Al-Qaeda
In Iraq Bush's Creation
By Bill Gallagher
07 July, 2007
Niagara
Falls Reporter
President
George W. Bush's political capital is about as low as it can go, with
only dead-end Bushists clinging to his failed regime. The erosion of
support, however, can actually make the madman even more isolated from
reality, arrogant and impetuous.
The final 18 months of his
presidency will be an increasingly dangerous time for the world. Bush
is wrapping himself in his messianic blanket, still bound to convince
the infidels at home and abroad that he is a gifted visionary who can
reshape the Middle East.
Vice President Dick Cheney
makes Dr. Strangelove seem like Gandhi. Cheney operates above the Congress,
the Constitution, the law and human decency -- at times, above the presidency.
He does as he pleases and is answerable to no one.
Bush is not nearly clever
enough to sort through or keep up with Cheney's Machiavellian machinations.
The president is so lazy and incurious, he's more than willing to let
Cheney do his dirty work. Whether it is approving torture, illegal wiretapping,
concentration camps and kidnappings, or coddling corporate polluters,
Cheney is ready to nod OK.
The poll numbers are encouraging,
as Americans see through the lies and conclude -- tragically, too late
-- what a mess we are in. The percentage of Americans who believe the
war in Iraq was a mistake is at an all-time high, as is the percentage
of those who say continued U.S. military action there is not morally
justified.
A CBS/New York Times poll
shows 23 percent of Americans believe the war is going well, 76 percent
say the war is going "badly." The critical question politicians
carefully watch: "Do you believe the country is heading in the
right direction?" The nation is on the wrong track, according to
72 percent of respondents. That's the highest number since the poll
started asking that question in 1983.
The numbers show people are
generally gaining a better understanding of the disastrous course our
nation is on and the serial failures of the Bush administration. There
are exceptions, which seem baffling at first but find explanation in
the administration's talking points -- invariably lies and distortions
-- dutifully echoed in the mainstream media.
A "Newsweek" magazine
poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International
posed the question, "Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq
was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001?"
A staggering 41 percent answered
yes. That's actually a 5 percentage point increase over the same question
asked in 2004. It's hard to image that 4 out of 10 Americans could be
that uninformed or flat-out stupid. Another poll shows 3 out of 10 Americans
still approve of Bush's job performance and his handling of the war
in Iraq.
The growth in the number
of sorry souls buying the Saddam-Sept. 11 lie may be the result of the
word games the White House and Pentagon use to sell the failed surge
and the futile occupation of Iraq.
When people hear "al-Qaeda,"
it's natural that they think of Osama bin Laden and the Sept. 11 attacks.
The insurgency, sectarian violence and opposition to the U.S. occupation
in Iraq are not about fighting al-Qaeda, but that's how Bush's fiasco
there is being branded.
McClatchy Newspapers' Baghdad
correspondent Mike Drummond exposed the sinister rhetorical shift, noting
in a recent report, "U.S. forces continue to battle Shiite militia
in the south, as well as Shiite militia and Sunni insurgents in Baghdad.
Yet America's most wanted enemy at the moment is Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The Bush administration's recent shift toward calling the enemy in Iraq
'al-Qaeda' rather than an insurgency may reflect the difficulty in maintaining
support for the war at home more than it does the nature of the enemy
in Iraq."
In a major speech at the
National War College last week, Bush mentioned al-Qaeda 27 times. McClatchy's
Jonathan Landley reports, "Bush called al-Qaeda in Iraq the perpetrator
of the worst violence racking that country and said it was the same
group that carried out the 9/11 attacks."
Pure crap. Al-Qaeda has become
a generic name, in many cases a self-proclaimed label for foes of the
U.S. invasion. Since some of the Iraqi Sunnis started calling themselves
"al-Qaeda in Iraq" or "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,"
the Bush propaganda ministry saw an opportunity to conflate the invasion
of Iraq with the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush went on to claim, "Al-Qaeda
is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike. Al-Qaeda is responsible
for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the
sensational killings on U.S. soil." Those are demonstrable lies.
Bush hardly mentioned sectarian violence. U.S. military intelligence
even disputes Bush's wild claims. All of this is intentional and meant
to deceive and distort.
The Iraq Study Group and
intelligence estimates placed the number of Iraqi insurgent forces at
approximately 20,000 combatants. At most, 5 percent of that number are
foreigners fighting in Iraq, nearly all going there in response to the
U.S. invasion. Some are Iranians supporting Shiites; others Sunnis from
Syria and Saudi Arabia supporting Iraqi Sunnis. Nearly all come from
nations with strategic interests in the region and want to help their
ethnic or religious comrades.
The lightning rod for these
expeditionary forces is the presence of U.S. forces in the heart of
Islam. Bin Laden, hiding in the mountains of northern Pakistan, just
sits back and relaxes, enjoying the bloody spectacle and the gift to
radical Islam Bush brought him.
The true ties involving Iraq,
deadly chemical weapons and the United States rarely get a mention.
Saddam's allies in killings tens of thousands of Kurds included Ronald
Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates and others.
Reagan as president, Bush as vice president, Rumsfeld as special envoy
to the Middle East and Gates as a senior CIA officer all provided help
and support for Saddam's murderous assaults on his own people.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal
has sentenced Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid to death. Known as
"Chemical Ali," he was the point-man in using chemical weapons
first on Iranian troops during the Iraq-Iran war, and then later on
Iraqi Kurds supporting the Iranians.
On the Smirking Chimp Web
site, Barry Lando described how, when Ali's sentence was read on June
24, "all the key players in the media were there to capture the
dramatic courtroom scene. What none of the reporters mentioned, however,
was that when Saddam and Chemical Ali and the rest of the Saddam killers
were doing their worst, the U.S. governments of Ronald Reagan and later
George Bush Senior were their de facto allies, providing them with vital
satellite intelligence, weapons and financing, while shielding them
from U.N. investigations or efforts by the U.S. Congress to impose trade
sanctions for their depredations."
Robert Parry, who broke many
of the Iran-Contra stories for AP, wrote, "Hussein's silence was
golden for the international arms dealers who supplied his regime and
the foreign officials who facilitated the shipments." So when the
"brutal dictator" -- as George W. liked to call him -- was
sent to the gallows, Bush the Elder, Rumsfeld and Gates "were among
those who could breathe a little easier after the hangman's noose had
choked the life out of Hussein," Parry concluded.
Bin Laden never had any kind
of relationship with Saddam, but many intimates of our president did.
So far, they have been able to choke the life out of that truth.
Bill Gallagher,
a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who
now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is [email protected]
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