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The Election and the War

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Tim Mooring

Dear Buzz,

Both the war and the election have been over analyzed. The war was and is illegal and immoral. The election was lost because Kerry failed to differentiate himself from Bush. I personally believe he was a terrible candidate and would have been only a mediocre president. Even so he would have been a vast improvement over Bush. I held my nose and voted for him anyway while never actually believing that he would win. It was indeed an important election, very likely the most important election of our lifetimes - but we lost it. The republicans cheated and if they hadn't cheated the democrats would likely have won. But isn't that what was expected? They did it in 2000, why would we expect them not to do it in 2004? When Kerry said that given a chance he would not change his vote on the IWR he lost enough votes to have won even with all the shenanigans that the republicans pulled. I for one don't want to rehash it but why didn't he simply say that given what he now knew about BUSH - never mind the failure to find WMD - that he would have voted differently?

Just as the election was over analyzed, it was over financed. Both sides could have raised and spent a fraction of the money that they actually did without significantly changing the outcome. Why? Because it was never about money or about "getting the message out". It was about the message itself. Bush was a known war monger, to the satisfaction of many, and Kerry was bush-lite. He bought fully into the argument that now that we're in Iraq we have to stay there until security is obtained. This fallacious argument maintains that if we were to withdraw that there would be a blood bath. The Iraqis would kill each other. But isn't that what's happening right now? We are a thorn. Pull it out and there will be some bleeding. Leave it in and it will fester. Kerry is and Bush professes to be concerned about the toll in American lives. WHAT ABOUT THE IRAQI LIVES that have been lost and are still being lost? It's their country. We're the invaders. They did nothing to us. My version of supporting the troops is bring them home now. They don't belong there. What they're doing there is dead wrong. Sure they're brave, skilled fighters, but so are the Iraqis. Just as in Vietnam we underestimate the opposing force. The Americans complain that they won't come out and fight like men. It should be beneath anyones dignity to give any credence to such a ludicrous proposition. I know bravery when I see it and there's plenty on both sides, along with collateral damage, wanton cruelty and all the other trappings of war.

I remember lots of justifications that Bush put forward to justify the war. But establishing a democracy in Iraq was never one of them, at least not until he'd gotten all the mileage he could out of all those that preceded it. This by itself gives the lie to all the BS about a "noble endeavor". Horse shit. Our real objectives are just not that easily concealed.

When we look back on the Bush era the term "it's the economy stupid" will have new currency. We're on the brink of a financial meltdown. The price of gold, aka the misery index, is at a sixteen year high (circa the voodoo reaganomics timeframe). The falling dollar may help some companies achieve short term profits, but that shouldn't be all that reassuring. Big corporations have "focused like a laser" on their short term bottom line, so much so that their bottom lines are going to go up in a puff of smoke. During the economic meltdown that is almost certainly coming, Bush's parade of lies about the economy and the war will come under renewed, more objective, less tolerant scrutiny. As a result he could very well end up sharing a jail cell with General Augusto Pinochet. Glory Hallelujah.

Another factor that could contribute to his downfall is that he has made a very serious error by antagonizing the CIA. You can beat a bad dog, but don't turn your back on it when it's not on a chain. It was a neat trick coercing CIA into supporting the WMD scenario, then sacrificing Tenet so that Goss could be installed to clean things up (LOL). But when the economy tanks and Bush's retarded monkey face becomes as unpopular with Americans as it already is with the rest of the world, that bad old CIA dog may turn on him. Already there is a frank intelligence assessment that repudiates the bush shit notion that arabs "hate us for our freedoms" stating rather baldly that we are in fact hated for our policies. Closer examination - long overdue - will reveal that these policies are both unjust and unjustified - even in terms of our own self interest.

Freedom is not a gift from God Almighty. It is a gift from people who have been brave enough to struggle against tyrants like George Bush. Right now he is surrounded by people who stick their noses into his chamber pot every morning to see what the color and odor of it's contents portend for his and their future (ref. the Madness of King George).

Given this state of affairs things are bound to change.

Tim Mooring

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION