The Decline and Fall of the Bush Fans

July 6, 2004
By Newzmaniac

It's almost funny to watch how far a child will go to avoid admitting he's made a mistake. In a steady downward spiral, he will grasp at almost anything that convinces him that he's right, no matter how desperate it makes him look. It's more sad than it is funny, but we can smile because we understand the game this child is playing, and we patiently let time lead the child to the inevitable truth.

There is an obvious parallel here to Bush fans. A year ago, they were waving their flags and gleefully rallying around a president who they saw as an upright war hero, a president who "stood his ground" and "saved us" from an imminent Iraqi threat. Unfortunately, the "imminent threat" wasn't really imminent or threatening after all, so now it's time for the legion of Bush fans to grasp at whatever comes along.

The latest case in point: this week's desperate attempt at saving face, which revolved around the news that the Polish military in Iraq had found shells containing deadly chemicals. The response from Bush fans was predictable. This proved that Saddam had stockpiles of chemical weapons! See? A war was justified! The killing of 800+ American soldiers was worth this handful of chemical weapons! See?

But sadly, and inevitably, that damned thing called "truth" had to come rear its ugly head and spoil the party. The deadly chemical weapons weren't deadly after all, and what little trace of chemicals that was left in them had outlived its shelf-life by about 15 years.... oops. The U.S. Central Command itself rebutted these claims from the Polish military.

Apparently lost to the Bush fans is the fact that Iraq and Iran were at war for most of the 1980's, raining down chemical weapons on each other. Considering the proficiency of both armies, it's fairly safe to say that many of these shells didn't hit their intended targets and instead landed somewhere out there among the camels and the shepherds. If we put 150,000 U.S. troops all over Iran, as we've done in Iraq, these "deadly chemical shells" would be turning up in equally frequent incidents there, too. Two neighboring countries who spend nearly a decade lobbing these things at each other usually do leave quite a pile of relics in their wake.

Chemical weapons are absolutely deadly, but when you find one in 2004 that says "Best if used by 1986" on it, it's no longer deadly or chemical. It's just a war relic. However, if the shell itself has not exploded, then it is deadly in its own right, as an explosive piece of ordnance. But unless Saddam had his military scouring the desert for old unexploded relics from the 1980's, so he could somehow find a way to launch them over the entire Atlantic Ocean at us, the "imminent threat" still hasn't been found. Sorry, well-meaning Polish troops.

When these occasional glimmers of hope for the Bush fans are snuffed out by the truth, which they always are, there is a standard response: "Well, Saddam had 6 months before the war to move his stockpiles of weapons to (insert evil Middle Eastern country of choice here)..." The interesting thing about that response is what it says below the surface, where Bush fans don't have time to venture anymore.

The entire world, including Saddam, knew that the U.S. was going to war in Iraq long before the first round was fired. If Bush's claims were true, and he knew without question that Saddam had these massive stockpiles of weapons and 6 months to prepare to greet American troops at his doorstep, and Bush let his intelligence people turn their backs for those 6 months and let Saddam move these stockpiles.... well, that's another article right there. Saddam had 6 months to move massive stockpiles of weapons? He also had every intelligence satellite in the world counting the hairs on his head! How did we miss the massive convoys required to move these massive stockpiles?

By resorting to desperate claims like "...he had 6 months to move the stockpiles before the war", Bush fans would have you believe that we turned a blind eye to the transporting of this supposed imminent threat for 6 months. How else can they possibly explain every intelligence agency in the world missing it? It would've been the biggest news story of the pre-war period, easily proven with satellite photos (which, by the way, would've led to a serious response at that time). Bush fans, without saying it, are telling us that Bush let Saddam move his weapons out of Iraq and did nothing to stop it. We'll let Bush explain that one to his faithful disciples himself.

What we'd really like an explanation for is why a dictator who allegedly has all these mass-destruction weapons, and knows for certain that his country is going to be attacked by a huge force, would just pack the weapons up and send them away to another country. Are we really supposed to believe that Saddam Hussein, the dangerous and evil Iraqi, preferred to face this oncoming American military monstrosity with little white pickup trucks and machine guns? Toyotas are good, but they're not that good - and Saddam may be evil, but he isn't stupid.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and November 2004 is a very desperate time for George W. Bush and his obedient followers. We recommend a stockpile of salt for the desperate "news" claims that are sure to become more frequent as November approaches. Use your stockpile sparingly - a grain of salt at a time.

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