“War is Peace”

“Freedom is Slavery”

“Ignorance is Strength”

“The intelligence supporting our invasion was wrong, but the invasion was right.”

Come again?

In one of the greatest televised displays of Orwellian anti-logic in history, George W. Bush, Liar-In-Chief, took to the airwaves last night and proclaimed that – by golly – there were errors in the intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq after all. In fact, it appears that none of the justifications the Shrub made for invading a sovereign state prior to April 2003 were true.

Yet, this imbecile has the temerity to stand before the American people and proclaim that – in spite of the lies he perpetrated to justify his invasion – that it was RIGHT to invade.

Not only that, but he proclaimed that if we get pissed off enough, we might just do it again.

What gall.

Readers familiar with my blogging rants are well aware of the documentation we’ve provided that clearly shows the White House knew BEFORE the State of the Union Address in 2003 that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

They were told by German and French intelligence officers that their primary snitch on Iraq – a shady character appropriately nicknamed “Curveball” – was untrustworthy and unreliable.

The British, as documented in the Downing Street Memos, also informed the White House that they could not find any corroborating evidence to support Curveball’s allegations. They also documented that it appeared that the White House was ignoring any intelligence that failed to support its own, already made, decision to invade IraqNam.

Richard Clarke, a former security advisor to The Shrub, has repeatedly described his meeting on September 12, 2001, in which Bush asked him what role Iraq had played in the attacks on the World Trade Center. These reports were supported by two other White House staffers who attended the meeting. It is denied by Secretary of State Condoleez…Condilezzie…Condoleezzer… oh, hell, Condi Rice. Of course, as we all now know, Rice couldn’t confirm the conversation because, at the time it occurred, SHE WASN’T EVEN IN THE ROOM.

The record clearly indicates that, by early September 12, it was already well-established that the attack had been carried out by Al Qaeda, at the direction of Osama Bin Laden. It was also very well known – even in a White House gone completely mad – that Bin Laden’s support came not from Iraq but from Afghanistan and the Bush Family Butt Buddies in the Saudi Royal Family.

In fact, the Bushes are very familiar with the Bin Ladens, as these two families have carried on strong business relations ever since Prescott Bush was a Senator. As it happens, The Shrub’s company Arbusto Energy was funded by James Bath, who was the only US representative of Osama Bin Laden’s brother Salim. Bath invested $50,000 in startup money in Arbusto, but after September 11, 2001, The Shrub denied ever having engaged in business with Bath.

Confronted later with his lies, Bush recanted and suddenly “recalled” his business relationship with Bath and Bin Laden.

Later, when Arbusto merged with Harken Energy, almost 18% of its stock was bought by a Saudi sheik who was closely affiliated with the Bin Laden family. The Bushes, and especially its weakest link The Shrub, knew exactly from whence Osama Bin Laden’s funding was derived.

When the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001, Bush conveniently forgot his long-term relationships with the Saudis and the Bin Ladens, and instead turned his focus to the running family vendetta with Saddam Hussein.

The reasoning seems to have gone something like this: The 9/11 attacks were bad. Saddam Hussein is bad. Osama Bin Laden is bad. The Saudi Royal Family is bad. On the other hand, we like the Saudi Royal Family, because they have helped make us rich. If we focus on Bin Laden, we’ll make our Saudi buddies angry, and they might stop making us rich. We’d better focus on Saddam Hussein, despite the complete absence of any evidence of any kind anywhere or at any time that he had anything to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center.

The obvious conclusion? INVADE IRAQNAM.

As is always the case with inveterate liars, such as our sort-of elected president, eventually all the little mendacious birds must come home to roost. Since the Downing Street Memos were leaked in 2005, we have seen the cracks in the administration’s tangled web of lies grow into vast chasms, large enough for people of reason to peer into and see them for what they are.

Finally, on nationally television last night, Bush came out and admitted it. The intelligence was wrong. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein posed no threat whatsoever to the United States. We invaded based on bad intel.

Our bad.

Sorry we blew the shit out of your cities based on a mistake. We really feel bad about killing and imprisoning your citizens and making them do pose for all those naked pictures at Abu Ghraib Prison. Boy, are our faces red.

No, it isn’t our faces that are red. It’s our hands.

Then, after admitting that the entire invasion was a colossal mistake, the Shrub actually turned the argument around and claimed that it was the RIGHT THING TO DO.

According to the Schizoid-In-Chief’s psychotic logic, it doesn’t matter WHY you choose to violate the sovereignty of another country’s borders, as long as you can justify it by the outcome.

Wow. The mind boggles.

Bush is trying to change the subject by citing all the ‘progress’ being made in IraqNam. According to him, ten million people voted in elections there this past week. Of course, they voted in elections propped up by the US government, overseen by the US military, and chose between candidates pre-screened and approved by the White House. We’ll just choose to ignore those little facts.

Bush claims that leaving now would lead to civil war in Iraq. Okay. Here are the facts.

That region of the country has had nothing but civil wars all the way back to the time of Alexander and beyond.

There is going to be a civil war whether we leave now or in twenty years, because civil war is what that culture knows how to do best.

What is anathema to the culture of the Middle East is a democratic form of government.

Let’s face it, this part of the country was dominated by Bedouins and other nomadic types until the First World War. People in most of the Middle East went to war over the rights to use a well until T.E. Lawrence came along and inspired the Arab League – which, by the way, along with the explosion in demand for Middle Eastern crude, resulted in the establishment of the Saudi Royal Family. Kings, sheiks, and viziers have been part of their heritage since the time of Scheherazade and Ali Baba.

Any artificially propped-up democracy in Iraq is doomed ten minutes after the last chopper leaves Baghdad, no matter how many trained Iraqi soldiers we leave behind. Sooner or later the Sunnis will get pissed at the Shiites, someone will steal a goat, and the entire country will erupt into a full-fledged bloodbath which will only end when some military despot vanquishes some other military despot and establishes himself as the supreme leader of the country.

And I’ll betcha ten bucks that the one who wins will be the one who was trained by the US Army, backed by the CIA, and had the best oil connections.

So, no matter what anybody tells you, wrong is wrong, and right is right. You can’t do right by doing wrong. Specifically, you can’t overrun the borders of a sovereign country on the basis of lies, bomb it back to the Stone Age, and impose an unwanted political system on it, and then say it was the right thing to do.

This invasion was wrong.

It was undertaken by people who knew the reasons for it were lies.

So far, those lies have cost the lives of 2300 of our finest boys and girls, and have maimed and invalided many thousands more. Some counts say we have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – mostly people who posed absolutely no threat to us before the invasion. It was all done without a declaration of war by Congress. At its core, this fruitless and unnecessary invasion was conducted by the will of one man – George W. Bush, Doofus-In-Chief, who ignored all evidence against it, in order to satisfy his obsession with a fifteen-year-old family vendetta between his daddy and Saddam Hussein.

Anybody who tells you any different is a damned liar.