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It has been a common joke made about President George W. Bush. The man is
dumb, they say. An idiot. A bumbler. Imbecile.
It is also the general perception that President Bush failed miserably in his
diplomatic efforts prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. He should have been
able to get the world on board, that line of thought goes.
These arguments both rely on the idea that not getting the world on board for
Operation Iraqi Freedom was a failure on the part of Bush. He had claimed
again and again that he would prefer to have the UN with him, even if he would
do it with just a small "coalition of the willing" if necessary. So it
seems he wanted to get the world united in this cause, but failed.
We at The Moderate Independent are sorry to break it to the world, but 1)
Bush did not fail in his diplomatic efforts regarding Iraq, he succeeded
brilliantly in achieving his goal, and 2) the man is no dummy - in fact, far
from it; President Bush is one of the most cunning, politically brilliant men to
occupy the White House in decades.
AND, the whole idea of him being a dummy or a bumbler is just something he puts
out there to serve a purpose.
All along it seemed that Bush was
possibly inept diplomatically, and that's why the multinational coalition didn't
form and UN resolutions failed. The reality is, that President Bush never
wanted the support of France, Germany, Russia, and the UN. In fact, he
wanted to avoid having it at all costs.
Failure to get the UN resolution was
not a failure for him but a success. As you saw him and Prime Minister
Tony Blair stand side by side during the war, Blair would talk about getting the
UN involved in rebuilding Iraq. President Bush, however, would stand right
there beside him and make clear he didn't want the UN involved under any
circumstances.
Before even the first week of the war
was over, Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Haliburton, was given a
$400+ million dollar contract - they said it was for putting out the 7 oil fires
that were burning. As we now know, Haliburton has also been given control
of pumping and distributing Iraq's oil for the foreseeable future (see
CNN story). All of
this was given to Dick Cheney's old company during just the first week of the
war, in, as is no secret, a secret, closed "bidding" process (see
CNN story).
All along the Republicans had been
saying, "Well, France, Russia and Germany are just hurting themselves.
They'll be regretting not going along with the war when the oil contracts and
rebuilding contracts go out afterwards and they are left out."
As we have often heard, President
Bush is frequently underestimated. While the country and the world labeled
him diplomatically inept, he was really very adeptly pretending to be
diplomatically inept, while really achieving exactly what he, Cheney, et. al
wanted - to not have to share. We can do this alone, they said. And
in their hearts and minds they felt that since we would be doing most of the
fighting anyway - even with a UN resolution supporting the war - why share the
spoils?
It is time to give credit where it is
due. President Bush is an amazing statesman. He gives the impression
of trying to do the right thing but failing, when really he is accomplishing
exactly what he wanted, and yet looking as if he tried to do the right thing.
He gets to look like his heart was in the right place, and France and Germany
and Russia take heat from the American people for being so difficult and weak.
The reality is President Bush did
everything possible to ensure that winning their support for the war would be
impossible. The UN won't be involved in the rebuild or oil distribution,
France, Germany, and Russia won't.
Just Bush, Cheney, and their Texas
oil buddies will reap the multi, multi-billion dollar windfall that all this
blood will reap. (see
CNN story)
Whether the war was justified or not
for the sake of national security, this forcing us to go it alone solely for the
purpose of keeping the contracts and cash all for Bush's friends is truly one of the
most heinously amoral things we at The Moderate Independent have ever known.
It has been truly horrible to sit and watch our President drive a wedge between
us and all of our allies - even Britain - to maintain control of the money.
President Bush and his administration even stooped to running a "smear
campaign," as the French are calling it, planting false stories about French
diplomats giving out passports in Syria - which even the Bush
administration admits now were false (see
Washington Post story) - and the French supplying weapons to Iraq - another
thing we all heard that now the administration admits is false.
We at The Moderate Independent never
bought the "blood for oil" talk. It seemed the war truly was for national
security reasons. But when you start looking at the realities of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, you have to start questioning. The first U.S. Marine to die
died securing an oil field. The first task accomplished was securing oil
fields. Even during President Bush's address to the nation on the eve of
war, when he said he had a message for the Iraqi troops, before he said not to
use chemical weapons, before he said not to commit atrocities, the first thing
he said to them, with all of America and the world watching, was, "Do
not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people." Before saying
don't use weapons of mass destruction.
Can't imagine that is true?
Here is the full quote (you can read the full
text of the speech on
the government's own website):
" And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should
listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your
action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi
people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction
against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War
criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just
following orders.""
As we have said, we believe the mission of removing
Saddam Hussein as a threat is one of the main reasons Operation Iraqi Freedom
was undertaken. But there seems to be only one reason we are in this
endeavor alone, having to use more American troops, spending more American
taxpayer money, and destroying a world order and alliances that were decades in
the making: to keep all of the rebuilding money and power over future oil
contracts within the Bush/Cheney Huston-based Axis of Oil buddies.
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