LIAR!!!

President Bush addressed the nation on the evening of September 11th to mark the 5th aniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.

President Bush looked the nation in they collective eye and lied to us.

First of all he lied when he said his speech would not be political. The president's speech capped off a series of speeches he had made about the war in Iraq, beginning when he admitted that the CIA has been using secret overseas detention centers to interogate top level Al Queda operatives, and then essentially dared the world to do anything about it. In his speeches he sought once again to link the war in Iraq to his so-called war on terror. The speeches are part of an effort by Bush and Karl Rove to keep control of congress, an all out full court campaign press (it also included Dick Cheney's appearance on Meet the Press, wherein he said that is they had it all to do over again--the invaxion of Iraq--the administration wuld do it again exactly the same way: they wouldn't change a thing). Bush's 9/11 sppech was the culminating moment of this portion of the campaign. It was blatantly partisan and political. It was misleading and deceptive. It was pure politics. He should be ashamed.

He also lied--or at the very least was guilty of ridiculous hyperbole--when he said that this was "a war for civilization." That's right. If we pull out of Iraq civilization as we know it will fall.

What a bunch of bullshit. His rhetoric is getting stronger and scarier because he knows the country has stopped swallowing his traditional level of bullshit, so he's had to tuen the bullshit up.

Civilization will fall. This is just more of the same sort of lies he's been telling us for ears to scare people into voting for him and to give up their freedom. This is a false war (the war on terror, not the war in Iraq, which is painfully real). There is absolutely no way, none in the world, that Osama Bin Laden and the Islamic movement can conquor America. They are not soldiers. They are cockroaches. The nature of terrorism is that it is a tacitc of the weak. Until they get a country on their side strong enough to fight us in a conventional war, or until they get enough strategic missle capability to wipe us out, they can't beat us. It is ridiculous to suggest that they can. That is why this isn't rally a war. They are not a threatening enemy. If they managed to get hold a nuclear weapon, take it to the top of Rockafeller Center in a suitcase, and set it off, killing me and my fellow New Yorkers, they would still not destroy the USA. Not even close. They can't. It's that simple.

Not that they actually want to destroy us, or that they hate us for our freedom. Those are other lies the president tells every day. They dont' give a damn about our freedom. Al Queda has stated their goals again and again. They are clear to everyone who pays attention. They want to destroy Isreal, they want non-Muslim troops out of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, and they want to be left alone. That's it. They have absolutly no desire to destroy America. Like all terrorists their goal is to frighten a stronger enemey into going away, pulling out, leaving them alone. And like all terrorists they are weak--so weak that they cannot possibly win a fight against us. They can kill some of us, scare us, panic us, but they cannot ever destroy us. They havent' got that power. Bush can destroy us, but that's the subject of another post.

If this is a war for civilization, why don't we act like it? Why haven't we mobilized the way we did in World War II? If it actually were a war for civilization, wouldn't we have everybody involved in the war effort? Instead of telling us to book vacations to Florida or to shop at Macy's, (or else the terrorists win) shouldn't the President be rationing gas and telling us to buy war bonds? Shouldn't we have a draft?

It would be laughable if it weren't so absurd.

I assume the president and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are smart enough to know all this, and with that in mind there is only one other conclusion: He's lying.

He's lying to maintain his grip on power. It has been their strategy ever since 9/11. It is the rason so many people are beginning to believe (like most folks at Vox Pop) that Bush either aranged the attacks on the world trade center or else knew they were coming and let them happen. I mean, let's face it: 9/11 is the best thing that could ever have happened for Bush.

And once again, as Paul Edwin Zimmer pennned long ago, "Orwell was right."