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CounterPunch
September
12, 2002
The Speech Bush
Should Give
Presidential Honesty about Iraq
by Gary Leupp
Often the day after a midterm exam a student will
come by my office, apologizing for his or her absence at the
exam, with an explanation carefully prepared in advance. If he
or she says, "I'm sorry. I was so hung over from the frat
party the night before that I just overslept," I'm inclined
to appreciate the student's honesty and allow him/her to take
a makeup with slight penalty. But if the student says, "My
grandma died, and my car broke down, and I had food-poisoning,"
the multiplicity of excuses suggests dishonesty, and I don't
react well to that.
Since Sept. 11, many in the U.S. power
structure (in and out of government) have been offering multiple
and implausible explanations for the supposed necessity---urgent
necessity---for the U.S. to attack Iraq. First they seized upon
the story, which initially surfaced in a Newsweek report
Sept. 19, that there had been a meeting between hijacker Mohammed
Atta and Iraqi intelligence officers, including Farouk Hijazi,
Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, in Prague in June 2000. (This might
have provided a casus belli for an Iraq attack, but it
turned out to be bogus, refuted by both British and Czech intelligence
services. The latter have indeed noted candidly that it may have
been US-sponsored disinformation.) Then there was the effort
to trace the anthrax to Iraqi laboratories. In October, German
public television reported that Egyptian authorities had arrested
two suspected members of al-Qaeda who claimed their organization
had obtained vials of anthrax in the Czech Republic. Richard
Butler, the former head of the UN weapons inspections program
in Iraq who collaborated with US and British espionage efforts
there, assured CNN that Iraq was probably behind the anthrax
letters, and the Washington Post editorialized that Iraq
was surely to blame. Citing the putative anthrax connection,
senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman advocated attacking Iraq.
But it was all nonsense; the Czech Interior Minister said, "No
way," and then the FBI, CIA and Federation of American Scientists
concluded that the anthrax strain found in the letters was probably
from a U.S. lab. (Indeed, the CIA reported February 5 no evidence
of Iraq-sponsored terrorism directed at the U.S. or its allies
since 1993.)
Then in March, mysteriously enough, both
the Christian Science Monitor and the New Yorker reported
the existence of Ansar al-Islam, "an Islamic group with
possible links to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein," which
had seized several villages peopled by 4000 civilians. The group
is supposed to consist of 700 Jordanians, Moroccans, Palestinians
and Afghans had seized several villages with 4000 civilians.
Jeff Goldberg of New Yorker cited statements from the
pro-U.S. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan that Saddam Hussein and
al-Qaeda jointly run the organization, and that Baghdad had hosted
an Egyptian al-Qaeda leader in 1992. Former CIA director James
Woolsey, a leading proponent of an Iraq attack, hailed the article
as a "blockbuster," and said the CIA "got beat
on this story by the New Yorker and Jeff Goldberg." Give
me a break. How likely is that, and who is likely to be feeding
whom here-the CIA Mr. Goldberg, or Mr. Goldberg the CIA? (Iraq
for its part has acknowledged an al-Qaeda presence in a region
outside of Baghdad's control, and says it has provided the local
Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, with arms, at his request, to
fight the outsiders. Those knowledgeable about the Iraqi government
and its secular Ba'ath Party very much doubt that it would have
any common doings with a movement that hates them nearly as much
as they do the U.S.)
Meanwhile, we're told, a USAF pilot reported
killed in action on the first day of the Gulf War has now been
re-categorized as an MIA. The implication is that he's being
held, maybe tortured. Given the timing, it sounds like disinformation
to me. The thing about disinformation (like the classic, "Iraqi
soldiers removed premature babies from incubators in a Baghdad
hospital" story that circulated widely in 1990 as the US
prepared for the first Iraq war) is that it needn't have a long
shelf life. Even if refuted by honest researchers down the road,
it serves its purpose at the time. Using these stories---these
all too many excuses---the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz cabal has sought
to legitimate, and generate enthusiasm for, the attack that's
had them salivating for so long. But the ruling class is sufficiently
complex and divided--and the press, while generally compliant,
still sufficiently free--so as to prevent a few choice bits of
disinfo from solidifying into the casus belli the chickenhawks
so urgently seek. Too many reporters will ask questions. So instead,
with a sleight of hand designed to distract the audience's attention
from logic and reason, they posit the following connection between
Iraq and Sept. 11 (and it's a big scary one): We have classified
informationt---that we will reveal at the right time---that Iraq
has (or is developing) weapons of mass destruction, that might
fall into the hands of al-Qaeda (or other) terrorists. Weapons
that threaten the U.S. and its friends and allies (and maybe
lead to another Sept. 11-type attack).
In the real world, weapons experts like
card-carrying Republican ex-Marine Scott Ritter and Swedish former
arms inspector Rolf Ekeus have made it clear that in fact the
U.S. is simply not threatened by Iraq. Madeleine Albright and
Jimmy Carter have also said this, so I won't linger long on the
point. While North Korea might conceivably under extreme circumstances
lob a Taepodong missile towards the Aleutians, nobody's suggesting
that any Iraqi missile fired from Iraqi territory could possibly
reach the U.S. Iraqi Scuds, if there still are a few, could reach
Moscow or Sicily, but the Russians and Italians aren't worried.
