|
CounterPunch
February
18, 2003
Are They That Stupid?
Who's Dumber...Bush
or Us?
by MITCHEL COHEN
Are they really that stupid that they could present
a plagiarized paper by a UCLA graduate student pulled off the
internet as their "top secret proof" of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction, and think that nobody would notice? Hard
to believe, but that's exactly what Prime Minister Tony Blair
did, and what US Secretary of State Colin Powell cited as "proof".
Are they really that stupid that they
could offer detailed "before and after" satellite photos
of Iraqi trucks said to be "possibly" transporting
Iraqi weapons, and then an empty space as "proof" that
the trucks loaded up and quickly departed without acknowledging
that the photos, as pointed out by Hans Blix, were actually taken
two weeks apart?
Are they really that stupid that they
could brag about their amazingly invasive surveillance technology
that could read the license plate off a truck from a satellite
in space, and then claim that they "have no idea" where
the trucks went?
Are they really that stupid that they'd
assume we've already forgotten that it was Colin Powell himself
who in 1990 held up satellite photos showing Iraqi troops massing
on Kuwait's border with Saudi Arabia as rationalization for US
bombardment, only to be proven as forgeries after the war in
which 200,000 Iraqis were blown to smithereens by US "smart-bombs"
and other accepted weapons of mass destruction?
Are they really that stupid that they
could remove 2/3rds of Iraq's 12,000-page submission to the members
of the Security Council of the United Nations, and expect that
no one would ask "What was in those missing pages?"
Are they really that stupid that they
could claim that they know for certain the intricate details
of every gram of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons and expect
that no one would ask, "How are you so certain?" And
Bush's answer, as the current widespread joke goes, is "We
kept the receipts."
Are they really that stupid that no one
would remember the photographs of the famous handshakes between
former President Bush and Saddam Hussein in the late 1970s, or
Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, when Saddam--who
was installed in power with the help of the CIA--was "our
boy in Western Asia."
Are they really that stupid that they'd
think that no one would notice that Donald Rumsfeld headed the
Searle pharmaceutical company, that George H.W. Bush directed
the Eli Lilly company, and that the pharmaceutical companies
are being sued by the parents of autistic children due to impurities
in their vaccines administered to children, or that Sen. Robert
Frist would add an amendment to the Homeland Security Act that
would remove from liability those pharmaceutical companies, which
are also manufacturing anthrax and other vaccines being administered
to US soldiers?
Are they really that stupid that they
thought they could get away with dumping Trent Lott (who was
opposing the administration on the pharmaceutical question) by
claiming he was a racist, and appointing Frist--whose record
is every inch as dirty as Lott's -- to take his place?
Are they really that stupid that they
thought that Colin Powell could hold up a tiny vial of unknown
white powder at his UN speech and claim that Iraq could use a
similar amount of Anthrax spores to wipe out an entire city,
when it turns out that the Anthrax actually sent through the
US mails last year was manufactured at the US bio-chemical warfare
lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland?
Are they really that stupid that they
thought that no one would notice the tight business connections
between the Bush family and the bin-Laden family, going back
decades and continuing right up to 9-11?
Are they really that stupid that they
thought that no one would notice that Missouri Democratic Party
politician Mel Carnahan's plane crashed and the Senator perished
during his tight Senate race against John Ashcroft, or that the
election continued with Carnahan's name on the ballot and that
Ashcroft lost that race to a dead man, and Carnahan's wife was
appointed to take his seat? Or that immediately following his
electoral loss, Ashcroft was plucked from obscurity to serve
as Bush's Attorney General? Or that Democratic Party Senator
Paul Wellstone's plane crashed at a crucial juncture in a tight
Senate race in Minnesota, at a time when his wife and daughter
were with him on that plane, thus enabling a Republican victory
in that Senate race and tipping the balance in the US Senate?
Are they really that stupid that they
thought that no one would notice that George Bush did NOT win
the 2000 Presidential election's popular vote; that his brother
orchestrated the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of Black
voters, and supervised the preparation of loony ballots that
had Jewish voters surprised when their votes were counted for
arch anti-semite Pat Buchanan, and not Al Gore? Are they really
that stupid that they can say "Code Orange," and think
that Americans will forever demand "Duct Tape"?
Are they really that stupid that they
can still cite the "incubator" fairytale, and expect
that Americans have forgotten that it was the Hill & Knowlton
public relations firm that invented it, as a means of promoting
the "tie a yellow ribbon" campaign and corralling the
US Senate to support the bombardment of Iraq?
Are they really that stupid that they
can threaten the entire world with nuclear annihilation, and
people would remain dumbed down forever, saying nothing, and
allowing them to get away with it?
Are they really that stupid that they
can offer us a future of global ecological devastation, fascism
at home, and endless war and we would respond: "Thank God
for Bush and Cheney's strong leadership with no self-serving
interests"?
Are they really that stupid that they
figured no one in America could spell the word "O-I-L"?
That is the question. Could they possibly
be that stupid, that arrogant? Or is there something we are missing
here, some larger strategy that is being concealed by their apparent
overwhelming stupidity?
Are WE really that stupid that we can
believe that they are really that stupid?
Mitchel Cohen,
editor, Green
Politix, the national newspaper
of The Greens/Green Party USA. He can be reached at: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com
Yesterday's
Features
Elizabeth Connell
And
You Thought It Was Cold in New York: Exclusive Photos from Antarctica
Ron Jacobs
The
Streets Belong to the People
The Liberation of Midtown Manhattan
Joanne Mariner
Scenes
from the Streets of New York:
A Cold, But Exhilarating Saturday
Tariq Ali
Regime
Change: Here and in Iraq
Vanessa Jones
"Somewhere in Texas a Village Has Lost Its Idiot"
Joe Quandt
An
American Crisis:
Let Us, Like the Iraqis, Have No Illusions
Willliam Hughes
Mayor
Bully:
Bloomberg's March Restrictions Spark Outrage
Sam Husseini
Compass
Roses
Robert Jensen and Rahul
Mahajan
People of Conscience can Change History
Wayne Madsen
After the Fall
Anthony Gancarski
Return
to the Stone Age?
The Last Days of Bill Buckley
Robert Fisk
The US is a Nation Divided
Ralph Nader
Big
Oil and the War on Iraq
Adam Engel
Live from New York, It's:
Lizard Brain on Line for the Log Flume
Website of the Day
Compass
Roses
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|