Vote No War.Org's Response to Bush Speech (must read)

[E_Zapata]

This struck me as the very best response on the speech so far (hope it isn't a dupe). They nail it.

RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S
NATIONAL TELEVISION ADDRESS OF SEPTEMBER 7, 2003

Dear VoteNoWar Member:

President Bush's illegal war and occupation of Iraq
has left the Administration in a position of extreme
political vulnerability. He now wants the United
Nations and U.S. taxpayers to bail him out. Having
defied U.S. and world public opinion - which
preemptively opposed his planned, illegal invasion of
Iraq - the Bush administration wants to
internationalize responsibility for the U.S. quagmire
in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting daily he wants
the soldiers of other countries to do more of the
dying to take the heat off himself at home. And in the
name of fighting international terrorism he wants
already suffering working class, poor and middle class
communities to foot the bill to the tune of another
$87 billion (triple what they had "projected"). Having
had his public rationale(s) for the war been exposed
in recent weeks as a complete fraud, Bush shamelessly
reverts to the time-tested tactic of trying to scare
the hell out of people.


President Bush's conduct on Iraq - before, during and
now after the Iraq war - has made the old cliché about
truth being the "first casualty in war;" to be a grand
understatement. Everything about this "pre-emptive
war" is premised on deceit. Even in the realm of ever
duplicitous "world politics," the Administration's
pattern of cynical deception was and remains
breathtaking. Tonight's nationally televised address
conforms to this pattern of endless deceit.


1) Bush lied before the war. Iraq never posed a grave
and imminent danger to the United States. Iraq had
nothing to do with September 11th. Iraq never
possessed nuclear weapons. Iraq was not rapidly trying
to develop weapons of mass destruction. This was a war
of aggression against the second-largest oil producer
on the planet that had been weakened by a decade of
economic sanctions and political isolation.


2) Bush lied during the war. This was not liberation.
The Iraqi people did not welcome the U.S. armed forces
as liberators but as occupiers. Their lives did not
become better. On the contrary, this culturally rich
society has been torn apart, deprived of necessary
services to sustain civilian society and is on the brink
of internal collapse.


3) Bush is lying now. Iraq is not the battlefield
between "international terrorism" and the forces of
so-called "freedom" and "civilization." The growing
resistance to U.S. occupation is the consequence of an
angry and proud people in Iraq who insist on
reclaiming their own sovereignty. Having killed tens
of thousands of Iraqis in an illegal invasion - and
responsible for a growing number of dead and maimed U.S. soldiers - the Bush team wants U.S. taxpayers to spend at least
another $87 billion on the occupation of Iraq. The
vast majority sentiment in Iraq wants the U.S.
soldiers to leave and the U.S. GI's want to go home.
The Iraqi people's call to end the occupation is not a
call for even more foreign nations to occupy Iraq and to
take a share in the looting of Iraq's natural
resources. The truth is that the invasion and
occupation of Iraq is viewed by the people of the
Middle East as an act of "international terrorism" and
as such it can only lead to a dangerous escalation in
the cycle of violence.


Why did Bush address the nation tonight? He, like
Nixon a generation ago, fears that the people of the
United States are turning against this criminal war.
During his administration, Bush has only rarely felt
that he must address the people, and does so when he
fears that a sentiment is growing strong enough to
challenge his illegal actions. He must then lie more
to convince the people of the U.S. to support his
criminal endeavors, or at least acquiesce in them. His
shameful "top gun" act aboard the aircraft carrier the
U.S.S. Lincoln, in front of a "Mission Accomplished"
banner, was an effort to tell people in the United
States and around the world that the war was over and
that no more critical attention need be focused on
Iraq. Tonight, with that lie laid bare, he is seeking
to go a new route, to convince people that far from
being over, the war is a high stakes game to save
"civilization" and "freedom" and that it requires
endless sacrifice in human life and vitally needed
resources.

