Trump
is uniting those opposed to him on both sides of the aisle into what
is essentially a single party that supports American exceptionalism
and its license to wage endless war around the world. Ironically,
this very precept is fervently embraced by Trump himself.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
2 - The enemy of my enemy . . .
George
W Bush’s rehabilitation through positive corporate and social media
coverage highlights a growing tendency among parts of the American
left to ignore the actual record while embracing any figure who
criticizes the current president.
The
whitewashing of Bush’s lengthy record of war crimes as president is
also notable, as his much-praised “humanizing” portraits of Iraq
War veterans do nothing to commemorate the half a million Iraqis who
were killed or the wanton destruction of their country by a foreign
power acting in defiance of international law. While Bush may be
perceived to be “honoring” veterans through his portraits, the
Iraqi victims of U.S. military crimes during the Bush-era receive no
such treatment and their suffering remains voiceless in mainstream
American political discourse.
Given
the ease with which most Americans seem to forget political history,
it may seem easy to fall into the ideological trap that Bush “meant
well” — one meme used with similar success to whitewash the U.S.’
motivations for, and subsequent war crimes committed during, the
Vietnam war. However, the documentation of Bush’s war crimes as
commander-in-chief is as extensive as the facts are chilling.
George
W. Bush, as president, deliberately misled the American people to
justify the invasion of Iraq — a war that killed countless
civilians, fomented sectarian divisions, created a refugee crisis by
displacing millions, and led to the rise of Daesh (ISIS). The U.S.
military openly committed atrocities – such as the killing of
nearly 700 civilians, including pregnant women, for coming “too
close” to military checkpoints – and engaged in the widespread
torture of suspected “terrorists,” while also instructing the new
Iraqi military in these same abhorrent tactics.
Though
this year’s Bush apologists seem to earnestly believe that Bush
“meant well” in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, they
overlook the fact that, when confronted with evidence from the CIA
contradicting the WMD narrative, the White House responded “this
isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.” The
subsequent and very lucrative contracts given to corporations with
close ties to the Bush administration, like Halliburton, to “rebuild”
Iraq remove any doubt to the effect that the invasion was an “honest
mistake” born out of Bush’s “dream of democratizing the Middle
East.” Nor is Bush trying to “atone” for the Iraq War as some
have recently suggested. Indeed, he wrote an entire book defending
his decisions as president – including the invasion of Iraq. His
misdeeds do not haunt him.
Bush
is also responsible for numerous other affronts to values that the
American left claims to hold dear, including the Orwellian Patriot
Act, the creation of the unwinnable-by-design “War on Terror,”
the disastrous response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the
still on-going war in Afghanistan, the creation of the NSA’s
warrantless mass spying program, and the devastating 2008 financial
crisis. Yet, now, the American left seems to view Bush as a lovable
goof who struggles with wearing rain ponchos — in willful ignorance
of his record as president.
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