T's pro-war propaganda WAS re Re: More army chaplaincy

[pynchonoid]

There's no need to repeat the current US propaganda
line, Terrance.  It's readily available from every US
corporate media outlet. 

-Doug

T:
>Iraq was in material breach of UN  resolutions
>relating to Iraq's 1990
>invasion of Kuwait.  [blah blah blah]


<http://www.consortiumnews.com/>

Bush's Alderaan

By Robert Parry
April 8, 2003

In the latest sign of a troubled American democracy, a
large majority of U.S. citizens now say they wouldn’t
mind if no weapons of mass destruction are found in
Iraq, though it was George W. Bush’s chief rationale
for war. Americans also don’t seem to mind that Bush
appears to have deceived them for months when he
claimed he hadn’t made up his mind about invading
Iraq.

As he marched the nation to war, Bush presented
himself as a Christian man of peace who saw war only
as a last resort. But in a remarkable though little
noted disclosure, Time magazine reported that in March
2002 – a full year before the invasion – Bush outlined
his real thinking to three U.S. senators, “Fuck
Saddam,” Bush said. “We’re taking him out.”

Time actually didn’t report the quote exactly that
way. Apparently not to offend readers who admire
Bush’s moral clarity, Time printed the quote as “F---
Saddam. We’re taking him out.”

Bush offered his pithy judgment after sticking his
head in the door of a White House meeting between
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three
senators who had been discussing strategies for
dealing with Iraq through the United Nations. The
senators laughed uncomfortably at Bush’s remark, Time
reported. 

It now is clear that Bush never intended to avoid a
war in Iraq, a conflict which has so far claimed the
lives of at least 85 American soldiers and possibly
thousands of Iraqis.

As of Monday, April 7, the U.S. military had located
two suspicious caches of chemicals that were
undergoing tests, but still had not confirmed any
chemical or biological weapons. Whatever those
ultimate findings, however, there's little doubt that
the long-running drama over United Nations inspections
to ensure that Iraq had rid itself of weapons of mass
destruction was a charade designed to mask Bush’s
predetermined course of action -- to test out his new
doctrine of preemptive war.

No Credibility

Much of the world – from Canada to Cameroon – caught
on to the administration’s game as it sought to
manipulate international support for an invasion.
Bush's lack of credibility on the world stage left him
with only four out of 15 votes on the U.N. Security
Council for a war resolution.

The Bush administration’s deceit was so obvious that
even Washington Post columnist David Broder spotted
it. Broder, who has built a career ignoring unpleasant
realities about Washington’s powerful, observed how
Bush had choreographed the march to war.

“Looking back, the major landmarks of the past year
appear to have been carefully designed to leave no
alternative but war with Iraq – or an unlikely
capitulation and abdication by Hussein,” Broder wrote
on the eve of the war. Noting Bush’s post-Sept. 11th
doctrine of waging preemptive war against any nation
that he deemed a potential threat, Broder said, “It
quickly became clear that Iraq had been chosen as the
test case of the new doctrine.” [Washington Post,
March 18, 2003]

Once Bush had chosen the site, there was virtually
nothing the Iraqi government could do to avoid war,
short of total capitulation. As a demonstration of
both America’s military might and his own itchy
trigger finger, Bush had decided to make Iraq his
Alderaan, the hapless planet in the original Star Wars
movie that was picked to show off the power of the
Death Star.

“Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of
this battle station,” explained Death Star commander
Tarkin in the movie. “No star system will dare oppose
the emperor now.”

Similarly, the slaughter of the outmatched Iraqi
military is meant to send a message to other countries
that might try to resist Bush’s dictates. At a Central
Command briefing, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks took note
of this awesome power on display as he described the
decimation – or “degrading” – of Iraqi forces south of
Baghdad.

“They’re in serious trouble,” Brooks said. “They
remain in contact now with the most powerful force on
earth.” Using the unsavory Saddam Hussein as a foil,
Bush was unleashing hell on the Iraqis.

Caligula's Saying

This new emphasis on military might to bring other
countries into line -- occurring in tandem with the
cheapening of the democratic debate inside the United
States -- may have been described best by U.S.
diplomat John Brady Kiesling, who resigned earlier
this year rather than help give diplomatic cover to
the war strategy.

"We have not seen such systematic distortion of
intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American
opinion, since the war in Vietnam," Kiesling wrote in
a resignation letter on Feb. 27. "We spread
disproportionate terror and confusion in the public
mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of
terrorism and Iraq."

Kiesling also grasped the shift to empire – away from
republic – that is underpinning Bush's policies. The
career diplomat asked, "Has 'oderint dum metuant'
really become our motto?" citing a favorite saying of
the mad Roman emperor Caligula, which means "Let them
hate so long as they fear."

"The policies we are now asked to advance are
incompatible not only with American values but also
with American interests," Kiesling wrote. "When our
friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is
time to worry."

Yet the apparent enthusiasm of the American people for
the war in Iraq – and their lightly considered
acquiescence to this crossover to imperial power –
have sent a chilling message to the rest of the world.
That message is that the American people and their
increasingly enfeebled democratic process will not
serve as a check on George W. Bush.

God's Work

Bush apparently sees his mission in messianic terms,
believing that he is the instrument of God as he
strikes at Saddam Hussein and other U.S. adversaries.
In a profile of Bush at war, USA Today cited Commerce
Secretary Don Evans, one of Bush’s closest friends,
describing Bush’s belief that he was called on by God
to do what he’s doing.

Bush’s obsession with Hussein also was traced to a
personal loathing for the dictator. Bush “is convinced
that the Iraqi leader is literally insane and would
gladly give terrorists weapons to use to launch
another attack on the United States,” the newspaper
reported. In that conviction, however, Bush is at odds
with CIA analysts who concluded last year that the
secular Hussein would only share weapons with Islamic
terrorists if the United States invaded Iraq.

While assessing Hussein as nuts, Bush has not proven
to be a model of psychological stability either. As he
readied himself for the speech announcing the start of
the war, he was behaving more like a frat boy than a
world leader undertaking a grave act that would end
the lives of thousands. He pumped his fist and
exclaimed about himself, “feel good.”

[...] 

While at the Associated Press and Newsweek in the
1980s, Robert Parry broke many of the stories now
known as the Iran-Contra Affair. His latest book is
Lost History. 




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