VoteNoWar.org calls on people in the
United States to join together for a massive
demonstration in Washington DC on October 25th to
demand "Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupation
of Iraq." Tens of thousands will be in the streets
that day as the antiwar movement picks up new
momentum.

Your support is needed to help end Bush's criminal
occupation of Iraq and to bring the troops home now! Visit
http://www.votenowar.org/donate.html to make an online
donation through our secure server or to obtain information
for writing a check.

Visit http://www.votenowar.org/pdf/o25flyer.pdf to download
the October 25th flyer (pdf format).

For information on transportation to Washington, D.C. for
October 25, visit http://www.internationalanswer.
org/campaigns/o25/oct25transp.html .

If you have not already done so, vote today in VoteNoWar's
Bring the Troops Home Referendum at http://www.votenowar.
org/. VoteNoWar, a campaign of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition,
has provided a free service by which you can immediately
make your views known to the White House and Congress by
(optionally) sending via email your ballot and a
personalized message to George W. Bush, Richard Cheney,
and/or your district's Congresspeople.

[Celebrandil]

1. Too naive

This is just too naive. What will happen if the troop withdraw from Iraq tomorrow? Anarchy! Local militant leaders of various ethnic groups will start a war that will last for centuries. That won't make it better for anyone, not for the Iraqis and not for the american public. US has to deal with this problem, not just turn around and forget about it. They have to clean up the mess. And they can't do it alone. They have to ask UN for help in order to establish a stable regime, a democratic regime elected by the Iraqi people. Bush has already dug his own grave. He will never be able to convince UN, unless he admits he did wrong and lets UN take a leading role in the process.

/ Marten Bjorkman (Sweden)

[dArKeR]

2. I understand your point Marten. I think VoteNoWar should be promoting

bring all our children home and replace them with Bush, White House staff, DOD staff, the GOP Party members and all of their children. The ones who survive the war should then be put on trial.

[tkmorris]

3. You are exactly right

The United States CANNOT, we simply can't, just withdraw from Iraq. I wish we could but we can't. The only responsible thing we can do is go before the UN, hat in hand, and turn control over to them. Not under US military leadership, under UN leadership. Cancel Haliburton's contracts, Bechtel's too. Make clear that not one American company will even attempt to profit from this misguided venture. Maxima Mea Culpa, that is the only thing that will do at this point.

It won't happen though. We gotta throw this clown out on his ear and take our medicine. 'Twill be a bitter pill to swallow but if he have any hope of regaining our pride it's the only course of action open to us. God help us America!

Edited because the voices in my head told me to.

[E_Zapata]

4. seems that IF the US throws its arms up and says "we f'd up!"

and "we are going to do everything possible to get out of iraq a.s.a.p." that the civil war issues in Iraq will die down.

It would do a lot to alleviate the angst amongst iraqis if they thought we are "out of there a.s.a.p." and that the ENTIRE goal now would be to get things straightened out so that we CAN leave. And that means that the UN would have to become the USA's BOSS!

But the cabal would have to admit that it is not a problem of "TERRORISTS gone wild" there and that the reason for the problems there lies exclusively with the USA. Essentially: we eat crow. That isn't in Bush's M.O.........

Now, with the bad press Bush is getting after that speech (he would have been better just ignoring us for a bit longer), I do not think even his handlers can shield him from it. He is such an incompetent with a super-inferiority complex. He must be imploding with anxiety about now. He never had a job before. And he will never have one after he is thrown out. If there were ever a candidate for suicide watch, I think it's George. Question is: will his self-adoration win out over his inferiority complex?

[dArKeR]

6. If we charged Bush/Blair/Howard with Crimes Against Humanity

Rumsfeld, Powell, Rove, Perle, Gingrich, Lott, Frist, Hastert... too then we could make some kind of peace with the Iraqi people and maybe we could become friends.

[Mairead]

5. The usual scam: privatise the profits, socialise the costs

Pity nobody's saying so