A rchive Date
[ 07-10-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Harris_Michael/2005/10/07/1251727.html
From a burning bush to George Bush
By MICHAEL HARRIS
Fri, October 7, 2005
Even Lowell Green's face should be red by now. U.S. President George Bush has finally given his real reason for invading Iraq.
Weapons of mass destruction headed for Crawford Ranch? No. Toppling a brutal dictator? Not exactly. Fighting evil terrorists who want to enslave the world? Definitely not. The real skinny? The Lord made him do it.
According to a BBC documentary, Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, George told Palestinian prime minister Abu Mazen and his foreign minister Nabil Shaath that God had urged him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. The good news? He also told Junior to give the Palestinians their own state.
In the documentary, to be aired in the U.K. on three successive Mondays starting on Oct. 10, this is what Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ..."
And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God, I'm gonna do it."
Mother of God, so it was a holy war after all!
Without doubting for a moment that God did order George to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, I wonder when the orders were actually received? It must have been before George told the American people and the world that Saddam Hussein had nuclear and biological weapons and had to be "taken out" for the good of the planet.
But if God gave the divine marching orders before George sent Colin Powell to the United Nations with those devastating artist's conceptions proving Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, why didn't the president just tell us about the sacred communication instead of coming up with a secular cover story? After all, the Bible does say "Thou shalt not lie."
It seems appropriate to note at this juncture that George's media body-armor, Scott McClellan, is now on record with the BBC firmly denying that God is now on the Bush White House staff. According to the latest set of rented presidential tonsils, the story is "absurd": God does not advise the president and besides, the administration has already provided a variety of reasons for invading Iraq to please every taste.
Still, I have my doubts Scott. This, after all, is the president who said that Michael Brown was doing a bang-up job of dealing with Hurricane Katrina. This is the man who tirelessly defended Tom DeLay until the former Republican majority leader in the Senate was twice indicted by a Texas grand jury. This is the Commander in Chief who continues to stand behind Donald Rumsfeld, a man whose idea of basic war planning is based on a free shopping spree in Wal-mart.
And isn't George also the guy who hung a medal the size of a dessert plate around George Tenet's neck for his "slam dunk intelligence" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? Forgive me for my skepticism, but here is what I find "absurd."
I find it absolutely absurd that the two most powerful politicians in the Palestinian Authority would invent damaging stories about the president of the U.S.
After all, these people didn't just live in the Superdome for five days. They have spent 35 years living in the Superdome of Palestinian refugee camps. And they know that the only way they will ever have an independent state is if the United States permits it. So if I were Abu Mazen or Nabil Shaath, the last thing I would want to do would be to make up embarrassing stories about Junior.
I tend to believe them. Could it be that these two hopeful men have given us the key to unlocking Junior's presidential style? Could it have been God who told George to stay on his holidays for three days after the tsunami wiped out a quarter of a million people? Was it God who urged him to follow Dick Cheney's "visionary energy policy" that will soon have every American on a motor scooter? Was it God who told him to filch $5 billion from Canada's softwood lumber producers because there is a higher court than NAFTA?
All I know is that when Junior was asked if he had phoned his earthly father before taking America to war, he replied that he had communed with "a higher authority."
Apparently, he is still doing it. George now says that the war against terrorism is still a worthy cause and must be fought to the bitter end. Why?
Because a group of well organized fanatics is plotting to enslave the world starting one country at a time in the Middle East. Why they're just like Communists, says George, though in fact it may have been God who told him that.
If I were the president, with such powerful connections, I would ignore the profane and stick to the sacred. Who cares if only 32 percent of Americans support the war in Iraq?
When Anderson Cooper next goes for your gonads, George, remember this: "God and a single man are a majority."
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