INCONGRUITY IN IRAQ

INCONGRUITY IN IRAQ

By Peter Fredson

November 21, 2005

“Incongruity: strangeness, absurdity, inappropriateness”, according to my in-computer thesaurus, seems to reflect the puzzlement I feel when looking at the daily news about Iraq for the past four years.

I wonder what those young people in United States uniform, holding automatic weapons at the ready, dressed like Samurai warriors in full-field gear, are doing so far from home. Why are they not back home in
Sheboygan, Duluth, or Rochester? I look at the billions of dollars and tons of weapons, equipment, munitions, humvees, helicopters, assault planes, and gigantic tanks in a country where most of the people are dressed flimsily, in poor clothing, and trying to walk about their own streets to the market or hospital yet having loaded weapons constantly pointed at them.

I see our young people, far from home, breaking down doors and destroying other people’s homes while hollering like banshees, all the time pointing their weapons at people’s heads. I see destruction on roads, buildings, factories, schools, hospitals and practically any man-made structure. I wonder how Muslim people can live in this kind of Bush-produced hell (long before their time to die and be punished by either God or Allah) for the simple fact of existing. But the real incongruity is that Bush calls this “democracy” and “freedom.”

Surely any sane person can distinguish death and destruction from liberty and sovereignty.

But the Bush people insist that War is Peace, that killing does not bring revenge, that patriots are terrorists, that stupidity is military genius, that staying a failed course is good strategy, and that killing Muslims is good Christian practice.

I see “contractors” bearing heavy weaponry. I see mercenaries bearing heavy weaponry. I see “advisors” surrounded by people with heavy weaponry. I see our visiting politicians surrounded by immense security forces bearing heavy weaponry. Everywhere I see duress, imminent violence disguised as security, arrogance disguised as leadership, and incompetence disguised under flags and crosses.

I have seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib, and I have heard our irascible president say “we don’t torture.” Well, someone sure in hell is doing torture, and thinks it is standard procedure. Somehow people got the idea that their leaders approve of torture, abuse, destruction and death. Somehow we have constructed secret jails in which to hold people indefinitely without warrant or notice and hide under the assumption that a War President can do anything he desires. In fact, his attorneys told him, in effect, that with careful legal wording he is above the law. Both President and VP deny using torture while using every effort to deny investigators access to prisoners and building secret jail in foreign countries for the express purpose of torture and abuse. Incongruous? You bet!

Somehow practically no Republican has noticed that Bush lied our country into war, or that there IS torture (except for McCain) and abuse, and that the entire country of Iraq is more destroyed than reconstructed. They continue to issue cheery optimistic statements that everything is going smoothly as part of their strategy to suck the American public dry. Somehow no Republican has shown outrage that thousands of Muslims have been killed, made dead, murdered, who had absolute innocence but are lumped together under the pretext that we are at war with Iraq, when in fact it is Bush’s war.

Somehow very few Republicans see anything wrong with giving Millennium Corporation all the oil of Iraq, all of the army catering services, and that several billion dollars are “missing.” Anything incongruous there?

I heard our President, Vice-President, practically the entire Bush Cabinet on TV, radio and in every media declare that Saddam was an imminent danger to citizens of the United States. Evidently Crawford, Texas would be on the list of places destroyed by “mushroom clouds” brought by pilotless planes flying over oceans in endless streams to produce horror in every American home. Terror has been successfully produced by both Osama bin Laden and by George Bush, identically driven by ideology. I see little difference between them in the effects on the populace. Incongruous? Yes.

Now we find endless lies denying that anything occurred during the months of war dances and saber-rattling when the entire Bush cabinet went on the attack mode to talk the country into an unnecessary war. They even denied that there would be much blood-shed, unless from thorns of all the flowers strewn in the path of American invaders. Incongruous? You bet!

Today it is a parlor game for the Bush people to deny everything. In fact, deniability is one of the sought-for effects of their strategy. As an aid to their lies, deceit, and preemptive infamy the Bush people now generously try to share the blame with the entire country.

They also try to slander critics with imaginative reporters, Swiftboat tactics, and paid government advertising their own courage, honesty and efficiency. Their audiences are usually captive, highly selected, and their security is the tightest in history because Bush and his VP have become the most hated persons in our history, rivaling other leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Stalin and Pol Pot. Presidential speeches are cloned from tricksters like Karl Rove, in which every word must be scrutinized with care for its Newspeak meaning. We can expect no credibility from the most highly respected office in our nation. Incongruous? You bet!

I wonder if our President told his young warriors that they were going to steal the oil of Iraq for his cronies? I wonder if Bush told our soldiers that they were perhaps going to die to construct several large military bases in a country whose sovereignty he contemptuously manipulates with special emissaries, envoys, ambassadors, to produce puppet exiles which will give him indemnity for any death or destruction he causes. His regard for diplomacy is exemplified by “Ambassador” Bolton, who would very much like to see the demise of the institution to which he was appointed as a “diplomat.” Can anything be more incongruous?

I wonder if Bush told the country that he was planning to invade Syria and Iran. Certainly Condi Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney know all that because they lecture the countries in question daily about “democracy” and “liberty.” In actuality they seek pretexts to demolish those regimes, while pretending to be on missions of peace and friendship. Stealth, deceit and preemption are the tools of the Bush administration that proudly proclaims its moral virtues, long and loud.

Can anything be more incongruous for what should be a democratic country appointing a fascist theocrat as Attorney-General?

Is it not incongruous to condemn people taking pictures of torture and abuse, of flag-draped coffins, of maimed veterans, but do nothing about the root causes of death and destruction?

I see more incongruity than I have space here to document. But finally polls of Presidential honesty and efficiency are coming out that reflect what I am feeling. In my opinion, Bush is the worst President this country has ever had.

I will go farther and say he is the most dangerous President for the existence of law, liberty and democracy that this country has ever suffered. He and his followers may actually believe that God commanded him to invade Iraq. Frankly, I don’t.

Do we have an incongruous administration? Yes, very strange.