Beware of the Ides of Iran

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

George W. Bush is the kind of man who pushes a guy under the wheels of an oncoming car, then "earnestly" vows a campaign against dangerous drivers – and he does it all with a smile.

We are now engaged in a dangerous game of chicken with Iran, based on the same sort of spurious claims and strategy of focused distraction that marked the run-up to the Iraq War. It’s an ongoing shell trick of changing mission, altering the enemy, and puddle jumping from fear to fear.

It keeps Americans from focusing on Bush’s horrendous domestic policies, the near-bankruptcy of the U.S., an administration of endemic corruption and nepotism, and a foreign policy that has advanced no further than the tactics of the Roman Empire, except that the Romans were most often led into wars by leaders whose ruthlessness was at least matched by their competence.

All we have are leaders who excel at nursing their own egos, power, and financial well-being, with the rest of us being so much cannon fodder.

And their only real talent is the ability to endlessly lie and deceive. As Carl Bernstein recently noted in a "Frontline" interview: "I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale."

It will be the work of investigative reporters to record all the different and contradictory "missions" and "goals" that Bush has used as an excuse for being in Iraq. The very word "mission" bestows some sort of noble gesture and task upon an utterly disastrous and failed policy, for which Bush will assume no real responsibility.

The only real missions in Iraq are to preserve the power bases of Cheney and Bush, war profiteering, and to control vast reserves of oil. As for democracy in Iraq, that was always one of the sham goals used to goad Americans into support for a war that they would never otherwise support, without the non-existent WMDs and all.

In Gulf War I, Bush the First claimed to be freeing both Kuwait and the Shias from Saddam’s cruel rule. Then Bush the First abandoned the Shias to be slaughtered by Saddam. Now Bush the Second is targeting the same Shias – and through them Iran – while supporting, in part, the Sunnis, the minority sect in the artificial nation of Iraq, who dominated power through Saddam. Meanwhile, they are scrambling to find enough puppet Shias to provide the facade of a functioning government.

This is only one tiny fraction of the diabolical absurdity of the Bush/Cheney fiasco in Iraq, where so-called "facts" and "goals" change on a daily, if not hourly basis.

Indeed, just shortly after the Busheviks held an "anonymous" high-level military news conference to claim that the Iranian government was behind attacks on GIs in Iraq – a charge that was refuted in unprecedented fashion by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (forcing Bush to backtrack in his February 14th "press conference") – the Pentagon revealed something truthful for a change. A week after claiming that a helicopter crashed due to mechanical failure (which is their usual excuse for the rash of helicopter downings until the news dies down), they admitted it had been shot down by -- Iranians? No. By Shias? No. By Sunnis? Yes. Excuse us! According to the Associated Press, "At least seven U.S. helicopters have crashed or been forced down under hostile fire since Jan. 20."

And the Sunnis in Iraq, as with Al Qaeda, derive their major support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, not Iran.

The truth is that polls posted in the likes of the Washington Post reveal that the majority of Iraqis support attacks on American troops. What is Bush going to do, kill all the people he claims to be liberating? Now that Saddam is dead, they want to be liberated from Bush.

In this particular helicopter downing, seven GIs perished. The pilot of the Medivac chopper was a 28-year-old female Naval Academy graduate from Massachusetts, Jennifer Harris. She was one week away from returning stateside after three tours of duty in Iraq.

Jennifer Harris, a heroine who patriotically believed in the "Commander-in-Chief," is being buried this week in Swampscott, Mass.

A news report of the great sociopath’s most recent farce of a "news conference," included this phrase: "President Bush is cautioning members of Congress against taking any legislative action that could harm U.S. troops in Iraq."

Bush and Cheney continue to throw our troops under the wheels of cars and warn the Democrats not to try to save them from being run over.

If this isn’t the definition of murderous intent, what is?

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

BuzzFlash Note: Following the usual arc of the Cheney/Bush pathology, they will let the Democrats wade into the water and pass their vote of no confidence. Then Cheney and Bush will start the long-awaited war with Iran and declare that our GIs are in "harm's way" and Congress would be undercutting them if they try to stop either the war with Iran or Iraq.