US Leaders: Inept, Delusional and Corrupt

Sixty years ago when the government made false statements there was nothing anyone could do to refute them. Those who had seen the truth with their own eyes could only contradict the powers that be, which lead to their being discredited, but there was no proof that the government had lied. Seventy-four years ago when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president, the people of the United States did not know that the polio he’d contracted in 1921 had crippled him and that he could not walk. FDR was propped up and he could stand with leg braces. The people knew he was lame but never knew his legs were paralyzed. It’s interesting that now that we have cameras and tape recorders to monitor every moment of what is really going on in the world, the Bush administration is using the technology to make movies that support its version of reality while claiming that the scenes we see on television are a false version of reality. The Bush administration is commemorating the three-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq with claims that the war always was and continues to be righteous and that the US always was and continues to be victorious. On “Face the Nation” yesterday, VP Dick Cheney insisted that he was right three years ago when he said the US “will be greeted as liberators”, he insisted he was right 10 months ago when he said the insurgency in Iraq was “in its last throes”. He said the media had made it appear otherwise with photos of violence and destruction. Donald Rumsfeld, who sees his failed war in Iraq as a military exercise equal to WWII, wrote in the Washington Post that, "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis…it would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination." The Prez made a prepared two-minute statement on the situation in Iraq and said,"I'm encouraged by the progress." In the end, who and what the public believes will be the deciding factor in whether the US remains in Iraq or shouts, We Won! and abruptly withdraws without a backward glance or a fare-thee-well. Today the New York Times reported that Iraq’s former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said Iraq was nearing a "point of no return,” and that “it is unfortunate that we are in civil war...we are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more...if this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." The NYT said Senior American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., contradicted Allawi on CNN and said, "We're a long way from civil war." And then there are the Republican Senators and pro-Bush pundits who say the US has to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future because the US has a lot at stake in Iraq. What? What’s at stake? Salvaging the reputation of the Bush administration? Finalizing contracts with Carlyle Group companies for defense materiel? Making business deals with Arab countries that depend on the continued presence of the US in Iraq? Business as usual. That’s why we continue to kill our soldiers in Iraq (latest count is 2,318): The US is conducting business and fattening the coffers of fat cats in American corporations.