“Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a
murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in
their sights.”
Bush’s speech yesterday was an attempt to dispell criticism, call for national unity, and tout supposed progress in Iraq.
How can Bush talk of progress in Iraq when new torture chambers are
revealed and white phosphorous chemicals burn through the skin of
Iraqis that America is supposedly “liberating”? What is “freedom and
democracy” when a recent poll found that 80% of Iraqis want an end to
the US occupation (and why wasn’t this on the ballot)? The simple fact
is, the motives, ambitions, and conduct of this war are plain wrong,
and a horror for the people in Iraq. The problem with the Iraq war is
not, as leading Democrats say, that Bush is not doing a good enough job
waging the war or doesn’t have the right “exit strategy” – the problem
is the war itself. Furthermore, Bush is lying when he says “much of
the intelligence turned out to be wrong” – the intelligence was
fabricated, the Bush regime knew it, and lied to the world to justify
their war anyway.
Bush made clear in this speech that criticism and public opinion
will not deter him, saying “To retreat before victory would be an act
of recklessness and dishonor and I will not allow it.” He aimed his
fire at, in his words, “defeatists,” calling for greater sacrifice and
national unity to win the war on Iraq. Bush sought to set the terms on
criticism in his speech, where calling for an end to the war is beyond
the pale.
If we want to stop this murderous and illegitimate war, and the
whole disastrous course the Bush regime is taking us, we cannot accept
the terms set by the Bush regime or by leading Democrats whose critique
of the war comes down to not that is waged in the first place,
but that it’s not being carried out right. We need to call out Bush’s
lies and war for what they are, and refuse to “have patience” or blunt
the truth.
While the Bush regime is clearly facing some trouble in Iraq,
mounting public opinion against the war, and criticisms inside Congress
over how the war is waged, the opportunity this creates needs to be
seized on. This January, while Bush is seeking to sow things back
together in his state of the union address, be one of thousands out in
the streets demanding “Bush: step down, and take your program with
you.”
The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!