{"id":2975,"date":"2006-09-11T20:39:18","date_gmt":"2006-09-12T03:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/11\/bush-liar\/"},"modified":"2006-09-12T01:59:23","modified_gmt":"2006-09-12T08:59:23","slug":"bush-liar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/11\/bush-liar\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush: Liar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I know, you already knew that, but I have to complain about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/09\/11\/washington\/12bush_transcript.html?pagewanted=print\">the President&#8217;s speech<\/a> Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>There was a bunch of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/justin\/?articleid=5126\">Roosevelt<\/a>-invoking garbage in there, obviously, but there&#8217;s one particular lie that Bush will not stop telling the people of this country, which, due to its total absurdity, is beginning to chap my Texas hide.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s get this straight once and for all: If America leaves Iraq, the chances that al Qaeda will take over and use the oil money to build a giant al Qaeda Caliphate to take over the world are LESS THAN NOTHING.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunni foreign fighter &#8220;al Qaeda types&#8221; in Iraq have NEVER made up more than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2005\/0923\/dailyUpdate.html\">a few percentage points<\/a> worth of the insurgency. If the U.S. government leaves now, with the current government in place, the dominant force in that country will be <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/nationworld\/2001935950_iranchalabi22.html\">Iran<\/a>, not al Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p>Even if the country <a href=\"http:\/\/www.khaleejtimes.com\/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data\/focusoniraq\/2006\/September\/focusoniraq_September72.xml&amp;section=focusoniraq\">splits into three<\/a>, the new Sunni state will be dominated by people from there: Either the former Baathists or the local religious leaders will rise to the top. The idea that some Saudis and Egyptians &#8211; in exile on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border &#8211; could come and dominate the locals (who have held their own against the U.S. Army for over three years) is, in the words of incomparable investigative reporter, Robert Dreyfuss, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tompaine.com\/articles\/2006\/09\/08\/iraqs_reality_sinks_in.php\">utterly stupid<\/a>.&#8221; And there are no oil wells under the Sunni triangle anyway &#8211; it&#8217;s all near Kirkuk in the north and Basra in the south.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, everyone knows that the invasion and occupation are radicalizing people who had nothing to do with al Qaeda before 9\/11. Well, at least, that&#8217;s according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn\/A28876-2005Feb16?language=printer\">the former CIA director<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn\/A7460-2005Jan13?language=printer\">the CIA&#8217;s National Intelligence Council<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=1977111\">former CIA agents<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/72.14.209.104\/search?q=cache:5Um-Yy4Wwp8J:www.antiwar.com\/justin\/j030703.html+%22That+posture+has+been+weakened+by+the+diversion+of+attention+from+al-Qaeda+to+our+government%27s+plan+to+invade+Iraq,+a+step+that+will,+in+all+likelihood,+bring+an+exponential+increase+in+the+terrorist+threat+to+the+U.S.,+both+at+home+and+abroad.&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;ct=clnk&amp;cd=3\">the FBI<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/72.14.209.104\/search?q=cache:NfqdbVCqdL4J:www.truthout.org\/docs_2005\/071805H.shtml+site:www.truthout.org+%22riding+pillion&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;ct=clnk&amp;cd=1\">the RIIA<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/world\/articles\/2005\/07\/17\/study_cites_seeds_of_terror_in_iraq?mode=PF\">the Saudis<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2005\/0718\/dailyUpdate.html\">Israelis<\/a>. So any strengthening of the Terrorists\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 since then is all Bush&#8217;s fault in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Should it bother anyone that the only excuse for continuing this <a href=\"http:\/\/news.monstersandcritics.com\/middleeast\/article_1199901.php\/Lawlessness_and_terrorism_rule_Iraq_five_years_after_9_11\">bloody<\/a> occupation is a ridiculous falsehood?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=2575\">Here<\/a>&#8216;s where I wrote about it last year, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tompaine.com\/articles\/2006\/02\/13\/the_caliphate_myth.php\">here<\/a>&#8216;s a great article by Tom Porteous on the same subject.<\/p>\n<p>(praise\/ridicule welcome over at <a href=\"http:\/\/thestressblog.com\/2006\/09\/11\/bush-liar\/\">Stress<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I know, you already knew that, but I have to complain about the President&#8217;s speech Monday night. There was a bunch of Roosevelt-invoking garbage in there, obviously, but there&#8217;s one particular lie that Bush will not stop telling the people of this country, which, due to its total absurdity, is beginning to chap my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}