By Kenneth J. Theisen, 4/6/07
On Wednesday April 4, 2007, President Bush addressed U.S. troops at Fort Irwin. He referred to a suicide bombing where
terrorists allegedly used two children to get through a checkpoint and then
exploded the car as strengthening his resolve to continue the war in Iraq. He said, “It makes me realize the nature
of the enemy we face, which hardens my resolve to protect the American people. People who do that are not – it’s not a civil war,
it is pure evil. And I believe we have
an obligation to protect ourselves from that evil.”
If this incident occurred, it is indeed morally
reprehensible, but to hear Bush describe the killing of children as evil makes
me want to gag at the hypocrisy. According
to a medical study published in The Lancet this past fall, 655,000 Iraqis have
died as a result of U.S.
forces under Bush invading the country.
How many of these were children?
And did I miss the President condemning the sanctions imposed on Iraq
after the first Gulf War during his father’s presidency and then continued under
Clinton and then again under his own regime?
By most accounts at least half-a-million children died as a result of
these economic sanctions. Where was Bush’s moral outrage then?
If killing two children in a car bombing is evil, then how
do you describe acts that kill hundreds of thousands, Mr. President? War crimes?
Crimes against humanity? Should a
man responsible for the deaths of so many children be impeached? How do we “protect ourselves from that evil”
Mr. Bush?