Bush Wages Orwellian War on Words and Wins, on Iraq and Loses

Bush defines things in ways that ensure he wins. When the media picks up a Bush-word, Bush no longer has to prove anything. It was not so long ago that Bush dared define “victory” as a time when “insurgents would no longer threaten Iraq’s “democracy”. Think about it. If “insurgents” win they are no longer “insurgents”. Worse -- Iraq doesn’t have a Democracy that might be threatened. And, as I vividly recall, there were absolutely no “insurgents” in Iraq prior to the US attack, invasion and illegal occupation.

But it was not the word “victory” that Bush was defining. It was “insurgency” --a word used improperly by Bush to mean “terrorism”. A loaded word, “insurgency” connotes “illegitimacy”, illegality, immorality. “Insurgency” implies an opposition to legitimate authority.

As long as the media buys into this improper use of the word, nothing will ever be done about the illegitimate regime of George W. Bush. Bush need prove nothing. Fox is on his side. As long as the word “insurgent” is used to describe this resistance, Bush is forever bogged down in Iraq. Perhaps he will one day be confined to the permanent bases he plans to build there for the benefit of his corporate sponsors –Exxon-Mobil et al.

Bushco uses this word deliberately. We must conclude that Bush wishes to be bogged down in Iraq; at least until the oil fields are secure for the co-conspirators at Dick Cheney’s meeting of the Energy Task Force. On the other hand, if the insurgency has proven to be unbeatable, it is because our presence in Iraq is immoral.

It is convenient for oil barons that victory is unattainable. Because victory is unattainble, an Orwellian "perpetual war" is set up and self-justifying. Just as Orwell had described it. If the US military had left prior to Paul Bremer’s “de-baathification” order, Dick Cheney’s oil partners in America and, more importantly, his oil buddies inside the present administration, would have gotten rid of the Bush regime themselves in a “Palace Revolution”.

It is clear, however, that Bush was not on a mission from God. He was on a mission from Halliburton, Unocal and Exxon-Mobil. (I apologize to those oil crooks whom I may have inadvertently left out. Send me a polite note and I will be happy to include you in my updated List of Oil Rogues and Robber Barons in my next post.)

Wars are no longer fought between the armies of nations against those of other nations. Wars today are waged by the hired guns of corporate and imperial oppression against people themselves conveniently called “terrorists” or “insurgents”. It all sounds like a cheap movie plot. I cannot pretend that the aims and goals of every guerrilla band are legitimate. I can say that the imperial aims of George W. Bush and his corporate co-sponsors are most certainly not. Put another way: the attack and invasion of Iraq was a crime --punishable by death under US Codes. It is, likewise, a violation of every recognized and established principle of International Law.

“Insurgents’ in Iraq are called “al Qaeda”. How convenient for Bush who could have called them Tasmanian Devils had he wanted to. The kiss up media would have gone along with it. How the political debate would change if Bush chose to call them “Huggy Bears” or “Snuggle Bunnies”!

Al Qaeda, since 911 was used recklessly to denote anything Bush found undesirable. What if the media tired of Bush's stupid vocabulary and, of its own volition, began calling whomever it is that we are slaughtering and murdering in Iraq what they truly are -- "victims of US oppression", "targets of Blackwater operatives", "human sacrifices to US imperialism"! The world might change if the media decided to tell the truth. Just once!

The term al Qaeda as it is used bears little resemblance to “the Base” of what had been called “Afghan Freedom Fighters”. They were sponsored, if not created, by the CIA against the Soviet Union which was, at that time, at war with Afghanistan. This “base” or al Qaeda became the catch all for wild, radical Islam when Bushies fell out of love with them. Lately, the term is used recklessly to strike at the legitimacy of anything not liked by Herr Bush.

There is no reason to believe that anything more than a small percentage of incidences in Iraq have anything whatsoever to do with al Qaeda, if any. There are no reasons to believe that any of the so-called “insurgent” attacks in Iraq have anything whatsoever to do with al Qaeda. The mere word of Bush bureaucrats is not evidence and, lately, worth nothing. They are mere assertions from known liars, sociopaths, fascists, torturers --cut throats in suits! Certainly, Bushies have not made a convincing case.

We pay a high price for this reckless disregard for the English language. We have already absorbed "...every expense" —some $460 billion last time I checked. And we have thrown at Iraq every high tech gewgaw, every combination of torture, firepower, and chemical weaponry and still our efforts seem impotent and embarrassingly unbecoming. We are, as we are reminded, the "...world's last remaining superpower". Such breathtaking hubris! One is embarrassed to call himself "American".

There is, in fact, no combination of high tech weaponry, robots, armor, and other horrific sci fi visions of death and automated destruction that can overcome an enraged populace determined to throw out on his sorry ass a dictator, a would be conqueror of unbridled ambition and inversely less talent —all hat, no cattle!

Slap on the Wrist for Corporate Sponsors of Terrorism

by Garry Leech

Less than two weeks after 9/11, President George W. Bush and Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill held a joint press conference to announce that the war on terror would not only target terrorist groups, but also those who fund terrorism.

Bush declared, “If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America.”

O’Neill followed Bush to the podium and announced, “We will succeed in starving the terrorists of funding and shutting down the institutions that support or facilitate terrorism.”

And yet, despite these grandiose declarations, Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International evidently will not be shut down and will continue to do business in the United States despite pleading guilty last week to providing more than $1.7 million in funding over seven years to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing group on the US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

In 1777, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, put it this way in his famous speech to Parliament:

You can not conciliate America by your present measures. You can not subdue her by your present or by any measures. What, then, can you do? You cannot conquer; you cannot gain; but you can address; you can lull the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger that should produce them. But, my lords, the time demands the language of truth. In a just and necessary war, to maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from my back to support it.

But in such a war as this, unjust in its principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not contribute a single effort nor a single shilling. I do not call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only recommend to them to make their retreat. Let them walk off; and let them make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and condign punishment will overtake them.

And, from his same speech to Parliament:

The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve any thing except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility.

You can not, I venture to say it, you can not conquer America. Your armies in the last war effected every thing that could be effected; and what was it? It cost a numerous army, under the command of a most able general [Lord Amherst], now a noble lord in this House, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America.

My lords, you can not conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. ...

He was obliged to relinquish his attempt, and with great delay and danger to adopt a new and distant plan of operations. We shall soon know, and in any event have reason to lament, what may have happened since. ...

As to conquest, therefore, my lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your efforts are for ever vain and impotent...

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms—never—never—never.

It must be pointed out that the Mother Country, England, had more right to be in America than America has right to be in Iraq. Our occupation of Iraq continues to be an act of naked aggression, a war crime for which this King George must one day pay in the court of international opinion and the Hague.

America is wrong to be in Iraq. It is morally wrong and wrong headed. It is impractical, profligate and counter productive. It is a capital crime. It is lost!

Notes: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham was born in 1708, died in 1778; entered Parliament in 1735; attacked the Government in 1755, and removed from office; Secretary of State in 1756–1757; again Secretary of State in the Coalition Ministry of 1757–1761, when he adopted vigorous measures in the Seven Years’ War; Prime Minister in 1766; resigned on account of ill health in 1768; made his last appearance in Parliament in 1778.

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