In article <c1gs2b$12a4$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, Michael Givel says...

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17808 SCHEER: War As An
Excuse For Everything

By Robert Scheer, AlterNet February 10, 2004

Is it just me, or is President Bush's demeanor a bit Napoleonic
these days?

The enemies of the republic are everywhere, he says over and over,
and only he stands between them and our utter ruin. Sunday on "Meet
the Press," he could say nothing without also referring to military
battles he is apparently fit to fight - presumably based on his
stealthy stint in the National Guard.

I am a "war president - with war on my mind," he insisted to Tim
Russert, dodging the newsman's every question, as if his trainers
had assured him that the phrase was a talisman that would ward off
all charges of ineptitude and bad-faith leadership. Yet it was
hardly clear from his filibustering responses exactly what war it
was that Bush thought he was fighting.

Surely he wasn't coming clean on his war against the 90 percent of
Americans who will pay the price in starved government services
and, ultimately, higher tax burdens as they pay off Bush's outrageous
tax cuts for the super-rich and the corollary soaring budget deficits.

"It's important for people who watch the expenditure side of the
equation to understand that we are at war," Bush responded when
Russert questioned him about the deficit. That was presumably a
reference to the war on terror, the president's handy explanation
for every untoward event. But how can he justify spending much of
the $400 billion military budget on things like Cold War-era high-tech
aircraft and other defense boondoggles to counter the $1.89 box
cutters used by the 9/11 terrorists?

And if the war is against Al Qaeda, why haven't we moved decisively
against that shadowy movement's sponsors in Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia? Although Osama bin Laden, 15 of the hijackers and most of
the money for the religious schools that fed recruits to Al Qaeda
and the Taliban came from Saudi Arabia, the president again insisted
perversely on linking Iraq with the attack on this nation - despite
having previously admitted that there is no evidence of such a
connection.

There is, however, much evidence that Pakistan helped arm and train
the Taliban. Yet Bush inexplicably rewarded Pakistan after Sept.
11, 2001, by lifting the sanctions that were in place to punish
Pakistan for its nuclear program and sales. Only last week, Pakistan's
dictator admitted that his nation was responsible for nurturing the
nuclear threat posed by North Korea, Iran and Libya - conveniently
blaming the country's leading scientist, whom he then quickly
pardoned.

Furthermore, in apparent deference to Pakistan's admitted role in
supplying North Korea with the wherewithal for nuclear weapons,
Bush has suddenly warmed to that member of his "axis of evil."
Whereas the president had referred to Saddam Hussein as a "madman"
and a theoretical nuclear threat who could be dealt with only through
preemptive invasion, Bush says North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il
and his actual nuclear threat haven't earned a military response
because "the diplomacy is only beginning."

So, if we are not at war with North Korea, Libya or Iran now that
we know they got their WMD know-how from our friends in Pakistan,
then whom are we at war with? Certainly not Iraq, which the president
pronounced as vanquished some nine months ago from the deck of the
aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Sadly, as the transcript of the
Russert interview shows, it is not entirely clear that even Bush
knows for sure what is what anymore.

"I made a decision to go to the United Nations. By the way, quoting
a lot of their data - in other words - this is unaccounted-for
stockpiles that you thought he had because I don't think America
can stand by and hope for the best from a madman," Bush said.
Evidently the president has forgotten that the U.N. Security Council
turned down his request to go to war because U.N.

inspectors were crawling all over Iraq and were finding nothing.

Now that top weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei -
who both told the world before the invasion that Saddam Hussein was
a defanged viper - have been vindicated by Bush's handpicked arms
inspectors, it is embarrassing to witness the president prattling
on in defense of the indefensible. Perhaps it would be less painful
for all of us if the CIA could plant some WMD, of which the U.S.
possesses a glorious excess, in Iraq as a kindly, face-saving
afterthought for the baffled leader of the free world.

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