21 September 2003

Baghdad, Birmingham and True Believers , Colbert I. King, Washington Post, Saturday, September 20, 2003 Another in a similar vein as the previous, within the same context: As time goes on, there is always more and more opportunity for Republicans to skew history in both public, official utterances, and offerings in the media. They rely on the forgetfullness of the American People, many of whom do not have the time to study issues in depth, and are informed mainly by headlines and soundbytes. For my friends at Lucianne.com, I offer the following article by Colbert I. King to help everybody remember exactly what had been said by this Republican administration, so that they can see and hear the "drift of spin" in the message. "Count me among those who are having a little trouble keeping track of the Bush administration's intentions in Iraq. It's not the barrage of criticism from the antiwar crowd that's throwing us off. It's the administration itself. There are some folks, you see, who have this almost incorrigible inclination to take the administration at its word. And the word, sorry to say, keeps changing." "For starters, there's the now familiar reason we launched the March invasion. An imminent threat from Saddam Hussein and his nasty weapons of mass destruction, we were told. No question, Hussein has them, said the administration. And we know where they are. To protect America and her friends from another surprise attack, we are going in to disarm him, with or without the United Nations. Right on, said those of us who took it on trust that when the administration said Hussein was armed and ready to strike, it was telling the truth." "Now we're told we went to war because Hussein was a tyrant who killed lots of his own people, because Hussein was working on a nuclear bomb and conspiring with international terrorists, and, now, because Iraq is the first stop in a U.S. quest to transform the Middle East into a region more to our liking." "Bait-and-switch? Hush your mouth!" Remember this? We were assured there would be hugs and kisses in the streets of Baghdad when our troops marched in, and that with Saddam Hussein's tyrannical infrastructure brought to ruin, the rule of law would prevail. Why then, since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over, have 159 Americans been killed in Iraq? Where's the love?" "And this: When the administration was asked how our deficit-ridden America will pay for postwar reconstruction, we were told not to worry. Iraq sits astride the world's second-largest oil reserves; Iraqi oil sales will pay the freight. Wonderful, wonderful, said the chorus of true believers once more." "Now comes word from the commander in chief that U.S. taxpayers will have to pony up $20.3 billion for Iraqi relief and reconstruction, including $900 million to -- get this -- pay for the sale of oil to Iraq. And that's only the first installment on the more than $50 billion in reconstruction aid that the Bush administration says is needed to bring Iraq up to snuff. That's not counting the billion a week necessary to keep U.S. troops on the ground." "They do know how to test the faithful." "Then there's the Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda link. A Post poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed it likely that the Iraqi regime had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. President Bush said this week that "we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th." "Duh." "Where, pray tell, did the American people get that idea? Did not the president, decked out in a flight suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, say to the assembled on May 1: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001 -- and still goes on"? Did Bush not add: "We've removed an ally of al Qaeda"? I ask again: Where did the American people get that idea?" "If those flip-flops weren't enough to send the assured to drink, along come the administration's postwar strategists to push us over the edge." "Was it not national security adviser Condoleezza Rice who visited the National Association of Black Journalists' annual meeting in Dallas last month to remind us that we ought to side with the Iraqis who are seeking freedom? Yes, indeed." "Rice urged us, as it has been widely reported, to reject the "condescending voices" saying that Africans and Middle Easterners aren't interested in freedom and are "culturally just not ready for freedom or they just aren't ready for freedom's responsibility." And just in case we missed her point, Rice injected race into the equation with this bit: "We've heard that [blacks aren't ready] argument before, and we, more than any, as a people, should be ready to reject it. The view was wrong in 1963 in Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad and in the rest of the Middle East." "Frankly, if someone on the antiwar side said that the Iraqis weren't ready for freedom, I missed it. But no matter. Rice's point about singing freedom's praises for everybody and rejecting the "they're not ready" claim struck a chord with those who take her words to heart." "But wait a minute. What's this I read in my Monday Post?" "They're not ready for more power," said an administration official, referring to the U.S.-appointed, 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which wants a quicker end to U.S. occupation and transfer of power. The Bush administration, reports The Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran, wants to retain ultimate control over Iraqi affairs well into next year, when a new constitution is to be ratified and an elected government is installed. (And if the constitution is rejected or Iraq's elected leaders give the administration heartburn? Well, let's not go there)." "It's hard to know what the administration really thinks of the Iraqis." "In an April 14 press briefing, Rice said that pre-Hussein Iraq was the economic strength of the Middle East; that present day Iraq has "an educated population, a sophisticated population" and that it has a "a pretty sophisticated bureaucracy." Only last week she told the Foreign Press Center that the Iraqi people, through the governing council, are developing a "political horizon and timetable for the establishment of a sovereign Iraq when they are capable and able to take on those responsibilities." But Secretary of State Colin Powell pooh-poohs the idea of an accelerated handover of sovereignty, preferring instead a "deliberate process" that leads to the handover of power to "a responsible government." "So are the Iraqis ready or are they about to get a taste of Birmingham 1963? " "And as to whether the next Iraqi government is "responsible," who gets to decide: the Iraqis or George W. Bush? " "The true believers need to know." 7:56:36 PM    comment [] trackback []

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