January 15, 2007

Bush: "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."

So says a delusional president to CBS reporter Scott Pelley.


Hold on to your chair if you're sitting down, President Bush recently told Scott Pelley of CBS's Sixty Minutes program that "the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." Perhaps even more amazing was Pelley's failure to take any notice of this most ridiculous and insulting of statements.

If anyone still has doubts that our delusional president is completely out of his mind, we recommend that they read or watch Pelley's interview. Here are some excerpts:

Bush: I'm actually counting on the unity government of which Maliki is the head. . . I told him it's time to get going. He's got to provide the troops he said he would provide inside Baghdad and we'll help him, and that's why I've called for more troops. I said, 'When our guys get moving along with yours, you can't get on the phone for political reasons and stop the troops from going after killers.' What they'd do is, we're going after this killer, and they say, well he's, for political reasons, don't. Killer is a killer. And we expect them to go after both Shia and Sunni murderers in order to provide the security for Baghdad.

A careful reading of Bush's "killer is a killer" babblings suggests that he is either: 1 - Seriously delusional about the nature of Maliki's Shiite dominated government, which has already clearly indicated that it has no intention of addressing Sunni concerns or stopping the Shiite death squads which are attacking and carrying out an "ethnic cleansing" policy against the Sunnis, or 2 - Lying through his teeth and stalling for time so he can hand over the catastrophic mess he created to the next president, or 3 - Both 1 and 2.

Bush: (when asked who was an enemy of the United States) Anybody who murders innocent people or frustrating (sic) the ambitions of the Iraqi people and the United States.

Since according to the president he and only he is qualifed to represent the United States in matters of war and foreign policy, we take this to mean that anyone frustrating his ambitions is a murderer of innocent people and an enemy of the United States -- a chillingly paranoid statement resembling those made by President Nixon in his final days of office.

Bush: (when asked about Saddam's hanging) You know, obviously could have handled this thing a lot better. And I knew it'd be, you know, one of those incidents where it would call into doubt . . . it would create further skepticism. You know, it's important that -- that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. They could have handled it a lot better.

We are of course left wondering how the barbaric practice of hanging people "can be done better." But alas, Bush got his answer a day after this interview when the Maliki government hanged Saddam Hussein's half brother, Barzan Hassan (left), and his former head of the secret police, Awad Bandar. Hassan's head was ripped completely off of his body, as seen in the official government video which was shown to a small group of reporters, but not to the general public. A spokesperson for the Iraqi government said that the decapitation was "unfortunate" but "an act of god." A more down to earth interpretation suggests that the hangmen were either incompetent or as is more likely, deliberately trying to rip Hassan's head off as an example to the Sunni population and others resisting present Shiite rule.

The brutal way in which Saddam was hanged was also widely seen as a message to the Sunni population that it's the Shiites which now govern Iraq. (Iraq as currently configured is about 60% Shiite Muslim, 18% Sunni Muslim, 18% Kurdish Christian. Historically, Shiites and Sunnis have often been bitter enemies, roughly comparable to the often deadly rivalries between Protestants and Catholics in Europe during the Middle Ages. Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunni minority dominated all branches of government and the civil service.)


Unfortunately neither Bush nor the Democrats in Congress are capable of speaking the truth about Iraq.

Bush: That's why I'm doing this interview with you. And I gotta keep explaining, one, the consequences of failure, that failure in Iraq will affect the security of the people here in the United States. And secondly, that we can succeed.

Yes indeed, Bush has a lot of explaining to do for his various war crimes and failures. Unfortunately neither he nor the so-called anti-war Democrats in Congress are capable of speaking the truth about Iraq. Which, beyond the not unimportant fact that this war is both immoral and unjustified, is that even from Bush's own self-preceived position as a colonial master bringing "democracy to the arab masses," the war was lost the very day it began. There never was, and never will be, a military solution to Iraq's bitter internal divisions -- especially one that can be imposed by an outside power whose leaders have no understanding of the history, religion, and culture of the peoples of the region. Iraq itself was a country formed to meet British imperial needs as it pertained to oil interests, and was never one based on the realities of the nationalities and cultures contained within its borders.

Bush: Listen, we've got people criticizing this plan before it's had a chance to work. And I, therefore, think they have an extra responsibility to show us a plan that will work.

Can anyone spell "I-R-A-Q S-T-U-D-Y G-R-O-U-P"? Of course, Scott Pelley could have come back with this slam duck of a reponse, or one like it, but he didn't. Did you really think that Bush would allow himself to be interviewed by anyone who wouldn't play ball and toss out soft ball questions and hanging curves?

Bush: Failure in Iraq would empower Iran, which poses a significant threat to world peace.

Bush again demonstrates his failure to master even the rudimentary basics of Imperialism 101. Invading Iraq and propelling the Shiite majority into power was a godsend to Iran, which is a Shiite dominated country. As far as threatening world peace is concerned, all Bush has to do is glance into the mirror to see who poses the greatest threat.

Bush: Secondly, chaos in the Middle East will empower extremists who hate America.

Chaos is precisely what Mr. Bush is creating in the Middle East.

Bush: They'll be able to recruit more. They'll be able to find more suiciders.

Suiciders?

Bush: Well, our administration took care of a source of instability in Iraq. Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran.

Again Scott Pelley totally drops the ball, neglecting to remind Bush that there were no weapons of mass destruction found and no Iraqi nuclear bomb program. Nor did he mention that Bush lied when he addressed the nation claiming that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger.

Bush: There were a lot of people, both Republicans and Democrats, who felt there were weapons of mass destruction.

This one really takes the cake! The Bush administration and its media allies spent nearly a year spreading around all sorts of horror stories about non-existant weapons of mass destruction poised to land in our backyards on 15 minutes notice. The fact that their propoganda convinced many people to believe in these falsehoods is now cited by the president as a personal vindication, and a way of passing the blame around to the victims of his lies!!

Bush: Right. And we killed them, as you recall.

OK, take a moment and try to figure out what the question to Bush was.

Bush: I'm not a lawyer. So act of war is kind of a . . . I'm not exactly sure how you define that.

Not only do we have a president who is incapable of uttering a coherent sentence, we also have one who doesn't know how to define an act of war. Why are we not surprised.

Bush: (censored by CBS)

Large segments of the interview were not aired. One can only imagine the nature of the idiocies uttered that CBS has deemed unfit for human consumption.


Sources:

Sixty Minutes Interview with George W. Bush, January 14, 2007.

Abu Ghraib Torture Photos.


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