this connection? They believe in this because George W. Bush and virtually every member of his administration made this rhetorical connection over and over and over again as they argued for war in Iraq. It was the most emotive argument, over and above the other lies about Iraq's nuclear program and Niger uranium, and it motivated the American people to get in line behind war. Bush used our unchartable woe and fear against us, and his party is planning to hold their 2004 national convention next to the hole in the ground where the Towers stood. The dead are being used, and the living are being rhetorically raped, by an administration that has all the moral fiber of a hammerhead shark.
I believe the war in Iraq, and the War on Terror as a whole, is being used by this pack of ideological extremists in the White House to destroy any ability the federal government has to provide needed services to the American people. Bush has recently gone to Congress to ask for $70 billion more for his war, over and above the billions of dollars that have already been pumped into this farce. Between the war costs, the billions being taken out of the domestic budget and fed into the Defense Department, and the tax cuts, there will be nothing left for Social Security or Medicare or a hundred other vitally necessary social services. This is by design; the boys running the show have fantasized for years about reversing the outcome of the 1932 Presidential election. That election gave rise to FDR, to the New Deal, and to the preponderance of the simple truth that the government can and must help our weakest citizens. Right under our noses, they are changing that history. The fact that they are also purposefully terrifying the American people simultaneously means they will likely get away with this, because frightened people tend not to think clearly, and tend to trust those who are demonstrably untrustworthy.
I believe this war is costing so much because the Bush administration gave the United Nations and the international community the back of its hand in the run-up to the war, because the United Nations and the international community had the gall to believe that weapons inspections and clear reasons for war needed to be part of the matrix. We were perfectly able to go it alone, said Bush, and so we did. Now that the occupation has proven to be bloodier than the war, now that we are losing soldiers practically every day, now that a civil war is breaking out between Shia and Sunni because there is no longer anything keeping them from going for each other's throats, now that the oil lines are getting bombed and sabotaged, now that we are hemorrhaging cash from every orifice, this administration is being forced to crab-walk back to the UN and ask for help. The fact that they have the gall to claim that they always intended to do this is merely par for the course at this point.
I believe that I was wrong. I thought that, if I lived to be 150 years old, I would not see this administration backtrack on its unilateralist course and ask for help in Iraq from the United Nations. Recall that it was Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board and chief architect of this war, who publicly rejoiced at the beating absorbed by the UN. In an editorial published on March 21, 2003 entitled, "Thank God For The Death Of The UN," Perle wrote the following: "Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him." Perle and his fellow "Bring 'em on" hawks must now eat these words, and I was wrong. I never thought I would live to see the day.
I believe the Bush administration has betrayed the honor and courage and service of our soldiers. When you put on the uniform of the United States military, and when you swear the oath, you are also being made a promise. You are being promised that your blood and heart and soul and courage will not be spent to no good cause. You are being promised that your life will not be thrown away, cashiered by a battery of lies. I believe the American soldiers serving in Iraq do so for the best of reasons, and because they do as they are told. Rumsfeld recently visited Iraq to buck up the troops, requiring them to sweep the streets and pretty up the base. The boost in morale was not forthcoming. "The only thing his visit meant for us was we had to clean up a lot of mess to make the place look pretty. And he didn't even look at it anyway," said Specialist Rue Gretton. "I don't give a damn about Rumsfeld. All I give a damn about is going home." The troops know the score. Pity that so many Americans do not.
I believe that, as fantastically masturbatory as the upcoming Showtime 'docu-drama' about Bush on 9/11 may be, it cannot come close to explaining the glaring deficiencies within the accepted mantra surrounding what happened on that day. One, only one, example: The professional golfer Payne Steward died aboard his chartered jet when the cabin suffered explosive decompression. The plane continued to fly on auto-pilot. It took the ground controllers 21 minutes to summon an F-16 fighter to come in behind the doomed jet to investigate. On September 11, there was a squadron of F-16s and a squadron of FA-18s laagered up at Andrew's Air Force Base, which sits just 12 miles from the White House. The hijacked commercial planes were in the air, and were crashing into buildings, for almost two hours before one single fighter turned a wheel and took to the sky. Payne Stewart rated a fighter in 21 minutes. Hundreds of kidnapped civilians did not rate a fighter for almost 120 minutes, until the horror was already over. The mantra for this says, "Incompetence," yet no one has been fired or even reprimanded. I want to know why.
If you are someone who finds questions like this to be dangerously incendiary and conspiratorial, I would direct you to look long and hard at
this document. This is a set of instructions issued from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 1st of June 2001, describing in minute detail the protocols and procedures to be undertaken if a plane is hijacked. Not one of these protocols, issued four months and eleven days before the terror attacks, were followed. Why?
I believe we as a nation are in the gravest of trouble. I believe our troubles have only just begun, and unless something is done, our troubles will come to undo this democratic experiment before too much longer. I also believe, however, in the words of Thomas Paine: "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
I believe that Jen, behind the bar at Charlie's, is as fine an example of an American as one can find. She works hard, and follows the news as she can. I believe that when she hears these hard truths and bitter facts, she will act upon them with the basic courage and searing outrage that is the hallmark of any American who has been lied to and used. I believe that Jen has the power in her hands to reverse this course, and I believe she will do it when armed with the truth. I believe the Bush administration will come to know true fear if people like Jen are unleashed.
I believe it is time for my dinner. I will speak with Jen. Who will you speak with today?
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