More letters

Pushing against the rock of propaganda-driven public opinion, another batch of letters were dropped off to our local rag. One of these may be published soon:

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At his recent press conference, President Bush stated that “ . . . we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him.” Bush seems to routinely forget that weapons inspectors were in Iraq, searching and finding none of the weapons that a small number of people in our government claimed would be there. The inspectors had to be ordered to leave Iraq on the eve of invasion. Why does the President keep making these misleading statements? His actions and statements almost make it seem as if he would have invaded Iraq whether or not he thought they had threatening weapons.

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At his recent press conference, President Bush stated that “My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people.” It is strange to me that Bush did not understand before 9/11 that part of his job was to use every asset at his disposal to protect the American people. Perhaps this explains why he ignored the Presidential daily briefs warning of Bin Laden’s plan to attack us. It may also explain why airlines were not put on the alert, and why nearby air bases were not warned that they might need to scramble jets quickly to defend us. What is also puzzling is that Bush’s concept of defense is almost completely offensive, in that the only thing he can conceive to make the country safer is to go to a foreign, oil-rich country, kill a lot of people, topple the government to create anarchy, and build permanent military bases. Perhaps a little defensive defense, like shoring up port security, would also be wise?

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At his recent press conference, President Bush stated “You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life.” Reading this statement, I wonder who he referring to when he says “we”. Because “we”, if I remember correctly, lived under constant threat of the thermonuclear annihilation of the human race for about forty years or so, oceans notwithstanding. He couldn’t have been talking about the “we” who remember the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993, and the thwarted attempt to destroy LAX during the millennium celebrations in 1999, despite previous diplomacy. It almost seems like he is trying to implant these simplistic notions in “our” heads. Perhaps when he says “we” he is referring to the group of people whose job it was to protect us even before 9/11, the ones who were receiving intelligence briefings entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” but who somehow failed to “realize” that “killers could destroy innocent life”.