Imperialists??™ Ball
Ivins, Molly
Small Favors Molly Ivins Imperialists' Ball George Will, the perpetually peevish pundit, recently condescended to inform us that what we are experiencing in Iraq is merely the burden of empire....
...If it were, Texas would not have one of the highest major crime rates in the nation...
...Bush looked like a turtle on a fence post at his press conference and laid upon us the news that we are in Iraq to "change the world...
...is pure fantasy...
...I particularly liked Bush's assertion that "some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq can be free, that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can't be self-governing or free...
...Yup, Bwana says we got to tote the white man's load...
...George W has always had a tendency to leave fact and logic behind in favor of his "gut" or "instinct" or what he perceives as some moral override...
...We are...
...Crazy Iraqi doctors must have amputated his third leg...
...Recognizing reality may not solve a problem, but it has to be the start of any solution...
...So now we're changing the world by bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East...
...This may not stop your presses unless you remember that before the Iraq War we were told the reason we knew Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda was that al-Zarqawi, an Al Qaeda guy, had gone to Baghdad for medical treatment, specifically, to get his leg amputated...
...And if they don't like what we're doin' for 'em, they can just go back where they come from...
...I know there is no evidence that shows the death penalty is a deterrent," he once said, "but I just feel in my gut that it must be true...
...We don't have 500,000 troops to send...
...Got to kill them people for their own good...
...To say we went to war to save the credibility of the U.N...
...It seems to me this tendency is becoming more pronounced...
...But simply ignoring not only facts but huge swaths of reality is downright dangerous...
...Bush solemnly asserted he had gone to war in Iraq to save the credibility of the United Nations...
...Unfortunately, the Middle East doesn't appear to be noticeably grateful...
...Now Americans must steel themselves for administering the violence necessary to disarm or defeat Iraq's urban militias...
...Pointing out that Iraq is an escalating disaster does not make one a supporter of Osama bin Laden or a bigot...
...According to a Rand think-tank study, we would need 500,000 troops in Iraq to make the country truly secure and start real nation building...
...Turns out he didn't have WMD, and he didn't have links to Al Qaeda...
...In a lovely bit of timing, "senior U.S...
...Paul Wolfowitz told Congress before the war that Iraq doesn't have the same history of ethnic conflict as the Balkans...
...Regime change, occupation, nation-building-in a word, empire-are a bloody business...
...officials" disclosed to CNN that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has two legs...
...I thought we went into Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, constituted an immediate threat to the United States, and was supposed to have links to Al Qaeda...
...Countering arguments that have never been made-as in the imaginative RNC ad, "Some are attacking the President for attacking the terrorists"-is a time-honored rhetorical ploy...
...Funny, I've never heard anyone make that argument, and I'm dying to know where Bush heard it...
...Then let's all join Bwana down at the Imperialists' Ball...
...In fact, our closest allies in the Middle East are furious with us: Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is upset big time, and King Abdullah of Jordan cancelled his visit to the White House...
...No one can spin away a mess as big as Iraq...
...Apparently, the reasons why we went to war in Iraq will never cease to morph: If one turns out to be inconveniently untrue, we just invent another...
...Molly Ivins writes in this space every month...
Vol. 68 • June 2004 • No. 6
