Speaking of Cement

I seem to recall a claim being made by Bush that went something like, “We’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” I wonder what they’re telling themselves in London tonight.

About a year ago, someone wrote a letter to the editor saying he could “not understand why Americans don’t see the necessity for the actions Bush has taken in Iraq and why it’s imperative that we stay strong.” I don’t know why it’s so hard for people like that to understand why those of us who opposed the invasion of Iraq did so.

We all know we need to stay strong (it was disingenuous for him to imply that we did not know that), but we also needed to stay focused…on those responsible for 9/11. Instead, Bush used our taxes and our troops to settle a personal grudge against Saddam. The time, money and lives sacrificed for Bush’s personal vendetta have kept us distracted for almost two and a half years and depleted the resources we should have been using to bring to justice those who were actually responsible for the carnage of September 11.

To gain support for his actions in the runup to war, on top of just plain bold-faced lying to us about WMD, etc., Bush counted on the American people to use faulty logic. First he told the country that we were attacked by bad people who hate us (duh); then he told us that Saddam is a bad person who hates us. Then he just sat back and hoped we’d draw the conclusion that Saddam was involved in the attack on us. Many people did just that and some still do. By the time he came out and said that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, it was, as planned, too late for many people to hear that, so deeply ingrained was the notion that Iraq was behind the attack. Many people still believe that and Bush’s tendency to evoke the spectre of the burning towers to justify anything he does reinforces that belief, as I’m sure it’s meant to.

But Saddam was not involved in 9/11; Iraq did not attack us. That was some other bad people that hate us; that was Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden…remember them? The only purpose served by the deaths of our troops in Iraq is to settle a personal score for Bush. Our young men and women are risking their lives; they deserve better.

And now the people of London have been struck in their own city. They did not deserve that. The people of London were more vociferous than Americans, by and large, in their disapproval of Blair for joining in Bush’s Folly. Londoners did not “see the necessity” for the stupid plan of the Bush administration either. Europeans in general were far more aware of the issues surrounding 9/11; they grasped, in a way that far too many Americans failed to, that Iraq was being scapegoated for it and they took to the streets to try to stop the attack on Iraq. I don’t get why the terrorists take out on them the bad decisions of Blair. Unfortunately, it’s usually the people who get the blowback from the decisions of their leaders; the leaders usually escape unscathed. So, Londoners are feeling the wrath of those terrorists who blame them for the fact that they could not make their leaders listen to them.

The claim that if we fight them over there, we will not have to fight them over here was today revealed as inaccurate. Will those who unthinkingly accepted that notion be shocked? Are they sitting in their living rooms tonight and starting to see that it did not work that way for London and it will not work that way for us?

I wonder what will be the wrath we will suffer when America’s turn rolls around again. Those few of us who did take to the streets in protest will be caught up together in the net with those who willingly settled for the comfortable lies of our leaders. Bush was right about one thing; there are bad people who hate us. There are a lot more bad people who hate us now than there were on September 11th, 2001.