Pharoah Bush: The Grand Inquistor of Democracy

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"You have sacrificed

nearly ten thousand American lives, you have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desired to benefit, you have established reconcentration camps, your

statesmanship has succeded in converting a grateful people into enemies possessed of a hatred which ceturies cannot eradicate".

Senator George Hoar

On the War in the Phillipines, 1902

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Bush Quotes:

"We have a strategy for victory."

This is interesting to learn. But why should there be a "strategy" for "victory" when "victory" has already been declared in May 2003? Evidently, something unexpected happened. So now there is a 'strategy' for victory? Well, what is is? Is it a state secret? Since the troops will not be, by the Presidents' own admission--- withdrawn while he remains President, the "strategy" can be nothing less than the permanent occupation, through permanent military bases, of Iraq. What sort of "strategy" will ever stop suicide bombers and road-side bombs? Obviously, nothing can. What sort of stratgey will make Sunnis and Shias overcome distrust, hatred, and bloodshed? There is no such strategy. The only strategy this administration ever had was to turn Iraq into a battlefield against their enemies, the same ones that they ran away from at Tora Bora in 2001.


"Our foreign policy changed on September the 11th. We used to think we were secure because of oceans and dipolomacy, but no more."


Bush repeats this one endlessly, just like the meaningless mantra that it is. When was the last time the United States "felt secure" behind its oceans? Possibly in the Revolutionary War? Even that 'security" involved only the length of time neccessary for ships bringing British troops to across the Atlantic. Every War since then has had two conspiciously global dimensions. 1. Each involved the postioning and control of navies to control the seas. 2. Each required that the seas and shipping routes be won to insure supplies reached our armies, and that our goods reached foreign markets. After 1945 it is entirely clear that no ocean protected any nation on the planet from almost instanteous annihalation by nuclear weapons. What is Bush talking about?


"We won't allow safe-havens for the enemy, that's why I went into Iraq. That's where Afgahnistan provided safe haven to Al-Qaeda."


BUT THERE WERE NO AL-QAEDA in Iraq before our presence drew them there! Bush was asked about Iraq but he answered referring to Afghanistan. The real question should be: If it is so important for you and your administration to fight Al-Qaeda why do you still refuse to fight them where they have their bases, along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Why have you provided a training ground for them by opening a second front for them in Iraq? Why did you flee from them at Tora Bora? Are you afraid to fight them on their own ground? Is this because you suspect that you would lose there?


"This is a global war on terror, and Iraq is part of the war on terror."

It wasn't part of a 'global war' before you invaded it, but it is now. But no one seems to have bothered to ask WHY Iraq's people should have their newly-liberated country turned into a battlefield. Evidently it goes without saying that their children should be killed before ours are even threatened. What does this policy say about how we view them? Given that we view them just as have other colonial powers, can we be surprised that many Iraqis would come to be sympathtic to, and even join, the various insurgent groups?

"They are capbable of blowing up innocent life so that it ends of on TV and therefore it effects the woman in Cleveland you talked about."

Are we "capbable of blowing up innocent life" in order to impose OUR will on Iraq? The answer has been demonstrated again and again. We conduct War by televsion, while the Iraqi people are not supposed to be angry if their children die in the streets of their own towns as we impose OUR will. This level of denial can only be called pathological.

"I think most Americans understand that WE need to WIN".

It is interesting how it always all comes back TO US. I always have a very hard time imagining that my "security" here in North America, defended by enough nuclear weapons to incinerate the planet a thousand times over-- is dependant on what some Iraqi farmer who lives in a mud hut thinks or does. It was the United States, led by Bush, against the wishes of much of the international community, that freely CHOSE this war. It therefore freely chose to saddle itself with the onus of a supposed choice between "Defeat" or "Victory". If we had not made so many stupid choices then the field of choices open to us now would not look like the bad side of a pig sty. Then to make the suggestion, as Bush does, that that the war is really more about Americans-- than about Iraqis-- this is really the height of hubris and ignorance of what it is we ourselves have wrought.

"I see Al Qaeda as a group led by a philosphy and tatics to impose THEIR WILL on other countries."

Man, I gotta hand it to this guy. Talk about brillance and insight! Yet I can think of another country to whom this statement equally applies. Can you?

"If the March to Democracy in Iraq were to fail, and we were to prematurely withdraw, Al-Qaeda and the Islamo- Facists would be emboldened."

And what would have happened if we hadn't invaded Iraq, yet another Muslim country in the Middle East? The Pentagon would have had to do some heavy lifting and really figure out how to continue to fight these guys in a country (Pakistan) where they enjoy broad support. Or perhaps just make peace with them? In the case of continuing war with them--- large numbers of American soldiers would have been sent into a combat where huge numbers of them would have faced certain death. The "War On Terror" would then have become a REAL WAR, requiring real sacrifice and real unity of purpose, neither of which Bush can provoke, despite his best efforts to do so, in the American people. The question then would have immediately arisen with the American public: Is this war really unavoidable? Or can we simply let these Muslim nations alone, let them work out their own destinies? In that case American support for continued pursuit of Al-Qaeda would have been seen for what it now is, the vengeful pride of a few of our chief leaders against the fanatical pride of a few of Al Qaeda's. I believe that it is doubtful that Americans would have supported any such war for very long.

"Its an interesting debate, isn't it, about whether or not this country of ours should work to spread liberty; as to whether it is a noble purpose to spread liberty? History teaches that democracies don't war. We ought to pursue liberty. The goal of this country should be to end tryanny in the 21st century. I said that and I meant it. I said it for peace"

"Democracies" don't make war? Britian made war in 1914-1919. Ancient Athens made war all over the Peloponese in the sixth century. Modern America has made war almost constantly from 1860-2006. Are these Democracies?
Since the Bush administration counts among its Neo-Con advisors a man who has authored a book entitled "The End of History" I suggest that Bush send someone up to the hill to help author a bill in which it can be spelled out that the new purpose of our Republic is to end "History" as soon as possible all over the globe. In this bill Congress can offically declare "History" to be over with. From this time forward all societies must look and act alike; they must have the same philosophical premises; they must organize themselves in identical ways. Any nation that tries any other system but one whom we mistakely claim as "ours"--- will be unilaterally attacked and destroyed by the United States of America. Come on folks, give war...uh sorry, peace--- a chance!


Will Morgan