Did Bush lie about need for war?
The democritics finally think they have found an issue that might cause some folks to vote against George W. Bush for President in the upcoming election.
This is the claim that he said the Iraqis were trying to buy uranium from an African nation. The democritics claim it is not proven that this is true, so Bush must be lying.
This whole brouhaha is ridiculous on the face of it, and if that's the best — or the worst — the democritics can do to get the voters to dump Bush, then they are a mighty weak bunch of politicians.
Firstly, Tony Blair stated on a C-Span reported meeting on July 9, that the Iraqis had purchased 200 tons of uranium from Nigeria in the 1980s so there was good reason to expect they were doing it again. The people at the meeting were hammering him pretty well on many things, but nobody disputed his comment about the uranium.
To accuse George Bush of intentionally lying to whip up public support for a nasty little war is as cheap and tawdry as claiming Jesus Christ hated Jews and is thus a racist, because he disagreed with the Pharisees.
But let's take a look at American history. The folks have always been in need of a good excuse to go to war, and not always did they get as much truth as they got this time.
The American Revolution was started on the cry of "no taxes without representation" because of the tax on tea. As a matter of fact, the core of American patriots wanted to kick England out all the time.
The War of 1812 was more of less the second revolution, as England tried to retake the colonies.
Then there was the Mexican War, which was conducted because the Mexicans didn't seem to like some American policy regarding land that the U.S. coveted. That was very unpopular in the U.S.
The Civil War was begun by the South with the cry of "States rights," when everybody knew it was that they didn't want to give up slavery, which was particularly adaptive to Southern agriculture.
Of course, everyone remembers that we got involved in the Spanish-American War over the sinking of the Maine, which may or may not have been done by Cubans.
That brings us up to World War I, when Woodrow Wilson declared in 1916 if elected "I'll continue to keep America out of war."
However, the sinking of an American ocean liner, which might not have been where it ought to be, changed all that and soon we were fighting in that war — and it was a darned good thing for the Allies that we got involved.
That brings us to World War II and the chicanery of Franklin D. Roosevelt whose strong sympathies were with the British (as were most Americans). He meddled in the war and gave the Japanese trouble too. There were suspicions that Washington let the Hawaiian attack take place, never thinking it would be as damaging, by not passing on a strong warning that was received that the Japanese fleet was near, until it was too late to save the Navy from serious damage.
Probably, the damage was much worse than the warmongers expected. But it served their purpose.
Then there was the Vietnam War, which we sort of snuck into, a few hundred "advisers" at a time.
The First Gulf War may have been the first one where no objective was clear and our conscience also. The present conflict was another where our objective may be clear but our leaders had to convince the world and the populace a little.
The war has gone exceptionally well, and now we are losing a man every day or two, as the remnants of Saddam's forces try to make us suffer a little bit.
But the casualty rate is still far short of a real war, for us at least. The two hundred and some Americans who have died are so few that we all feel like we know each and every one. Those who lose a son or husband are always to be pitied, but the losses have been almost insignificant.
My battalion in WWII had more than 400 casualties killed, plus many injured, to give you a small perspective about how our wars have been comparatively casualty free in today's fighting.
President Bush did not lie about the Iraqis wanting to get their WMD back in operation and there will be enough evidence to prove it. If it doesn't, it will be because of the long delay caused by the weak-kneed members of the U.N. stalling about going to war, and giving Saddam two months to hide or destroy the evidence of the WMD.
Meanwhile the democritics seem proud of their low down criticism of the best president this nation has had this century, or most of the last century too.
— Bill Krause, of course
The Old Retired Editor\
