Not Afraid to Say We told You So – a view from the States



As public support in the U.S. for the Bush regime’s occupation of Iraq dwindles and the corporate media turns from blind patriotism to actually covering a little criticism of The Empire’s misdeeds in the Gulf region, many people in the anti-war movement here may be tempted to say "we told you so". It is well they should, because prior to the invasion the pleas for reason and sanity that emanated from those quarters,the few lone voices in the U.S. congress, and some courageous government employees, fell mostly on the deaf ears of a highly indoctrinated population in the States. Back when even the CIA was warning congress that an invasion of Iraq could well lead to MORE terrorism as opposed to less, far too many citizens in the USA were glued to the tele having their brains washed by Faux News and stocking up on chips for the big show. Believe me I know, my own sister turned on her libertarian past and dove gung-ho into the breach.

Well….....we told you so! Now the present occupant in the Whitehouse and his corporate handlers want to drag the nation and the world even deeper into this made-to-order quagmire. He has said that we should "pay any price, bear any burden" to carry-on with the so-called War on Terrorism. He said: "The terrorists have a strategic goal. They want us to leave Iraq before our work is done. They want to shake the will of the civilized world." It seems to me I recall the civilized world warning Washington about invading Iraq in the first place! This observer hasn’t seen much in the way of civility coming out of the Whitehouse for a very long time anyway. And, by the way, what does he mean by "our work"? Whose idea was this in the first place?? I wish these guys would get their story straight. Bush went on to say: "We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today, so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.", once again implying that Saddam was involved in 9/11. Those who have handed their minds over to the death machine of neo-conservative programming might buy that, but our own intelligence community here in the U.S. doesn’t.

Soooo, aside from the daily carnage, the loss of more U.S., British, or Italian soldiers and untold "collateral damage" to innocent lives in Iraq, the man in the Whitehouse and his trainers want U.S. taxpayers to foot the ever increasing bill for this madness as well. The price tag is $87 billion for the first full year of occupation and reconstruction, apparently more than the total cost of the last sorry-ass quagmire our nation was dragged into during its ill-advised war on Vietnam, and certainly more than was advertised earlier by the Bush regime. Adding insult to injury, now we have more threats from Al Qaeda just like the CIA said we would. Did I mention that we told them so?