← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ed Toner
Thread ID: 10644 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-10-21
2003-10-21 18:19 | User Profile
[url]http://www.uexpress.com/georgieannegeyer/?uc_full_date=20031016[/url]
BUSH SR. SENDS NOT-SO-SUBTLE MESSAGE WITH AWARD TO KENNEDY
WASHINGTON -- It's not as though Osama Bin Laden gave a Jihad Award to Ariel Sharon, or Donald Rumsfeld gave his Good Pal Award to Condoleezza Rice. It's not even as though Dick Cheney gave his Favorite Foreigners Citation to the French. But the news from College Station, Texas, this week -- that the First Father, former President George H.W. Bush, has given his own most treasured award to Sen. Edward Kennedy -- is nearly as astonishing.
When it was announced (with amazingly little fanfare) that the pugnaciously anti-Iraq war Democrat Kennedy had been awarded the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, so many jaws dropped all over Washington that usually voluble politicians were only heard swallowing their real thoughts.
Since the current President Bush .............................. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [url]http://thomasmc.com/1017a.htm[/url] October 16 by Ted Kennedy
The Administration Has Failed on Iraq Nearly six months have elapsed since President Bush flew out to the aircraft carrier and declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. Today, we all know all too well that the war is not over; the war goes on; the mission is not accomplished. An unnecessary war, based on unreliable and inaccurate intelligence, has not brought an end to danger. Instead, it has brought new dangers, imposed new costs, and taken more and more American lives each week.
We all agree that Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant, and his brutal regime was an affront to basic human decency. But Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one.
The trumped up reasons for going to war have collapsed. All the Administration's rationalizations as we prepared to go to war now stand revealed as "double-talk." The American people were told Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. He was not. We were told he had stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction. He did not. We were told he was involved in 9/11. He was not. We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from Al Qaeda. It was not. We were told our soldiers would be viewed as liberators. They are not. We were told Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction. It cannot. We were told the war would make America safer. It has not.
Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie.
And now, despite the increasingly restless Iraqi population, despite the continuing talk of sabotage, despite the foreign terrorists crossing thousands of miles of border to attack U.S. servicemen and women in Iraq, the Administration still refuses to face the truth or tell the truth. Instead the White House responds by covering up its failures and trying to sell its rosy version of events by repeating it with maximum frequency and volume, and minimum regard for realities on the ground.
No P.R. campaign by the increasingly desperate White House can redress the painful of loss of a young American soldier almost every day. Instead of greater stability and order, the forces arrayed against us are steadily increasing the intensity and sophistication of their assaults on our troops. Bombs that were once set off by trip wires are now being set off by remote control. The threat of shoulder fired missiles makes it unsafe for civilian planes to land at Baghdad Airport.
No foreign policy in our free society can succeed for long unless it is supported by our people. Our men and women in uniform fought bravely and brilliantly, but the President's war has been revealed as mindless, needless, senseless, and reckless. The American people know all this. Our allies know it. Our soldiers know it.
We should never have gone to war in Iraq when we did, in the way we did, for the false reasons we were given.
2003-10-21 22:48 | User Profile
Anyone who is surprised by this is a grade A certified moron. Bush, Kennedy et al. are all members of "the establishment." They're on the same team, fools.