In 1999, Smirko said: "If I Have a Chance to Invade..."

[Octafish]

Gee. He really has wanted to be dick-tater a loooong time.



"Hey, Karl! What's bigger'n 'king'?"

"If I Have a Chance to Invade..."

Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Opportunity to Attack Iraq

By GARY LEUPP
Counterpunch
June 20, 2005

Some time between January and May 1999 presidential aspirant George W. Bush was talking with Mickey Herskowitz, a former Houston Chronicle sports columnist who'd been signed on to ghostwrite his autobiography. And the future president spoke unto Herskowitz, saying:

"One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade---if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

Herskowitz was at some point pulled off the autobiography project by Bush's handlers, who thought he wasn't presenting the chosen one in a sufficiently adulatory light. But even if he had stayed on in the job, that honestly ejaculated little Bushism probably wouldn't have gone into the book. Just doesn't look too good when someone running for president of the USA says if he has a chance to invade he won't waste it.

I personally just happened upon it because somebody emailed me this link: http://www.gnn.tv/ It got me to thinking. The proliferating British memos tell us that Bush wanted to invade Iraq, and was prepared to lie to get it done, as of July 2002. The damning content of the Downing Street memo is now augmented by leaked memos from foreign policy advisor David Manning, British ambassador to the U.S. Christopher Meyer, political advisor P. R. Ricketts, and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw written in February and March 2002. All question the rationale for war or point out the difficulties in building a case, while noting that the administration is determined to attack Iraq.

CONTINUED...

http://counterpunch.org/leupp06202005.html

The evidence on this crook is out there. Let's pile it on. Please.

[ailsagirl]

1. The mindset boggles this mind n/t

[Octafish]

9. All he wants to do is kill.

Remember when he killed a U.S. citizen?

Isn't that, like, illegal?



"Not for a dick-tater."

George W. Bush, Warlord

A Presidential Impostor Turns Political Assassin

by Ted Rall

NEW YORK--First he appointed himself President. Now George W. Bush has declared himself God.

As Americans begin their third year of Supreme Court-ordered political occupation, Bush has just signed an impressive new executive order. You may be surprised to learn that it grants him the right to order your execution. No judge, jury or lawyer. No chance to prove your innocence. One stroke of Bush's pen, and bang--you're dead.

Not even your American citizenship, according to Bush, will save your life if and when he decides to kill you. The only reason you're reading this right now--instead of meeting the Entity Formerly Known as God--is that neither Bush nor one of his "high-level officials" has yet signed a piece of paper declaring you an "enemy combatant." Once they do the paperwork, Administration officials assert, they have the right to murder you.

Bush's secret assassination directive surfaced on Dec. 3, when reporters asked about the Nov. 3 Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) rub-out of alleged Al Qaeda operatives riding in a car in Yemen. Langley fired a Hellfire missile from a remote-controlled Predator drone into the vehicle, blowing up several men. The CIA (news - web sites) later discovered that an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, had inadvertently been killed in the inferno.

"No constitutional questions are raised here," asserted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), stretching credulity more than usual. Officials claim that a loophole in Bush's order authorizing the CIA to "covertly attack Al Qaeda all over the world" validates Derwish's murder. Since this sneaky directive makes exception neither for Americans nor American soil, these guys say, you and I have no more rights than the now-deceased, not-presumed-innocent Kamal Derwish.

Your life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are now officially subject to George W. Bush's personal judgement--or whim.

CONTINUED...

http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/warlord.htm

If I wasn't living this, it would be hard to believe.

[Octafish]

14. Bush wanted to invade Iraq in 1999

How'd he know he would become preznit?

How long has the fix been in?

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Probably since Clinton was first in office

They were probably planning it then.

[Doomy]

2. His idiot

father didn't do the right thing with the first desert war and take out Sadamm. I figure he did it on purpose so junior bu$h could do it. I bet it was planned back when junior was snorting cocaine and drinking beer.

[rexcat]

3. His "idiot" father did the right thing by not

overthrowing Saddam. We did not have backing from the alliance and it was not doable just as it not doable now. We are in the mist of a civil war and we have destablized the region. In the long term we are spending too much treasure and blood without knowing the outcome. So much for Bush's* plan or lack there of.

edit for spelling and hit post too soon!

[Doomy]

4. It is unwinable

because there is no win for anyone. Those people have hated each others for years and all we did was stir them up so they hate us now because of bu$h and his lust for oil.

[KarenInMA]

7. I disagree

The Generals told DaddyBush they could break the Republican guard and put Saddam in chains in 48 hrs. Iraq could have been spared a decade of dictatorship and sanctions, and we wouldn't have had to go back. In hindsight, toppling Saddam when we were there to begin with would have been the right choice.

[rexcat]

12. There would have been no coalition if we would have...

toppled Saddam and we would still be in Iraq today. I see this as a no win for the US no matter what. There was much debate concerning this and Bush 1 did not want to go it alone. Also Saddam was boxed in and was not capable of doing much after the first Gulf war.

