Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

I’m growing a little bit tired of this administration’s strategy, which seems to consist almost entirely of, “We weren’t wrong, you just misunderstood us – so nyah.”

First, as the 9/11 commission reports that they can find no substantive links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush continues to cling tenaciously to his previous statements.

“The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda,” Mr. Bush told reporters after a cabinet meeting today.

But the 9/11 commission staff’s lengthy chronology of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, said that although there was evidence of repeated contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the 1990’s, “they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.”

But Bush now claims that he never stated that Iraq actually helped Al Qaeda – just that they were connected.

Riiight. And the prisoners at Abu Ghraib weren’t tortured, they were “pumped for information.”

Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein weren’t even a good Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel – they never made beautiful music together, not even professionally. Osama Bin Laden blamed Saddam Hussein for the downfall of Islamic tradition, accusing Hussein of being too westernized and blasting him for running a secular government. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein routinely spoke of his dislike for characters like Bin Laden, whom he blamed for keeping the Middle East in a perpetual Dark Age.

Both were bad men in their own ways. But there was never any love lost between them. To pretend that there was is wrong and manipulative and draws attention away from the real issues. While you sing another chorus of “Have You Forgotten?” the world shakes its head and wonders if America is really stupid enough to believe that Saddam Hussein supplied the (mostly Saudi) terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center. If there truly was a mistake made in terms of intelligence, then it’s best to just admit it (with the proper spin, of course) and move on.

And now there’s the whole issue of when torture isn’t really torture and when it’s okay to violate the Geneva Conventions. Silly little wooly-headed Liberal that I am, I thought the answer to both questions was “never.” I thought torture was the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure – but, apparently, it’s not torture if it’s done to collect information about a potential threat or protect “the people.”

This effectively means that ninety-eight percent of the torture performed in the world isn’t really torture, because almost everybody who uses torture claims that they use it as a means of intelligence gathering or as a method of protecting “the people.”

And we always have to follow the Geneva Convention because we want others to follow it. When we release embarassing videos of war prisoners, degrade and torture detainees, and deny the Red Cross access to a prisoner, we essentially open the door to that kind of behavior from our opposition in any conflict. We have to play by the rules if we expect others to do the same.

Just like Mac says over atThe Pesky Apostrophe (remember when it was thegofish?) – the rule of thumb should be to consider how this country would react if another country did this to us.

It’s not that hard. It’s a little thing called “The Golden Rule.”

And you would think that if Bush really were “God’s President,” he would be able to get that concept, at least.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2004 at 10:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.