"Bringing them on" (and on) in Iraq.
It was less than two months ago when our cowboy president pounded a podium and taunted guerrilla warriors from Baghdad to Basra who were attacking American troops. Depending on who in the Pentagon and the CIA was talking, the attacks were attributed to a range of characters. One minute they were thought to be shady Saddam loyalists; the next minute an al Qaeda offshoot was the culprit. Whoever they were, George W. Bush decided it was time for more tough talk.
"Bring 'em on," he said directly to the attackers regarding any further plans of mayhem and destruction. It was another breathtaking display of arrogance and stupidity in which W. actually seemed to believe that schoolyard bravado was going to make professional Islamic fighters who are on the 500-year plan to overthrow Western imperialists just say, "Whoa! Scared of that! Let's get the hell out of here!"
Instead, the attackers did bring 'em on, bombing the U.N. headquarters and killing at least 20 people last week, after weeks of deadly attacks on U.S soldiers occupying the country. And the attacks continue. The blood of the highly valued U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and of all the others who've died in Iraq since this invasion is on Bush's hands, as well as on Condi's, Dick's, Rummy's, Powell's and the rest of the gang's. They not only invaded a country under false pretenses and galvanized extremists across the Middle East to head to Iraq and fight, they've clearly not protected and secured the place, its people and humanitarian agencies like the U.N. Already we're hearing about how U.S. officials had been warned that attacks against the U.N. might take place but obviously did little to prevent one.
Last spring when the U.N. refused to give its support to the invasion, desiring for weapons inspections to continue and warning about the further destabilization any invasion and occupation would cause?advice that now looks more prophetic by the minute?the U.N. Security Council members were "weasels" in the eyes of just about every smear artist on the right. Bush and company helped stoke the demonization, fostering the idea that if you didn't support the war, you were "siding with Saddam," the mantra we heard from conservatives over and over again.
The U.N., as well as France, Hollywood and the American left, were all traitors and de facto murderers because they refused to support a war that was supposedly about overthrowing a vicious dictator. And when singer Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks criticized Bush last March while on a trip to London, it was considered downright treasonous. Her opinion somehow empowered the enemy, simply because she said W. is an embarrassment to her home state of Texas. The right-wing radio conglomerate Clear Channel organized protests to drive the point home, crushing Dixie Chicks CDs on the streets with steamrollers and banning Dixie Chicks songs from radio play lists. Conservative pundits slammed the group. And South Carolina State Rep. Catherine Ceips actually drew up plans demanding an apology for Maines' comments. Mere words, the rightists were telling us, are enough to destroy lives. Better to just shut up.
But now that we see the possible effects of Bush's "bring 'em on" taunts, curiously we aren't hearing anyone talking about the power of words nor calling our president a murderer, though in this case?unlike that of Maines'?the connection between words and deeds is certainly a valid one. When the leader of an occupying country dares enraged resistance fighters to make further brutal attacks against the occupiers and their interests, it has a lot more influence, after all, than does a relatively unknown entertainer complaining to Fleet Street hacks that she's embarrassed to be from the same state as the guy.
Terrorists certainly seem to have taken Bush's command to heart, heading into Iraq to battle the Great Satan, America. Making their case for war, Bush and company had floated the highly dubious claim of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam. Now the invasion itself is creating the link.
"[The] bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was the latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one," Jessica Stern, an authority on Mideast religious extremism at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, wrote on the New York Times op-ed page last week. "America has created?not through malevolence but through negligence?precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens' rudimentary needs."
The same way they ignored the truth about weapons of mass destruction, the thugs among the Bushies ignored the administration's own State Department and the international affairs community, which warned about the chaos that an occupation might foment. The CIA not only found no links between Saddam and al Qaeda before the invasion, but cautioned that the war could actually bring Saddam's loyalists and outside terrorists together. On Thursday, Army Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, gave a press conference pretty much confirming that prediction to have come true. Blinded by its zeal to put an American outpost in the Middle East, the administration wouldn't listen to anyone who didn't tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.
Now we have a situation that each day is more similar to that of Israel, torn by bombs and bloodshed. Ain't that just what the world needs right now?another Israel? Like Ariel Sharon, Bush instigates the extremists with tough talk and actions, and the result is more killing and more support for the killers among the population that rightly wants to govern itself. Bush and his civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, like Sharon, are also trying to hold moderates responsible for what extremists are doing.
Bremer demanded that the Iraq Governing Council?a group of moderates handpicked by the Bush administration and who, for that reason, are suspect to many Iraqis?strongly condemn the U.N. attack, implying that that would stem the violence. Already, Bremer is setting the stage to make all Iraqis pay for the attacks by the extremists. That will only breed further resentment of the U.S. by the Iraqi people, and foment further support among them for the bomb throwers.
Meanwhile, the Bush thugs are still refusing to give the U.N. or any other country any expanded role, lest Iraq not be the true American outpost that the hawks in the administration had envisioned, even though more troops and aid are desperately needed. That defiance and more of Bush's tough talk are guaranteed to perpetuate the cycle of violence. Expect more bombs soon.