So what we have now is a US occupation after an illegal war that is costing us 100s of billions of dollars, sacrificing our military and destabilizing the region. Sound like a good plan to me. :sarcasm:

[johnaries]

5. Poppy explained in his biography that he didn't go after

Saddam because he was afraid our troops would get bogged down in urban guerilla warfare that we couldn't win.

Terrible when children don't listen to their parents, isn't it.

[Octafish]

10. Poppy gave Saddam a Green Light to invade.

When Saddam realized he'd been had, he offered to leave Kuwait.

Too late.

Poppy gave Cheney a Green Light to kill every Iraqi in Kuwait.

APRIL GLASPIE TRANSCRIPT

Yes, remember April Glaspie and her amazing stint at Middle East diplomacy?

Saddam-Glaspie meeting

Transcript of Meeting Between Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. - July 25, 1990 (Eight days before the August 2, 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait)

July 25, 1990 - Presidential Palace - Baghdad

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threat s against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?

Saddam Hussein - As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - What solutions would be acceptab le?

Saddam Hussein - If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)

CONTINUED...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html

You should see what Poppy did to all them Iraqi conscripts.

The Massacre of Withdrawing Soldiers on "The Highway of Death"

by Joyce Chediac

I want to give testimony on what are called the "highways of death." These are the two Kuwaiti roadways, littered with remains of 2,000 mangled Iraqi military vehicles, and the charred and dismembered bodies of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who were withdrawing from Kuwait on February 26th and 27th 1991 in compliance with UN resolutions.

U.S. planes trapped the long convoys by disabling vehicles in the front, and at the rear, and then pounded the resulting traffic jams for hours. "It was like shooting fish in a barrel," said one U.S. pilot. The horror is still there to see.

On the inland highway to Basra is mile after mile of burned, smashed, shattered vehicles of every description - tanks, armored cars, trucks, autos, fire trucks, according to the March 18, 1991, Time magazine. On the sixty miles of coastal highway, Iraqi military units sit in gruesome repose, scorched skeletons of vehicles and men alike, black and awful under the sun, says the Los Angeles Times of March 11, 1991. While 450 people survived the inland road bombing to surrender, this was not the case with the 60 miles of the coastal road. There for 60 miles every vehicle was strafed or bombed, every windshield is shattered, every tank is burned, every truck is riddled with shell fragments. No survivors are known or likely. The cabs of trucks were bombed so much that they were pushed into the ground, and it's impossible to see if they contain drivers or not. Windshields were melted away, and huge tanks were reduced to shrapnel.

"Even in Vietnam I didn't see anything like this. It's pathetic," said Major Bob Nugent, an Army intelligence officer. This one-sided carnage, this racist mass murder of Arab people, occurred while White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater promised that the U.S. and its coalition partners would not attack Iraqi forces leaving Kuwait. This is surely one of the most heinous war crimes in contemporary history.

The Iraqi troops were not being driven out of Kuwait by U.S. troops as the Bush administration maintains. They were not retreating in order to regroup and fight again. In fact, they were withdrawing, they were going home, responding to orders issued by Baghdad, announcing that it was complying with Resolution 660 and leaving Kuwait. At 5:35 p.m. (Eastern standard Time) Baghdad radio announced that Iraq's Foreign Minister had accepted the Soviet cease-fire proposal and had issued the order for all Iraqi troops to withdraw to postions held before August 2, 1990 in compliance with UN Resolution 660. President Bush responded immediately from the White House saying (through spokesman Marlin Fitzwater) that "there was no evidence to suggest the Iraqi army is withdrawing. In fact, Iraqi units are continuing to fight. . . We continue to prosecute the war." On the next day, February 26, 1991, Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad radio that Iraqi troops had, indeed, begun to withdraw from Kuwait and that the withdrawal would be complete that day. Again, Bush reacted, calling Hussein's announcement "an outrage" and "a cruel hoax."

CONTINUED...

http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-death.htm

Gee. A fleeing army of conscripts -- draftees of Saddam -- slaughtered. It did give a glimpse to our future.

BTW: A hearty welcome to DU, Doomy! Like the moniker. Fits the times.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Well he did warn us.

He has said on more than on occasion that it would be easier if this were a dictatorship so long as he were the dictator...yuk yuk yuk. But he was only kidding, right? So say his supporters. Lots of us in Texas knew bu$h** was a corporate whore POS long before he announced his bid for the Oval Office. In Sept. 2000 he was asked about the impending deficit in TX and his reply was that he hoped he would not be here to deal with it, he was seeking a higher office. Translation being he was fixin' to screw the rest of American like he did Texas. And guess what, he has only on a grander scale, of course! Oh and btw, when he rode into TX, we had a surplus, thank you Ann Richards!

[Octafish]

11. Smirko has just about stolen everything in sight.

About the only monies left are the I.O.U.s in the Social Security Trust Fund.

Oops.

Hey, Blue State Native! Remember UTIMCO?

