Is It Starting to fall Apart for George Bush?

by James Glaser
March 23, 2004

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Palestinian group Hamas was assassinated today by Israel as he was leaving a Mosque in his wheelchair after morning prayers.

Yassin, who has been paralyzed since boyhood, was killed along with whoever was pushing his wheelchair and several others. Israel fired three missiles from no doubt an American supplied helicopter. It is a good bet that we supplied the missiles too.

Part of George Bush's plan to end terrorism was his half hearted attempt to bring peace to the Middle East with a plan called a Road Map to Peace. The Bush administration offered this plan months ago and has done almost nothing to get either side to implement it.

The United States continues to send billions of tax dollars, that we have to borrow, to Israel and we really can't say anything about this targeted assassination, because last year we did the same thing in Yemen, when we assassinated a suspected al Qaeda member along with three others with missiles from a Predator Drone aircraft.

Israel says that Yassin was a terrorist, yet they had him in their prison system for over ten years and they let him go. Yassin claimed that he never planned any terrorist attacks and that he was a spiritual leader only. Israel bought that line before and let him go. Now they decide to kill him as a revenge attack. So much for any hope of peace.

The best thing America could do now is say, Enough! No Peace, No Money. To tell you the truth I am sick of the United States borrowing money so we can give it to Israel or anybody else. I am sorry, but we are in deficit spending right now, so all the freebees we give out should be stopped immediately. Our children and grandchildren will thank us if we do that.

This last week the new Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said, "The war (Iraq) has been a disaster, the occupation continues to be a great disaster....Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair will have to reflect and engage in some self-criticism, so things like that don't happen again."

The same day the Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said, "I personally think that today, Iraq without Saddam Huessin is truly a better Iraq than Iraq with Saddam Hussein. But naturally, I also feel uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with information on weapons of mass destruction...we were taken for a ride."

Both Spain and Poland have been strong supporters of George Bush, but no country likes to be lied to so they will help.

This last week twenty two Americans were killed in Iraq and over seventy five wounded. I say over seventy five, it could be much higher, but we don't tell our people how many Americans are wounded in combat. We don't know how many others might have been hurt in accidents, evacuated for mental disorders caused by combat stress, or how many women soldiers were traumatized because they had been raped by their fellow soldiers. We don't know because the Bush administration has decided those numbers are secret. We do know that on average more that 8 Americans get wounded a day, more that 2 are evacuated for mental problems each day, and that on average, more than two American women are sexually assaulted each week in Iraq, by Americans. We have no idea of the numbers for our troops in Afghanistan or the rest of the world.

If all of this isn't enough to give George Bush a real headache, some of the secrets from the White House are coming out. Remember how Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neil came out and said that George Bush and his team only wanted to go after Iraq, right after 9/11. That even though it was known that no attackers came from Iraq or that there was no 9/11-Iraq connection; Iraq was the target they wanted. Also remember how they trashed the guy and said O'Neil used "Secret" government papers to write a book. Well this week it was told to the Nation that O'Neil did nothing of the sort and that those papers were given to him by the Department of the Treasury. Of course the White House got to discredit the man when the story was hot. Who cares now, if they lied back then?

Yesterday another White House insider has made the same charge, that George Bush wanted to go after Iraq for the 9/11 attack even though there was no proof of a connection. Another Republican appointee, Richard Clarke came forward with a new book telling how President Bush demanded proof that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots. Clarke was a career Government official and Chief of counter-terrorism for Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush, Bill Clinton, and this George Bush too.

Clarke was on 60 Minutes Sunday night making his charges and Monday the White House smear campaign swung into gear. The only thing that really stuck in my mind was a White House official telling Leslie Stahl on that same 60 Minutes program that a Clarke reported meeting with the President never happened. Ms. Stahl then told him that she had investigated that report too and she had found two people that corroborated Clarke's story and one of them was at the meeting. This is the meeting that Clarke claims Bush demanded some sort of proof of an Iraq/al Qaeda connection.

Condolezza Rice, George Bush's National Security Advisor was attacking Richard Clarke on every program that would have her today. This is the same Condolezza Rice, (like there would be two with that name) that has repeatedly declined to appear in public before the Republican led Commission investigating the 9/11 attack. This woman works for us, gets paid with tax dollars, and refuses to even testify about the charges Clarke is making. Could you or I refuse to testify if some Government Commission ask us to? Yes, we could, but we would look guilty as hell.

Ms. Rice's attitude about testifying tells me a lot about what happened in Bush's White House after the 9/11 attack. A member of the Bush's Cabinet and his Chief of Counter-terrorism have both made serious charges about this President, our war in Iraq, and the 9/11 attack, that has cost us thousands and thousands of casualties.

Paul O'Neil was brought into the White House by George Bush and Richard Clarke has worked for three Republican administrations. People like that don't just make wild accusations about what our government is doing because they know that everyone in the White House is going to trash their reputation.

If you think back a year or so, remember that several Career American Diplomats have resigned over what George Bush is doing too. Just maybe George's actions have become too much for some in our government to stomach any longer and more and more people will start to speak up. I hope for the good of the Nation, they do.


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