Disclaimer: I’m willing to believe the worst of George W. Bush. That’s important because it wasn’t difficult for me to believe that he was an untruthful power hungry manipulating son of a bitch in everything he did from the day he was nominated to the day his brown-shirts disrupted the Florida vote recount to the day that his twin-towers Reichstag allowed him the seldom quoted line that "my war will be the first war of the 21st century."
I knew he was lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Didn’t you? You should have, since the UN weapons inspectors had told us as much and the country had suffered for the preceding decade under one of the strictest economic and military embargoes in recorded history. We had an inventory of every pack of chewing gum that was allowed into that country, and we knew the disposition of the illegal weapons that we, the USA, had sold the Iraq government in the years before we put them under embargo. All else was a transparent lie, yet people were willing to believe the lie. Why?
I knew his NSA was listening, that my email is being screened, that American citizens have been under indiscriminate surveillance throughout his regime. Didn’t you? You should have. The administration has interpreted the "wartime powers" of the executive branch in the broadest possible way. They have justified suspension of habeus corpus (see Padilla), kidnapping (see Italian government warrant for implicated CIA agents), and torture. They have hired mercenaries to skirt the Geneva conventions regarding combat and treatment of prisoners.
But you knew that. At least, you should have know that. None of it is a secret. All of it has been reported.
But for some reason, many people turned a blind eye to the Bush excesses early in the game. Republicans and Libertarians didn’t want to lose this opportunity to consolidate power, so they could excuse a little torture, a little lying about war and the reasons for war. These things played to our fears following the twin-towers destruction. It’s almost understandable that we would reject the truth, polish up the jack-boots and goose step into war under the black banner of Barbara’s boy genius.
Or is it understandable? How many of the people who now voice indignation regarding the deceit, the eavesdropping, the anthrax attacks on American journalism and Democrat opponents of the regime… how many of you people already "got it" but didn’t have the cojones to stand against the war crimes, the evil? How many of you are still in denial regarding the war crimes, the falsehoods, the torture, the evil?
How much more will it take before the blinders are removed and you can see it for what it is?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
the woolly masses see just fine, frank. it’s just that the first to bleat gets a good an proper shearing (and who can eat ass all out?).
Freedom speaks with one proud, rock-ribbed, individualist voice, Frank, and marches in neat lines after doing jumping jacks in the liberty queues. Acquiescence tags along fretting a little, but tags along nevertheless. Expectation of gaining control of Freedom sweetens its dreams.
Don’t be fooled, please, by the pot smoking Republicans claiming to be libertarians, big L and small. There’s some integrity in libertarian circles, though it’s pretty well obscured by the wingnut sense of entitlement crowd. You can find the real deal starting at the Mutualist http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
Contracts to “private military contractors” only got worse under the Bushists. They’ve been a feature of the landscape for ages now. DynCorp was running child prostitution rings and Wackenhut was abusing people in privatized prisons long before the Chimp started hooting in the Oval Office.
I hear you, fp.
Keep on shining that light through these dark ages … someone will surely see it … surely?
From my readings across the net it seems the blinders are off, a large number of americans do see ‘it’ for what it is, and fully endorse ‘it’.
Yeah Brian. We call them “complicit” and hope to try them for war crimes.