Are We Comfortable Yet?by
Tom Chartier It’s time to stop mollycoddling that petroleum-plated pest masquerading as a statesman in the White House. Why do the press and the members of the Iraq Study Group care about George’s ability to accept the seventy-nine recommendations in the recently published ISG Report? I don’t give a rat’s ass about Bush’s comfort level and neither should you. That pathetic excuse for a human couldn’t care less about your comfort level or that of the thousands he has put in harm’s way. With the release of the long overdue whitewash, the Iraq Study Group Report, we have been treated to "revelations" and recommendations that have been plainly visible to those whose eyes have been open for the last six years. The ISG Report won’t make George see reality… as if anything ever could. David E. Sanger of the New York Times reported that: "The panel was careful to avoid phrases and rigid timelines that might alienate the White House." Oh give me a break! How did George react to the ISG Report? Continues Sanger, "Jack D. Crouch II, the president’s deputy national security adviser, was said by administration officials to be putting together options for Mr. Bush, and they said the president was determined to come up with an approach that, one senior aide said, ‘borrowed from the panel’s findings, but is distinctly his own.’ " God forbid! The White House Weasel is only interested in serving himself, his cronies, and the corporations who paid to smuggle him into the Oval Office. That collection of shysters has one interest: serving themselves to a heaping helping of the world’s second largest oil fields. Grab the oil! That was the plan all along, from the day George decided to run for president. In one of his previous incarnations, George drilled a bunch of holes in the ground, which turned out to be, well… holes in the ground. Then someone showed him the geological survey of the Middle East and the boy-wonder decided to go for a place where he knew for a fact there was oil. Iraq. Read between the lies of the Iraq Study Group Report. Everything hinges on what are "critical to U.S. interests" in Iraq…in other words, oil. Why is Iraq "the center piece of U.S. foreign policy?" Both the invasion and occupation of Iraq were planned long before 9/11 to get at the oil. And because of that oil, the ISG Report states no real intent to actually leave Iraq… Unless, of course, the Iraqis don’t do what the U.S. wants. The ISG Report places the onus on the Iraqi "government" to subdue the insurgency. But, if the Iraqis don’t succeed where the U.S. Army has failed, the U. S. will pull out. That’ll show them! We’ll give them their country back! But… isn’t that what most Iraqis want? So… where’s the motivation for the Iraqi "government" to stop the violence? Aside from the daring assertion of fact that the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio must be resolved before there is peace in the Middle East, the ISG Report is nothing more than a sugar-coated scam to justify continuation of the destruction of a nation in the quest for more black gold. Oh sure, the Report mentions obvious facts that anybody with a reading level high enough to get through all of My Pet Goat surely must know by now. Iraq is suffering sectarian violence. But the Report still won’t come out of the clouds to truthfully name what that violence really is… a civil war. The Report’s authors do not dare to threaten the comfort level of Americans who believed all of George’s lies. First, we have to wait for George to accept the truth. That will never happen. So, you tell me what you would call it if 100 dead mutilated bodies were found every day in your city! You tell me what you would call it if your local churches were being blown up by the other denominations! You tell me what you would call it if, for instance, in New York City, 3,000 U.S. citizens were killed every month, by other New Yorkers! Would you dare to call it what it would be… a civil war? Of course you would. But no one is naming names because George has to be comfortable! And you must be fooled. That is exactly what the ISG Report does. It keeps George comfortable and continues the Big Scam on the U.S. citizens by shifting course to a more subtle set of lies. It admits the obvious but maintains the agenda. Doublespeak works wonders. It’s a simple matter to justify the cruel reality of the Military Industrial Complex. The buck doesn’t stop anywhere anymore. It just keeps getting passed around as if it didn’t even exist. In fact, I’m not sure it does anymore. George’s comfort level can go to hell along with Cheney’s, Rice’s Rumsfeld’s… the whole lot of them. What do you suppose the "comfort level" is of the nearly 3,000 dead U.S. service personnel? How about the "comfort level" of the 655,000 dead Iraqi civilians George has "liberated." Do you think they have a good "comfort