IRAQ IS AN UTTER DISASTER FOR AMERICA

Just in case you hadn't noticed the flurry of news over the past few days, here are four damning articles, not from some weirdo leftist rag, but from the local daily right smack dab in the middle of Bush country, the Houston Chronicle.

'No credible evidence' Saddam
helped al-Qaida, 9/11 panel says

From the Associated Press:

Bin Laden made overtures to Saddam for assistance, the commission said, as he did with leaders in Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere in his drive to build an Islamic army.

While Saddam dispatched a senior Iraqi intelligence official to Sudan to meet with bin Laden in 1994, the commission said it had not turned up evidence of a "collaborative relationship."

The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator "had long established ties with al-Qaida."

President Bush has said there is no evidence that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

But critics have alleged the administration has left a contrary impression with the public. Last fall, Cheney referred to what he called a credible but unconfirmed intelligence report that Mohamed Atta, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, had met at least once in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attacks.

The panel report said that meeting never happened.

Click here.

So there you have it. No ties. But will facts deter our "faith based" President? Hell, no!

Bush stands by claims on Saddam

From the Knight Ridder news service:

President Bush on Thursday defended his claims that Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaida, but he denied that his administration accused the deposed Iraqi dictator of collaborating in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Statements by Bush and his top aides and U.S. documents show that the administration systematically sought to justify an invasion of Iraq by connecting Saddam with the perpetrators of the bloodiest terrorist strikes in U.S. history.

The administration went to extraordinary lengths to associate the secular Iraqi ruler with the terrorist network of Muslim radical Osama bin Laden. They included publicizing claims by Iraqi defectors that Iraq was training Islamic extremists in the same hijacking techniques used by the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Click here for more.

Even though the White House still insists that it's fantasies and delusions are actually reality, it looks like the press is is now brave enought to insist on the real reality. A news analysis from the AP:

Commission deals blow to
president's justification for war

The latest findings, less than five months before the U.S. presidential election, raised fresh questions about Bush's decision to invade Iraq and gave Democrats an opportunity to exploit an issue already a political liability for the White House.

At times, the administration has seemed to suggest that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks against America. Democrats have accused the White House -- particularly Vice President Dick Cheney -- of trying to create that impression even though the administration has acknowledged there is no evidence to support the idea.

More than two-thirds of Americans expressed a belief last year that Iraq was behind the attacks, and Cheney said at the time, "It's not surprising people make that connection."

Bush worked to fuel the connection, talking about the Sept. 11 terrorists and Saddam in the same breath. "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam," Bush said in his State of the Union message last year, before the war. "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."

Click here.

Meanwhile, as the American people come to their senses, the Iraqi people just want to get on with their lives:

Poll: Most Iraqis wish U.S. would just leave

Again from the AP:

The poll was conducted by Iraqis in face-to-face interviews in six cities with people representative of the country's various factions. Its results conflict with the generally upbeat assessments the administration continues to give Americans. Just last week, Bush predicted future generations of Iraqis "will come to America and say, thank goodness America stood the line and was strong and did not falter in the face of the violence of a few."

The current generation seems eager for Americans to leave, the poll found.

The coalition's confidence rating in May stood at 11 percent, down from 47 percent in November, while coalition forces had just 10 percent support. Ninety-two percent of the Iraqis said they considered coalition troops occupiers, while just 2 percent called them liberators.

Click here.

So to sum it all up in one clear statement, we were right, and they were WRONG. Dead wrong. About everything, except that Saddam was an evil tyrant. Some 80 or 85% of the US population bought the lies, even though, as they say, the truth was out there. The other 15-20% of the country knew better; I knew better, but it was like talking to an angry brick wall when trying to convince my hawk acquaintances. Facts didn't matter. Emotional appeals didn't matter. Nothing mattered, just the burning war-lust of the American people. This is probably the biggest fuck-up in American history--nearly a thousand US soldiers are dead, and thousands of Iraqis, as well, because...well, I'm not really sure why this all happened the way it did. I have some theories: mostly I blame the corporatization of the news business and our public schools' conditioning Americans to accept authority, but that just doesn't seem to get at the vast scale of how our country has screwed up so badly.

I fear that the only conclusion I can walk away from this with is that people, deep down, really are sheep. Damn. I'm so sad.

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