posted on February 3, 2002 01:03:23 AM new
With 'war' making his only avenue to a successful presidency, in his cockeyed measure of success, I guess lying propagandizing is an acceptable aid, eh?
"In an apparent attempt to prepare for action against Iran, President
Bush in his State of the Union address declared, "Iran aggressively
pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few
repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom." Someone at the State
Department ought to inform Bush that Iranian President Khatami has
twice been elected with an overwhelming majority.
Mohamad Khatami was first elected president in May of 1997 with 69
percent of the vote. He was subsequently reelected in June of 2001 with
almost 22 million votes and more than 78% of the total. Iran has
universal suffrage over the age of 15, and in the last election, more than
two thirds of eligible voters participated.
After the June election the president of the European Union according to
AFP declared his "deep satisfaction" at the Iranian people's "commitment
to democracy" and issued a statement declaring: "This is a clear signal of
Iranian voters for the strengthening of democracy, the establishment of
the state of law and stronger guarantees for fundamental freedoms in
their country." Any search of press reports from June of last year
indicates that countries around the world expressed satisfaction that it
was a fair and democratic election.
So what is Bush talking about?
We all know that truth is the first casualty in war, but this statement
about the "unelected few repress[ing] the Iranian people" is almost
absurd. The Iranian regime certainly is repressive by Western standards,
and perhaps it is involved in terrorism, but it is not "unelected." A lot of
people are unwilling to admit it, but democratic countries can be quite
bad: after all, Hitler was elected.
The point is that statements such as Bush's "unelected few" comment are
designed to try to rewrite political reality in order to demonize hostile
states, and their leaders. Truth can never be allowed to get in the way of a
propaganda campaign.
Perhaps Pakistani "President" Musharraf (whom Bush praised in his
speech, but who is a military dictator who came to power in a coup) is a
better leader than Khatami, who was overwhelmingly elected. Yet it is not
exactly "politically correct" to point out that US allies include military
dictators (Pakistan), Stalinist thugs (Tajikistan) and corrupt princes
(Saudi Arabia), while US enemies include regimes which are more
democratic than the US. A cynic might even point out that George Bush
did not even win a majority of the popular vote, and wonder where Bush
gets off criticizing Iranian leadership as "unelected."
More importantly, though, if Bush intends to attack Iran one would hope
he would at least be honest with the American people. The Iranian
regime to all appearances has the support of the vast majority of Iranians.
In Afghanistan the US was intervening in a civil war in one of the poorest
and most divided countries in the world. Iran and Iraq are hardly the
same situation, as Bush seems to be trying to suggest. There is no doubt
the US could defeat Iran in an all-out war effort, if it came to that;
however, there is no resistance in Iran to do the dirty work (unless we
perhaps count the Kurds, a tiny minority). That means that the US would
need to intervene directly in Iran, with more than a mere handful of
soldiers and a couple hundred aircraft.
Even if Bush does not intend to take any military action against Iran, he
still ought to be honest with us.
The "War on Terrorism" is a dirty business and trying to recast it as some
sort of noble crusade to "make the world safe for democracy," or "free
captive people" would simply be a sham."
--Paul Clark, Executive Director of Young Americans for Freedom
posted on February 3, 2002 07:53:39 PM new
Bush can not afford to be honest or to speak the truth, as that would end his presidency. While Republican voters may not be the brightest, the majority of Americans are bright enough to bring him down for his continued wrongdoing. Bush's one and only card to play is the War card and he is playing it for dear political life. This is how he keeps his solemn pledge to Amricans to reform the White House and to bring Ethics to the office of the President. Right.
Borillar
"Friends don't let friends vote republican"
posted on February 3, 2002 10:43:02 PM new
A cynic might even point out that George Bush
did not even win a majority of the popular vote, and wonder where Bush
gets off criticizing Iranian leadership as "unelected."
The Understatement of the century.
Well if he does all of the things he has said he will do will he be able to get a just shot on saturday night live ?
Live from New York It's Mr hanging Chad !
HeY Krs if you guys really want to see some filth being covered up by the mnedia take a look at Tommy Thompson's paln to stick a ''zinc'' min next to the wolf river one of America's last wild rivers the fighting has small town locals against multinationals and the state, they want a tailings field 1,000 feet high 300 football fields in size, right on top of the wold river of course they assure no pollution. ...... yeah right do the math this amount of tailings just happens to match the unplaced nuke waste projected as of 2010 east of the mississippi.
the area reads high naturally for radon so leakage would be almost impossible to prove also just north in Iron County Mi dee beers has bought upthe mining rights for this Zinc ? the wis dnr did a pro nuke studyon the wolf batholith about a decade agao a I sent a copy to the gannet chain paper covering it they did not say a peep did not bother to return the copy when they were done ether. No sane person wants this filth. when Bush and others talk about safe nuke power you have one of 2 types of people speaking morons and crooks, years ago a writier in a national pub made the joke that we could dispose of nuke waste in hot dogs then at least we could see each other glowing at night, rodale at organic gardening informed him that the imbeciles who overseee out food supply now allow the hot dogs to be up to 25 % powdered bone and If your as well read as I have a hunch yopu may be then you know that gofman's tests prove that strontium 90 concentrates in bone thus the hot dogs do in fact register on a geiger counter, and we feed this crap to our kids and elderly. And as a shocker the fools doing this stuff are not all republicrats either. The local paper for Crandon Wisconsin would be the pioneer express, opponents to this mine need the help of every American who values the last resources of this nation that are still wild. in the are the campaign is called ''save the wolf''
