It's day 2 of the tiny dog election outrage morning edition, how are we doing out there my flag waving peeps? Read an interesting bit about Iraq last night that might sound familiar to you, from The People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn:

Iraq, under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, had taken over its small but oil-rich neighbor Kuwait in August 1990. George Bush needed something at this point to boost his popularity among American voters. The Washington Post (October 16, 1990) had a front page headline: "Poll Shows Plunge in Public Confidence: Bush's Rating Plummets". The Post reported (October 28): "Some observers in his own party worry that the president will be forced to initiate combat to prevent further erosion of his support at home."

That and the long-time US wish to have a decisive voice in the control of Middle East oil resources were the crucial elements in the decision to go to war with Iraq. Shortly after the war, as representatives of the 13 oil producing nations were about to gather in Geneva, the business correspondent of the New York Times wrote "by virtue of its military victory, the United States is likely to have more influence in OPEC than any industrial nation has ever exercised."

But those motives were not presented to the American public. It was told that the United States wanted to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi control. The major media dwelled on this as a reason for war, without noting that other countries had been invaded without the United States showing such concern (East Timor by Indonesia, Iran by Iraq, Lebanon by Israel, Mozambique by South Africa, to say nothing of countries invaded by the United States itself-- Grenada, Panama).

The justification for war that seemed most compelling was that Iraq was on its way to building a nuclear bomb, but the evidence for this was very weak. ... The Bush administration was trying hard to develop a paranoia in the nation about an Iraqi bomb which did not yet exist.

Wow, where have we heard this before, my fellow Americans? Conveniently, an unrelated tragedy of domestic terrorism came by a decade later, coupled with a whole lot of ignorant Americans who rolled over in the face of scary abuses of their civil rights, to allow the new Bush administration to resurrect the spurious threat of nuclear weapons in Iraq. Astoundingly, even in the face of the US Senate's own findings, that Iraq did not posses WMD's, American voters still believe that 10,000 human lives have been well-spent in this pre-emptive military invasion, for reasons they cannot factually put a finger on, other than the poll-goosing feeling that these 10,000 deaths make Bush seem "decisive."

Good god, America.

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