And they, by the way, think a U.S. attack on Iraq would be very
foolish. The nations bordering Iraq, including Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Jordan, even Kuwait, have argued strongly against an
attack and say Iraq does not pose a threat to them at this point.
In a word, all the official justifications for an Iraq attack
are spurious.
Europe knows that, and (except for Tony
Blair's Britain, which in fear and trembling, and with a queasy
stomach, prepares for war as the price of its "special relationship"
with the U.S.) is solidly against a second Gulf War. At last
report, U.S. public support is down to 50-something percent.
So I suggest it's time for President George W. Bush to stop dissimulating
and, like the errant student I mentioned above, speak honestly
about his reasons for an Iraq attack, in his own appealing homely
style. I suggest a televised speech, from the ranch, from a relaxed
setting, without notes or a teleprompter. I'd expect something
along the following lines:
"My fellow Americans.
"Y'all know I'm a straight-shooter.
I'm from Texas, where, you know, we speak frankly 'cause that's
how we're raised in Texas, as 100% Americans who know how to
shoot straight. Now, we have had to do some of what they call-what
we call in my administration-"psywar," psycho war that's
not exactly the 'truth' but it has truth in it because it's for
the good, to confuse the enemy and help our people---and I know
the American people are a good people--- to understand why we
stand against the evildoers. But now I've decided to level with
you on a new, higher level. Forget about weapons of mass destruction
an al-Qaeda in Iraq. As I said in my speech on the economy, and
cookbooks, cooking the books, 'there is no capitalism without
conscience, and no wealth without character.' And tonight I want
to say to you, the American people, there's no conscious capitalism
with character without oil, and more and more of our oil imports
are, in fact, coming from abroad.
"Now, I'm told Iraq has 20 percent
of the world's oil. We get 8 percent of our oil from Iraq even
under the UN sanctions. Now just you imagine. If we take over,
liberate, whatever you wanna call it, Iraq and have all that
oil to ourselves, we wouldn't need what I've just the other day
called 'our eternal friendship' with Saudi Arabia anymore. We'd
have all that oil, and we're already gonna build pipelines from
the Casablanca Sea to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean
Ocean. Just imagine what the whiners in Europe will say, when
we tell 'em: 'You want oil? Start playin' ball. Don't mess with
Texas.'
"So that's the first reason for
war. But that's not all. When we invade-attack-whatever you wanna
call it, Iraq, we'll be helping our friend Israel, which means
we'll be helpin' God's plan, and I know that the American people
love God's plan. We have nothing against Muslims, which as I've
said is a people, a religion, whatever you wanna call it, of
peace. "Muslim" means "peace," and as you
know, Mohammed Ali is, for example, a peaceful man. We appreciate
the contributions of our Muslim citizens who don't commit acts
of terrorism, and who come with children to the White House to
celebrate Ramadan, which, I'm told is even more beautiful in
Arabic. But we also believe in Israel-we share belief in the
same God as Israel---and I've made it very clear, that God will
not let Saddam Hussein acquire weapons of mass destruction that
can be used by a new HITLER against our friends and allies in
Israel.
"Finally, as I've said many times,
you're either for us or against us, and y'know almost every one
of our allies and neutrals, whatever you wanna call them, don't
accept my doctrine-my statement-about the "Axis of Evil."
That's just 'cause they don't want us in charge of Iraq and Iran,
and in North Vietnam where we're calling on Mr. Kim Il-sung to
just tear down those nuclear power plants of mass destruction.
And so tonight, I call on our brave young men and women to prepare
to just roll into those Ay-rab parts of the world. Now, the American
people may be asking "Why? Why roll those folks?" Because
we need to give them our values, our American values----because
I know the American people are a good people---while our European
friends I am in consultation with during my phone calls pay for
the state-building, peace-keeping, whatever you wanna call it.
"So to summarize this speech, address,
whatever you wanna call it: Oil. Israel. America, leader of the
world. It's about freedom. They hate our freedoms. September
11 awakened our consciousness without character, and bein' from
Texas, I know what that means. That's why we MUST have what I
like to call 'regime change' in Iran, or Iraq, whatever you wanna
call it. This must not stand!
"God bless the American people."
Such a frank, sincere presidential statement
would, in my view, help clarify the problem that faces us. As
Bush Sr.'s vice-president, Dan Quayle, once in a pensive moment
told the NAACP: "Losing one's mind is a terrible thing."
Indeed. Let Dubya speak his thoughts honestly, showing the American
people the terrible, tragic magnitude of such loss, so that we
can mindfully consider and debate his war plans.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
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September
11, 2002
Anis Shivani
How to
Survive in Ashcroft's America
Pierre Tristam
Abusing
the Sorrows of 9/11
David Krieger
Resisting
Bush's
"Relentless War"
Jerre Skog
9/11 One
Year Later:
Remember the Others, Too
Dave Marsh
Illegal
Music?
A Sampler's Delight
Norm Dixon
How the
Warmongers Have Exploited 9/11
September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim
and Jason Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
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