Shame on Multiple Fronts

On the Fourth of July, President Bush made his somewhat frequent trip to my area to address the 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard. This not only puts him a few miles away from me, it also allows him to make a ridiculous connection between an actual important war and the war on terrorism. Without fail, and exactly like in Jamestown, Bush made a connection with a piece of important American history and this travesty of a war. From the article:

President Bush equated the war in Iraq on Wednesday with the U.S. war for independence. Like those revolutionaries who "dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty," Bush said that American soldiers are also fighting "a new and unprecedented war" to protect U.S. freedom.

On multiple previous occasions, I've commented on how this war is nothing like we have done in our history. The British started the Revolutionary War through overexerting its influence in the colonies, visually manifesting itself in the slaying of Crispus Attucks in the event that would quickly become known as the Boston Massacre and the passing of the Stamp act in 1775 which led to the act of rebellion known as the Boston Tea Party. Additionally, that war was a REACTION to the oppression of the British. And, yes, farmers did put down their pitchforks to fight the war, but they also had help from the French, who also did not want to see the British succeed. Whatever the French's motivation was, they helped America gain its freedom from the tyranny of the British. As can be seen, this is absolutely nothing like the war on terrorism. Afghanistan would be alright, if it weren't horribly mismanaged from the outset by allowing al-Qaeda to dip into the mountains and disappear. Iraq is a war that we started ourselves against a country that, while led by a tyrant, was of no real consequence to the events that were used to justify the action: the destruction of the World Trade Centers. You could make the argument that the positions have been switched, that America is now the British and the Islamic fundamentalists are the revolutionaries. I'm just throwing it out there...

So, along with making tenuous connections with history, Bush is patently lying to people. Example:

In a reprise of speeches he delivered throughout the 2006 congressional campaign, the president said that the threat that emerged Sept. 11, 2001, remains and that "a major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States on that fateful day."

As can be gleaned from any embedded reporter in Iraq, this is just not true. Both Shi'ite and Sunni Islamic militants are attacking American troops. Al-Qaeda, as he is suggesting in dense language, is not the only group.

As if this weren't enough, Bush goes in front of an audience that has been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan two or three times to get people to volunteer. Frankly, I'd be surprised if people enlisted now. I know that people are dedicated to the principle of freedom and fighting for country, but there has to be a division between fighting for country and going on a suicide mission, which is what deployment into Iraq and Afghanistan has become.

I'm out of words to condemn Bush with. I'm only disappointed because he was only ten minutes from my own home, spreading disinformation and revising history, a history of an event that defined the foundation of this country, to justify a war that has reversed the work of those patriots of the late 18th Century.