The strange, sad death of the American way

There is a growing sense that Americans have become victims of September
11 in a way that has blinkered their democratic instincts.

So now the hard questions are being put in a pre-September 11 context.
Would Americans ordinarily tolerate a president who lies and
exaggerates? A leader who uses fear to manipulate his people to his own
ends? A president whose staff blow the deep cover of a CIA agent as
political payback? A president whose Administration channels billions of
dollars to crony corporations on false pretexts? A president who deems
torture acceptable?

Would they accept a president who seems to agree with his advisers that
he is above the law?

The commentator William Rivers Pitt poses them all before concluding:
"The time has come, bluntly, to get over September 11; to move beyond
it; to extract ourselves from this bunker mentality which blinds us
while placing us in moral peril. It happened and it will never be
forgotten, but we have reached a place where fear and obeisance can no
longer be tolerated."

Bush, Blair and Howard would dearly love to move on, to shelter in that
obedient, obeisant world and their shallow argument that the global
community must deal with the reality on the ground in Iraq; hoping, too,
that we’ll just slip-slide with them, over and around their recklessness
in dragging Iraq into the War on Terror.

But legitimacy is truth and questions of legitimacy will keep drawing us
back to the propriety of their decision-making on the road to Baghdad -
the lies, the half-truths, all the obsfucation. This is not just a
history lesson; or a debating point for Americans and Australians as
they luxuriate in their democratic right to vote on the performance of
their leaders in the coming months.

In less than two weeks the US-led occupation of Iraq gives way to the
saddest little "sovereign" government the world has seen in a while.

Its legitimacy is in doubt and, therefore its viability, as much because
of the false-pretence by Washington, London and Canberra to justify war
as by Iraqi suspicion of the democratic fundamentals of interim
government by appointment, by the continued occupation of their country
and by a firm foreign grip on their treasury purse-strings.

And while some will dismiss all of that, arguing that time will tell,
the greater reality on the ground in Iraq is that the chaos and death
from a mismanaged foreign occupation is a product of all the lies.

Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney can’t help themselves. Only hours
before the September 11 reports were published, Bush was talking up the
sketchily known activities of the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi
as the "best evidence" of a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein. It was another lie. Cheney was at it a few days earlier,
claiming there were "long-established ties" between Saddam and bin Laden.

Almost buried in the blitz of reports on the commission’s work was
yesterday’s statement by a group of 27 former US diplomats and military
leaders - many of whom were appointees of this president’s father and
other Republican administrations.

These are men who have done time in the Middle East, in Moscow and in
the highest levels of the US military, and this is what they said: "[The
Bush Administration] justified the invasion of Iraq by manipulation of
uncertain intelligence about [WMD], and by a cynical campaign to
persuade the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaeda and the
attacks of September 11."

"From the outset, President George W. Bush adopted an overbearing
approach, relying on military might and righteousness, insensitive to
the concerns of traditional friends and allies, and disdainful of the
United Nations ..."

John Howard’s unquestioning support for Bush puts him in the same dock
as the US President.

My anxiety on the road to battle was about the number of don’t-know
questions that underpinned the Bush-Blair-Howard case for war and the
leaders’ remarkable certainty.

Now we find that the unnecessary Iraq war has sucked resources away from
the War on Terror. Bin Laden is at large but Saddam is in captivity;
Iraq did not help al-Qaeda or bin Laden and it was invaded, while
Pakistan, which did help al-Qaeda and did sell its nuclear know-how
around the Axis of Evil, has just been elevated to the exclusive ranks
of "major non-NATO ally" by George Bush.

Other realities are confusing.

The White House insisted that US forces would be welcomed in Iraq with
flowers and songs. But only 2 per cent of Iraqis see the Americans as
liberators - and that’s according to a poll by the US occupation
authority in Iraq.

Biological and chemical weapons? I’ve been carrying self-injecting
syringes of an expensive nerve gas antidote in my first aid kit since
before last year’s war. I’m off to Baghdad again tomorrow. It’s a city
where I don’t need - never needed - the antidote. But truth serum would
not go astray in several other capitals.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/17/1087245046825.html?oneclick=true