War is Bush's Teflon Cloak
April 10, 2003
By Madison

I feel a profound sense of depression about the future of our country. I read of the gleeful high-fiving in the Bush administration that the war has gone so "well" for them - their cronies and campaign contributors have profited mightily from waging the war and are on the threshold of making even more money from re-building the country they just provided the munitions to destroy. And, yet, there is almost no hint of criticism in the media or in Congress about such war-mongering and war-profiteering.

And now Bush and his war-mongering team are fired up to invade Iran and Syria. But there is only silence from Congress and silence from the media. Invading one, two, three more countries does not seem to even raise an eyebrow anymore in the halls of Congress or in the halls of the TV studios.

More killing. More dying. More profits for the Bush cartel.

I think I am on firm ground saying that never in America's history has a president taken our nation into war on such flimsy if not out-and-out fabricated "evidence"; and never in history have a president and his family and friends so directly profited from waging war. They don't even bother to use middlemen for "cover"; the owners and directors of the companies making the munitions and supplying the military's needs are all friends, family and campaign supporters of George W. Bush. The companies awarded the contracts to profiteer off the rebuilding are also friends, family, business partners and campaign contributors of George W. Bush.

And, yet, I hear only silence from Congress, and silence from the media.

Here at home, our president wages war against the poor, the elderly, women, minorities, our civil rights, our economic security, the environment. And, yet, I hear only silence from Congress, and silence from the media.

Bush and his obscenely rich cronies plunder our national treasury for their own gain - and wage war on helpless people, also for their own gain.

This war was not about weapons of mass destruction and it was not about deposing a ruthless dictator. The Bushites have known about Saddam Hussein's character from the start and yet they did business with him for decades. They do not care that he is or was ruthless. If they cared about such things there are at least twenty ruthless rulers around the world they would be moving to depose; but they do not, because that is not what this Iraq war is or was about.

It is about power and money and distraction. We are not "allowed" to criticize Bush because he is a wartime president. He will run with this moniker wrapped around him, like a Teflon cloak, until he is re-elected. That is Bush's main goal in life: re-election. How better to stifle all dissent than to be engaged in perpetual war "for our own good and safety"? Hitler fed the Germans the same swill about waging war "for their own good and safety." Hitler convinced the German people that foreigners threatened their well-being, so he had to attack before those foreigners attacked Germany. Phantoms. Everywhere, phantoms.

But, still, here at home the drugged TV pundits keep talking as if we were under immediate threat of invasion by Saddam Hussein. Iraq's non-existent long-range missiles were supposedly going to carry loads of weapons of mass destruction to our shores. Mushroom clouds over Manhattan! Except Iraq didn't have any missiles capable of carrying those yet-to-be-found (and maybe soon-to-be-planted-and-"discovered") WMDs to our shores.

No matter, the American people have already forgotten that eliminating WMDs was what this war was advertised to us as being about. Now it seems the war is about "liberating" the Iraqi people, the living and the half-dead Iraqi people. The dead don't care a whole lot about being "liberated."

In fact, the war was not about WMDs or "liberating"; it was and remains driven by Bush's desire to show the watching world what powerful weapons we have - and informing the world that this president is just crazed enough to use those powerful weapons wherever and whenever it suits his political needs.

Here at home, senators are high-fiving because they held Bush's new tax-cuts-for-the-obscenely-rich to just $387 billion, instead of the $750 billion Bush demanded. What in the hell are they doing giving any tax cuts when they don't even have funds to cover the costs of the war?

You and I know what this is all about; Bush's goal with these tax cuts is to drain the national treasury and throw us into such federal debt that not only will social programs be cut and eliminated now, but no one will dare propose restoring them for decades to come - because there will be no money in the federal coffers. Bush will have "transferred" it all to his wealthy corporate campaign contributors (and his family and friends) as surely as if he just had new keys made for Fort Knox and given the new keys to his friends and family.

Yes, I am depressed; and if you aren't, it's just because you have been watching too much TV and thinking you are getting news there. You aren't; all you get from the TV is deception. A con-man with a criminal's mind is at the head of our government, and he is poised to rule forever. Think about it, and tell me why I shouldn't feel depressed for America, and the world.