Intelligence Whispers

Wayne Masden
06/20/2005
 
WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2005 -- Two criminal investigations based in New York are getting close to exposing a major Bush family and associates' international money laundering operation that has spanned more than a generation and has been used to illegally fund U.S. elections since the Nixon era. According to CIA sources, most Bush family assets are tied up in off-shore accounts that are masked from investigators through the use of pass through companies and secretive interlocking board directorships.

The investigations of the secret Bush money tranches are coming to the fore as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer focuses in on the scandal involving Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and the inflation of the worth of American Insurance Group (AIG) through shady affiliates, including AIG reinsurer Coral Re of Barbados. Greenberg was the CEO of AIG but was forced to step down amid the Spitzer probe. AIG was founded from Asia Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based international import/export and insurance firm founded in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during World War II. AIG's largest shareholder is Starr International Company (SICO), an off-shore corporation incorporated  in Panama with headquarters in Bermuda. Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who prosecuted President Clinton, is the nephew of Cornelius Starr. Greenberg inherited the CEO job and Chairmanship from Starr as well as the $3.5 billion Starr Foundation.

Another probe by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is focused on long-time Bush backers Sam and Charles Wyly of Texas and a Bank of America off-shore account in the Isle of Man. According to intelligence sources, that probe is getting very close to an Isle of Man multi-billion dollar account controlled by the Bushes through an off-shore contrivance known as Five Star Trust.

Charles Wyly serves on the board of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). Critics have charged that hundreds of millions of dollars of UTIMCO's $11 billion in public funds have been steered to investment funds run by Bush family friends and supporters. A number of UTIMCO's past and current directors are members of George W. Bush's "$100,000 Club." These include, in addition to Wyly, former UTIMCO chairman Tom Hicks, a vice chairman of Clear Channel and head of Muse, Tate & Furst, Inc.; L. Lowry Mays, the chairman of Clear Channel; former Texas Representative and current lobbyist Tom Loeffler (who received illegal laundered campaign contributions from the failed Vernon Savings & Loan); A. W. Riter, a former chairman of NCNB Bank in Tyler, Texas; A. R. "Tony" Sanchez, Chairman of Sanchez-O'Brien Oil & Gas, owner of the Texas border-based International Bank of Commerce and the failed Tesoro Savings & Loan; and Woody Hunt, Chairman of Hunt Building Company. Some of UTIMCO's investments were directed to firms with close ties to Bush "Pioneer" contributors Lee Bass (Bass Brothers Enterprises), Henry Kravis (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), and Charles Wyly (Maverick Capital Fund), as well as George W. and H.W. Bush (The Carlyle Partners II Fund, managed by The Carlyle Group).

Questions have been raised about the sudden resignation of Hugh McColl, ostensibly a Democrat, from the Bank of America in 2001 just after George W. Bush's election. McColl's departure was reportedly a year earlier than originally planned. McColl contributed $104,000 to Bush in the 2000 campaign and gave a mere pittance to Al Gore. Earlier, in 1983, McColl became head of NCNB Bank, which became Nations Bank in 1991. In 1988, NCNB had acquired the failed First Republic Bank of Dallas and, according to intelligence insiders, assumed responsibility for a number of questionable Bush family business deals.

CONTINUED...

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/intelwhispers/intelligence_whispers.htm

There's always a way. It's easier when there's a paper trail.

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. And he's fixin' to steal those 'IOU's' in that file cabinet!

:wow:

[Gothmog]

8. Bush has always been out to get Saddam

Saddam tried to kill Bush's daddy and Bush has been determined to get Saddam. The whole war was based on lies used to justify going after Saddam

[Octafish]

13. The little turd from Crawford wanted to show up Poppy, "mano a mano."

"Ah'm a big man, too. See, I done what you couldn't."

After he just sort of wandered away from military service, Bush's partying lifestyle resumed with a vengeance and it continued to cause him trouble. According to a friend, he and George spent a lot of their free time boozing it up at parties:

"We did drink... we drank what people gave us to drink... And if we went to a party and they were serving liquor, then we would drink it, and we would drink it until it was gone."

Sometime around Christmas in 1972, George drove home drunk with his teenaged brother Marvin and plowed into a neighbor's garbage can. When daddy said he wanted to have a talk, George tried to pick a fight with his old man, challenging him to go a few rounds "mano a mano" outside.

As Bush well knew, there's really no better place for a drinking man than college. So that's where George headed next. In 1973 he enrolled in Harvard Business School and spent the next two years earning his MBA. He spoke fondly of the institution in his 1999 autobiography, declaring: "Harvard gave me the tools and the vocabulary of the business world."

CONTINUED...

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/presidents/george-w-bush/

[Karenina]

18. *Vocabulary learned at Harvard...

DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM???

[Gabi Hayes]

17. I just linked the Russell Baker thing in another thread

isn't it amazing how little coverage this got?

did anybody see it anywhere, besides here, or on AAR, or other VLWC outlets?