We're not leaving Iraq

I've been gone for a long while. Delayed reaction to the election hit me hard. I'm back.

People continue to ask when the U.S. military will pull out of Iraq. It's time to realize that we're not leaving. Everyone acts as if Baby Bush's goal is to prepare the Iraqi people for self-rule, and while this may be *a* goal, it's not and never has been a point at which BB plans to withdraw.

I guess I'm slow on the uptake, but my sister is the one who pointed me in the direction of the true reason for the Iraq war: We needed a permanent base for military operations in the Middle East. Every other reason given by this administration is propaganda to justify our unprovoked invasion of a weaker country. Baby Bush would never have gotten support at home for starting a war just so we could build establish military bases in the middle east. Instead, he exploited the post-9/11 terror by claiming that we were threatened by Saddam's WMDs; then when necessity (in the form of no WMDs) required, he switched rationales to retaliation for 9/11, and terrorism in general; then when necessity (in the form of no links between Saddam and terrorists) required, he switched to spreading democracy--which is a very weak reason for starting a war. In fact, it sounds a lot like what the Soviet Union did throughout eastern Europe, only they were spreading communism.

If we recall that Islamic terrorists objected to U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, Islam's holy land, then we might conclude that Baby Bush started this war to appease the terrorists, as well as Daddy Bush's Saudi business associates, by moving our military out of Saudi Arabia. What better place than the centrally located real estate held by an undisputed badass whose ability to fight back had been sapped by the U.N.

Nearly a year ago, an article from the Chicago Tribune reported that we were building 14 "enduring bases" in Iraq. Enduring bases are different from "forward operating bases" and "expeditionary and temporary bases."

"Is this a swap for the Saudi bases?" asked Army Brig. Gen. Robert Pollman, chief engineer for base construction in Iraq. "I don't know. ... When we talk about enduring bases here, we're talking about the present operation, not in terms of America's global strategic base. But this makes sense. It makes a lot of logical sense."

In addition, an article on the Libertarian Party website quotes a former analyst for the Pentagon on the same subject--whether the true reason for invading Iraq was nation building in the Middle East. "Retired USAF Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who was working as an analyst for the Pentagon as the U.S. geared up to invade Iraq" expands on the concocted reasons that were intended to pursuade the public to support a war that has no socially acceptable justification under traditional United States moral values.

Baby Bush created a lot of alarm with his "slam-dunk" WMD rationale. Then when no WMDs were found, he horrified a bunch of earnest people by joking about hunting under the furniture in his office for the missing WMDs. Ostensibly, BB started this war because Saddam refused to meet his ultimatum for turning over the WMDs. Yet BB wasn't horrified that he had sacrificed lives and our country's honor over an ultimatum that couldn't be met--because BB had lied about his true reason for starting the war. While I'll grant that he probably expected to find some hidden WMDs, his subsequent behavior shows that this was not his true reason for starting the war. So he switched the party line to terrorism and 9/11. "We started this war to spread fight terrorism; we've always been at war with Iraq to fight terrorism."

And although BB and Cheney denied, during the election, that they were accusing Saddam of 9/11, they continued to confuse their audiences by implying that connection. Yet even common sense tells us that totalitarian dictators do not support anarchists. And when the 9/11 Commission found no links between Saddam/Iraq and 9/11, we didn't see the Bush administration reacting with horror at what they'd done--they just switched lines. "We started this war to spread democracy; we've always been at war with Iraq to spread democracy."

BB has gotten a lot of mileage by portraying himself as a good ole' boy, a country brush-cutter who's not so good at fancy talkin'. But I'm a native Texan, and I've seen this impersonation before, most notably in LBJ, who was the very model of a modern political fox. Yet LBJ's "credibility gap" is an enduring legacy of his presidency, and it's usually reported as a prime reason he did not seek reelection. But in this post-LBJ, post-Nixon/Watergate, post-Daddy Bush/Iran-Contra world, we have a blunted sense of outrage at BB's lies. And many many people have managed to ignore the evidence that he has lied--he was just wrong.

But it's his lack of horror that convicts Baby Bush of lying about his reasons for attacking Iraq. That and the confidence with which BB denies any mistake in starting this war. This is important because lying about his reason for leading this country into an unprovoked war is the sort of lying that is impeachable. While I disapproved of Clinton's adultery, I never thought that lying about adultery was impeachable. But lying about the job you've been authorized to do--lying to the people who gave you the authority to do the job--especially when the cost in life and limb is so high--does appear to me to be impeachable. And if not now, when?

UPDATE: From the LA Times on BB's 2/24/05 press conference with Putin:

PRESIDENT BUSH: I live in a transparent country. I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open and people are able to call people to -- me to account, which many out here do on a regular basis.

(Thank you, David Corn)