Last Thursday night, George W. Bush made a speech to convince the nation that war with Iraq is imminent, that Saddam Hussein poses a direct threat to the security of the United States. Really? If only one could ask Mr. Bush: what threat? To be sure, Mr. Bush would flim flam some rhetoric about weapons of mass destruction, axis of evil, banal clichés that have no fact or evidence behind them.
Remember, Colin Powell – the guy who used to have some credibility – when he went to the U.N. to give chapter and verse of evidence to prove the Iraqi threat. And what did he say? Nothing! What evidence did he present? None! Yes, there was a picture of a building in which, Powell said, mass destruction weapons were being produced. A fellow named Blix, the U.N. weapons inspector looked at the same picture and said it might also be a building in which what? – bicycles, other consumer commodities were being produced. So much for the hard evidence the Administration has.
Maybe someone out there knows what specific act of violence, what bomb thrown, what death occurring for which Iraq or Hussein have been responsible? Anyone? Just a single, specific, anything, will do. But there are none. None! And yet, the talking head says war is imminent, danger is lurking.
In the film Manchurian Candidate, a Senator on some Federal Committee who declared there was a danger to America from Communists in the State Department was asked “How many communists?” Just as we might today ask Bush, what dangers, what violence has Iraq committed. The Senator in the film at the moment he was being questioned was eating breakfast, and had a bottle of Heinz ketchup in his hand. As he looked at the ‘57 Varieties’ label, he told the reporters, there were 57 known communists in the State Department. If you ask Bush how many threats, how many acts of violence, don’t be surprised if he tells you “57″.
Sadly, the only imminence of war is when do we…WE…the peace loving, law abiding U.S. of A. start it. There are no guns at our borders, bombers overhead, no armies on the move. Hussein is not in any fashion allied with Al Queda, or the terrorists who blew up our World Trade Center. In fact, Bin Ladin hates Hussein as much as Bush does. Bin Ladin is a religious fundamentalist, wanting all Moslem nations to be ruled by religious Imams; Hussein is a secular, womanizing, power hungry Autocrat. Yet we …WE…. peace loving, law abiding us, are ready to hurl 3000 precisely aimed missiles into Baghdad and environs to soften their resistance. How many innocent citizens of Baghdad will be killed by those peace loving missiles? Can you imagine living in Baghdad right at this moment, with your family, your kids, waiting to be bombed by the peace loving, liberty loving Americans – who are going to bring Democracy to Iraq, even if we have to bomb their brains out to accept it.
It’s no wonder they hate us. Why does it surprise us that the Moslem world might send terrorists and bombs against a callous and un-caring nation that would bomb Baghdad because its leaders BELIEVED there was a danger, because that peace loving nation didn’t like the choice of leader the other nation had. Is it for us to decide what leader another nation wants or maintains? Are we so absolutely righteous that we decide for other people what they should have?
In the film Gone With The Wind, when war was announced, young Southern gentlemen at a party started whooping and hollering, War, Glorious War, this was going to be Glorious. Hell, ask the people in London, Berlin, Vienna, cities which were bombed into rubble, how glorious war is. The only reasons American hawks, imminently ready to bomb innocent citizens of a gravely disliked – but passive – regime are so anxious for war is that we’ve never had our cities bombed to rubble, our citizens walking in the streets, without shelter, without food, without toilets.
Yes, of course there was 9/11, Strange, Hussein was not responsible for that catastrophe. People who hate Hussein were. Yet we, Big Brother, TOTALLY UNABLE TO FIND Bin Ladin – who’s riding around in the desert on the back of a jack ass, living in a cave – we deflect our impotence by attacking a fixed target, the city of Baghdad, Hussein, the Iraqi people.
Does any of this seem logical?
Here’s the question to ask any and all you meet. What specific act of aggression are we punishing the Iraqi people for? What act of violence are we repaying? Can’t we just go in and kill Hussein, if we’re so right. And the answer is no, we can’t. We can’t even find Bin Ladin, or even his jack ass. So we’ll bomb the Iraqi people.
In Duck Soup the Marx Brothers were singing “We’ve got gun, They’ve got guns, All God’s children have guns”. Isn’t that the refrain the four War Brothers, Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft are singing right now. The Marx Brothers were comedians. The War Brothers are nothing but radical and dangerous.