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Dec. 23, 2006 Some people speaking from misguided gallantry or more likely from some sort of blind partisan loyalty, will maintain, to this very day, that George W. Bush did not lie about a thousand and one issues in Iraq, as insightful people find obvious, but that, even if Bush was usually wrong, he was simply misled and misinformed, that he relied on faulty intelligence, and that his subordinates did not keep him posted on all the developments taking place under his nominal auspices. But does it make a difference? Do we really care whether Bush is a chronic liar or just an inveterate bungler? The people who defend Bush seem to think that saying that he was mistaken rather than lying extenuates his guilt, as if the real intent of Bush’s detractors is merely to vilify Bush as an individual and not to lay bare the machinery of the ill-conceived invasion. Sure, it would be great to impeach Bush and remove him from office, but the ultimate objective is to undo the chaos wrought by the US-Israeli offensives in the Middle East. It would be better to correct the Middle East, letting Bush get away with mass murder, than to imprison Bush, but leave the Middle East in pandemonium. Even if we allow for the sake of argument that Bush may have been more error-prone than mendacious, we are entitled to know why such an inept, stumbling individual should still be in the White House. If he could not see through faulty intelligence, when any common observer like myself could see through it, should he still be running the country? Does it matter whether he is a cold-blooded liar or just an honest, happy-go-lucky fool? We need a man in the White House who can stay on top of his job, not a man whom every aide and secretary can trick and trifle with, stuffing him with bogus facts and figures to be recited with all due sanctimony to the general public. We need a man who knows that two semi-trailers devoid of even a trace of toxic substances are not WMD. We need a man who knows that an unarmed dictator will not be raising mushroom clouds over American cities. We need a man who knows that a single meeting in Prague between two terrorists is not tantamount to a worldwide conspiracy to destroy the US. If Bush is so easy to gull and to dupe, even if he is the best-meaning good old boy that ever came out of Texas, he may still not be fit for office. Honesty alone is not enough. We need a shrewd, canny, decisive, responsible man who makes good decisions, and who eschews the policy of blaming his subordinates for his own gaffes and goofs. As for stupid mistakes that originated in the White House, here’s a June. 2004 article about the “resignation” of a man who suggested in 2002 that the Iraq war might cost $100 or $200 billion, instead of the $50 or $60 billion that Bush pawns were bandying about: “There were disagreements about the estimated cost. In September 2002, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey told The Wall Street Journal that a U.S. intervention in Iraq could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion—a figure that approximates current (mid-2004) spending. White House Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. labeled that figure as “very, very high” and estimated total war costs at between $50 billion to $60 billion. Lindsey resigned in January 2003.” Now the cost of the war is $350 billion and still skyrocketing. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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