level?" Of course they do. They don’t feel anything now. They are dead. And then there are those U.S. troops who survive insurgency launched roadside bomb blasts, grenades and bullets. In war, those who are merely wounded outnumber those who die. Are those wounded "comfortable?" Hell no! What about their loved ones? Are they "comfortable?" Hell no! Don’t believe me? Go walk through any V.A. Hospital in the U.S. and ask the mutilated, psychologically traumatized veterans of George’s War for Oil if they’re "comfortable." After you asked them all these questions, I dare you to ask them if they care about George’s "comfort level." According to George and his neoconservative friends, it is not necessary to consider the "comfort level" of the unlucky Iraqi surviving civilians. All the president’s men, the guys Senator Alan Simpson refers to as 100 percenters, still want to stay the course. According to Arnaud De Borchgrave, the Neocons find the ISG Report’s recommendation of talks with Iran and Syria to be unacceptable. "The president's neocon supporters would see this as another Munich. A prominent neocon columnist, speaking privately at one of Washington's pre-Christmas bashes, said, 'we should bomb their nukes before they nuke Israel.' " In George’s Neocon Holy War, the Middle Easterners are negligible. In the Neocon "mind," Arabs are heathens, members of a murderous, insane religious cult out to kill anyone who gets in the way of their drive for world hegemony… hmmm that sort of sounds like an imitation of current U.S. foreign policy. Neocons don’t believe that Arabs deserve autonomy, diplomacy or… their own OIL. And who is to blame for all the carnage and death? Well don’t blame George! Perish the thought! That would upset his "comfort level." In fact, let’s blame those very people that the March 2003 U.S. invasion was designed to "liberate." Blame the Iraqis for their own slaughter! They are unworthy of a United States of America occupation. So let’s do what one "patriot" suggested to me, "kill them all and let God sort it out." Then they’ll be comfortable! The ISG Report is big on this. Oh yeah, there’s a suggestion of some degree of U.S. responsibility. But then, according to Recommendation number 21 of the ISG Report, Iraq’s future is "the responsibility of the Iraqis" while the Iraqi people need to "take control of their own destiny"… er, with the exception of their oil that is. And the Iraqi government should "accelerate assuming responsibility for Iraqi security." To use a gentler word than I am thinking… Balderdash! It’s George’s responsibility. He and his pack of thieves invaded the place and started the whole mess. And what’s all this about Iraqis taking control of their own destiny?! What the hell do you think they are trying to do? They are trying to throw the U.S. occupiers out of their country while fighting among themselves to see who will be the next Saddam Hussein. The ISG report is quite upfront about the fact that polls of Iraqis show that the Iraqis all want the U.S. out… as if that’s a surprise. How do invaded and destroyed countries take control of their own destiny? They do it through insurgency against the occupiers and civil wars. The United States did it, threw out the British and later fought a civil war. And Iraq is doing it now… all thanks to George. Iraqi government? Give me a break! What government? This bunch of puppets with titles holed up inside the Green Zone for protection is not a government. Lacking control of, authority over, and respect and support from the Iraqi citizenry, they are all dead meat if ever the U.S. guard dogs go home. I wonder if they’re feeling "comfortable?" The ISG also recommends the same old pack of comfortable hogwash we heard during Viet Nam. The U.S. should "temporarily increase" its forces to train the Iraqi army while the Iraqi government "increases the number and quality of army brigades." Then we’ll start to move out. Don’t be fooled by the "early 2008" suggestion. It’s "We’ll step down when they step up" all over again. Just like Viet Nam, the Iraq puppet government will not be able to "step up." As long as the U.S military remains in Iraq, as combat or as training forces, there will be no stabilizing Iraqi government, army or police force. But that little fact is being ignored because it would upset the comfort level of the President and the U.S. oil companies. The entire fraud makes me sick and ashamed to be an American. My comfort level has gone all to hell. How’s yours?
December 13, 2006 Tom Chartier [send him mail] played lead guitar in legendary Los Angeles punk band The Rotters for 26 years until their final appearance in January of 2004. He has lived in Tokyo and Los Angeles. Currently he resides somewhere in the Caribbean. Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com |
Elizabeth
Gyllensvard edited and contributed to this story.