America’s war president was wrong. Today three years ago George Bush bombed his way into Iraq with the unflinching support of his friend in 10 Downing Street. Bush and Blair initially told a shocked word and their own constituencies that their former pet in Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction that must be taken out.
As it soon turned out Saddam Hussein did not have the banned weapons.
When the March 19, 2003 invasion started going the wrong way, George and Tony decided to play second fiddle to “concerns“ over the WMDs. Their ’focus’ soon shifted on the so-called global war on terrorism. To conceal the initial lie and dishonesty, the US and British leaders came up with new stories that Saddam had working relations with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups seriously threatening America.
This time again the US-UK package of horrible lies was exposed. International public opinion, or whatever that means, was not late in finding that almost all the intelligence related to the terror connections were faulty, flawed and manipulated by spin doctors in London and Washington to fit a callous political agenda.
When the anti-terror campaign too emerged as another fake story few in the free world cared about or wanted to listen, America and Britain got desperate.
In their search for desperate solutions, the two most despised men in the Muslim World ordered their war councils to come up with something fresh to justify the illegal invasion and occupation of the Arab country.
What better reason than the export of democracy? The new plan floated across frontiers to defend US-UK atrocities in Iraq, was laced with rotten theories based on replacing dictatorship with democracy.
As if the oppressed peoples in Iraq and other Muslim-Arab countries did not know that throughout history the oppression and tyranny of their unelected rulers has been strongly backed by US and British administrations of various stripes.
Three years into the unprovoked conflict, more than 150,000 Iraqi men, women and children have been killed by and because of the US-led occupation and an equal number maimed. Not to mention the millions pauperized and rendered refugees in their own country.
Iraqis in no small number and not necessary hostile to the US occupation now believe America and the occupation are indeed a huge part of their problem, not the solution.
Having moved from invasion, to occupation, a full-fledged military conflict, sectarian violence and revenge killings, the war-weary Iraqis fear the worst. Pundits and politicians are talking about the insurgency getting worse and drifting towards civil war in a country that has never ever in its history witnessed fighting between the majority Shiites and minority Sunnis.
Mind you, as the brutal war enters its fourth year amid all the deceit and deception, Messrs Bush and Blair won’t accept responsibility for their horrible mistakes and visibly failed strategies.
To the contrary, Bush the serial liar and murderer of innocent Iraqi civilians hardly loses an opportunity to tell his audiences that “Iraq is moving away from dictatorship to democracy.“ As usual Blair is at hand to justify the dangerous mess. Very recently he was quoted as saying that “Anyone would stand up for democracy against terrorism!“
As Iraq burns day in and day out, Americans who still believe in human values and dignity are coming to grips with a grim reality: their soldiers are risking their lives in a foreign desert and are actually dying for a mistaken cause.
In late November America’s bomber chief executive said, “We want to win, and I don’t want the troops to come home without having achieved victory. We will achieve our objective.“
But today things are much different than what Bush and company may have anticipated. All the signs are that American with all its deadly military power feels it is out of control. This is perfectly understandable because it is true. The White House set out looking for short-term solutions in Iraq that have now become long-term problems, to say the least.
Whatever the outcome of the conflict in Iraq, one thing is certain. America will not win this war because its president continues to lie at every step. The chaos, death and destruction in that country engineered by the Bush and Blair teams demands self-examination not self-serving nonsense that only fools would believe.
Given the current state of affairs, the architects of the Iraq war now trying hard to hide their dangerous failures are trapped and immobilized as they fast run out of time and ideas.
As the bullying militarists try to prevail, things will only get much worse for the disgraced warmongers and regime changers.