War As An Excuse For Everything

[SHRED]

War As An Excuse For Everything

---Robert Scheer

Is it just me, or is President Bush's demeanor a bit Napoleonic these days?

The enemies of the republic are everywhere, he says over and over, and only he stands between them and our utter ruin. Sunday on Meet the Press, he could say nothing without also referring to military battles he is apparently fit to fight--presumably based on his stealthy stint in the National Guard.

I am a "war President--with war on my mind," he insisted to Tim Russert, dodging the newsman's every question, as if his trainers had assured him that the phrase was a talisman that would ward off all charges of ineptitude and bad-faith leadership. Yet it was hardly clear from his filibustering responses exactly what war it was that Bush thought he was fighting.

Surely he wasn't coming clean on his war against the 90 percent of Americans who will pay the price in starved government services and, ultimately, higher tax burdens as they pay off Bush's outrageous tax cuts for the super-rich and the corollary soaring budget deficits.

"It's important for people who watch the expenditure side of the equation to understand that we are at war," Bush responded when Russert questioned him about the deficit. That was presumably a reference to the war on terror, the President's handy explanation for every untoward event. But how can he justify spending much of the $400 billion military budget on things like cold war-era high-tech aircraft and other defense boondoggles to counter the $1.89 box cutters used by the 9/11 terrorists?

And if the war is against Al Qaeda, why haven't we moved decisively against that shadowy movement's sponsors in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Although Osama bin Laden, fifteen of the hijackers and most of the money for the religious schools that fed recruits to Al Qaeda and the Taliban came from Saudi Arabia, the President again insisted perversely on linking Iraq with the attack on this nation--despite having previously admitted that there is no evidence of such a connection.

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http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040223&s=scheer0210