President Bush's unilateral, preemptive war against Iraq is the worst foreign policy decision in the history of our country.  Even GW Bush's father said in his book "A World Transformed" the following: "I firmly believed that we should not march into Baghdad. ...  To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us."  It is too bad that GHW Bush's son has put our military in the position as very low paid mercenaries, who are only in Iraq to protect the interests of dozens of republican-friendly corporations, like Halliburton, all companies who have contributed to the republican party. 

GW Bush and the GOP started the Iraq War using blatant lies, deliberate deceptions, lies by omission, and misleading Americans by stating that our soldiers would be met with Iraqis with flowers. Those 'flowers' turned out to be bombs, grenade launchers, mines, automatic weapon fire, knives, stones,  and bricks.  Any fool should have known that Iraqi insurgents would resist every US attempt to gain control over the country.  But the Bush Regime never mentioned even once how difficult it would be to gain control over the country. And Bush ordered the attack on Iraq without any exit strategy.  Republican leaders lied either by omission or they were inept in their analysis of post war Iraq.  In either case, GW Bush should be impeached for deliberately lying to the American people and for being so incompetent that he did not foretell the difficulty in maintaining a peaceful control of the country.

The Bush Regime used deliberate devious tactics to fool their party faithful into believing propaganda that wasn't the truth.  Bush and everyone in his Regime used mixed messages contained in one sentence in their attempt to demonize Iraq and Saddam Hussein.  In one devious tactic, Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rice constantly made statements which included WMDs, Osama bin Laden, terrorists, and Al Quaeda with Saddam Hussein in the same sentence.  Their intent was clear.  To infer that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he had direct ties to terrorist networks. But that was a lie, and the 9/11 Commission confirmed that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and no ties to terrorists.  The GOP was successful in duping their party faithful with their trickery, but their attempt to link Hussein and Al Quaeda was proven to be a lie.  And true to form, not one republican has publicly admitted that they deliberately lied.

The result of the GOP's devious propaganda the rank-n-file republicans still believe that Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein were behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were behind the 9/11 attacks, and that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  Not one of these GOP-generated propaganda tactics were true.  But that still isn't stopping them from still using the same tactics to keep their party faithful duped.  The Bush Regime has been very successful in manipulating their rank-n-file into believing the demonization of Iraq.

In polls of republicans, 70 to 80 percent still believe the lies listed above even though all of the links by the Bush Regime have been proven false.  Bush even finally admitted that there weren't any links between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks. But he fell far short of saying he lied when he first said there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks.   Republicans will continue to believe the Bush Regime lies because they want it to be true.  They are not very concerned with little things like 'the truth'.

To justify going to war with Iraq, Bush lied during his 2003 State of the Union address by saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and saying that Iraq had received key parts to build nuclear weapons from an African country.  Bush LIED.  Iraq DID NOT have any weapons of mass destruction and they DID NOT have a nuclear weapons capability.  Bush has continued to repeat his lies throughout the duration of the Iraq War.

Prior to the Iraq War, Colin Powell openly lied during his presentation to the United Nations.  Powell used cartoon drawings of imaginary containers that Powell said were weapons systems.  He said the drawings he presented were proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  Those drawings turned out to be fake and not based on any reliable intelligence.  Powell was so desperate to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that he even quoted from a student's thesis paper which was written twelve years earlier.  To say Colin Powell's credibility and stature have been drastically diminished by his blatant lies to the United Nations and the American people is an understatement.

The republican attack against Iraq is the most blatant misuse of our military in the history of our country.  Our troops are not in Iraq to make US safer or to fight terrorism.  That is just 100% GOP propaganda republicans have been duped into believing.  If corporations, like Halliburton, want to make 18 billion dollar contracts let them defend themselves. Force them to hire mercenaries from all over the world to defend themselves, and then we could withdraw every US troop and bring them home where they belong.  Our military should be defending the United States and Americans, not be used as a mercenary force to protect corrupt corporations from cashing in on other people's misery.  Our soldiers in Iraq are being paid a couple of thousand dollars a month.  They are in constant danger 24 hours a day.  They are working alongside American contractors who are making five times that amount for working only eight hours a day. 

And that brings up another grand GW Bush failure to defend our country.  One and a half million illegal aliens are flooding across the Mexico/US border every year and GW Bush is doing nothing to stop the flood.  A whopping 4,000 illegal aliens are streaming across the US/Mexican border every day. Since GW Bush has been president more than six million Mexican aliens have entered our country.  We could better use our military on our own borders to defend our country and our citizens.  After all, it only took 19 terrorists to wreak havoc on September 11, 2001.  How many of those six million illegal aliens from Mexico have been fundamentalist Muslim radicals or members of Al Quaeda?  It is safe to say that a lot more than 19 terrorists could have walked across our border with the other 6,000,000 aliens in the past three and a half years.  The reason GW Bush is not doing anything to stop the flow of aliens is because he doesn't want to anger the Hispanic vote.  Bush has said he wants to give worker cards even to Mexicans who cross the borders illegally. President Bush never said a word about bringing those lawbreaking aliens to justice.  Bush's actions are flagrantly obvious that he is putting his political future ahead of the welfare and safety of our American citizens. Since Bush is not acting in the best interests of American citizens this is just one more strong case for his removal from office.  Since both houses of congress are controlled by republicans there is no chance that they would act honorably or ethically and remove President Bush from office.  We the people will have to do that in the election.

Bush and the GOP are shameless in their use of propaganda to hide the fact that they are using our troops for the financial fortunes of their corporate masters.  Their lust for money (lots of money) has led to the deaths of more than 1058 troops so far, and that doesn't include the tens of thousands mutilated or psychologically ruined soldiers, or the untold number of murdered innocent Iraqis. 

Bush and the GOP obviously don't give a damn about our troops.  All they care about is controlling the oil in Iraq.  Bush and the GOP have handed out a huge number of NO-BID contracts to their corporate campaign contributors, all republican companies.  By acting in the best interests of American corporations over the safety of American citizens and our military, everyone in the Bush Regime should be removed from office and have criminal charges filed against them. 

I wish one republican could see through the thinly veiled propaganda the GOP is busy spinning out of their propaganda machine.  Isn't there one republican out there who is honest, has integrity, and can act in an honorable fashion?   It doesn't appear so.  All republicans appear to be nothing but pawns to fear-based propaganda from the evil GOP.    

My hope is that people will wake up and start to think, especially before this November's elections.   Four more years of republican control of our government will certainly cause severe damage to our once great country. And our brave troops will continue to be killed at an even faster pace, be mutilated, or psychologically scarred for the rest of their lives.  With Bush as a lame duck president there will be no stopping him and the GOP from increasing the scale of the Iraq war, strip all human services, and give further tax breaks to the extremely wealthy.  And every bill they pass will result in a large burden on middle and lower class Americans. And it won't just affect this generation, but generations to come.  The GOP has demonstrated zero concern for the financial futures of our children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren.  President Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation's history.

The time to say "No" to the Bush Regime is now, and on election day. We must stop the republican plundering of our treasury. And we must stop the republicans from using our troops as cannon fodder so that republican corporations can increase their bottom lines. 

Copyright 2004, Larry S. Rolirad, All Rights Reserved This article may be republished as long as the author is clearly credited.