Deconstructing The State Of The Union Speech

s has been his custom over the past seven years, George W Bush has once again used the latest “State of the Union” to further a political agenda that by now has grown quite thin with the American people. In his speech, he uses much of the same language he did leading up to the war in March of 2003, while omitting several of his earlier claims and ignoring several facts while in the process recycling old lies. Part one of this series focused on why the Democrats let Bush get this far. Part two is a quick look at some key points.

George Bush started his speech by giving one last farewell to “Lady Bird” Johnson before he went into what he called the “four phases” of the US mission in Iraq. The first phase Bush called the “Liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein.” What is telling here is that he makes no mention of WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) which he and the rest of the White House used to justify the invasion of Iraq in the first place. John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney and Powell went from network to network claiming that the White house knew that the Iraqi government had weapons of some supposed “great death”. Condoleezza Rice actually referenced a radioactive cloud in the US skies. It is difficult to forget Colin Powell’s speech where he claimed that indistinct photos of trucks were mobile bio-weapons vehicles. They had no evidence for any of these claims and, true to form, the mainstream asked no questions. Finally, there was no discussion of the legality of Bush White House’s actions, or the lack there of. A preemptive strike violates international law since it flies in the face of the Nuremberg tribunals. Nazi generals were hanged for similar violations but reporters paid no attention to this fact.

The next stage of the war in Iraq, Bush claimed, was to “return sovereignty” to Iraq. Such a statement seems odd considering it was Washington who chose the first post-Saddam government along with dismantling the country’s military and police force. Ahmad Chalabi, one of the three early leaders of Iraq had not lived in Iraq for decades and was wanted in Jordan for fraud. He was a White House sweetheart which is why he was one of the first three overseers of Iraq. All construction jobs in the war-torn country were given to American contractors, most notably Halliburton. Early agreements within the first days of the new pre-election years of Iraq prohibited the Iraqi Government from kicking American troops from the country but could request the US leaves. Just recently, a US bill set for introduction in the Iraqi Parliament would give western oil companies ownership rights to the production of the country’s main resource. US Representative Geoffrey Miller still controls Iraq’s prison system. If his name sounds familiar, that is because he was the head of Guantanamo Bay since it opened. He took over for Elliot Abrams who faced the brunt of the fallout for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soliders. Abrams, who made name for himself during the Contra scandals, made the mistake of not keeping 60 minutes from learning of the Abu Graib abuses. None of this was mentioned anywhere in Bush’s speech, of course, nor was the fact that Operation “Shock and Awe” put the country in total collapse.

The third part of this war, Bush continued, was Exculpation. With the increase of US troops came the increase of abuse which despite the Pentagon’s and White House’s attempt to blackout information from Iraq, has become well known and has lead to several arrests among soldiers. There have been new charges against high ranking generals and members of the Bush White house who approved illegal policies in dealing with the residents of each neighborhood. One prime example of this was the fire bombing and not so clean “sweep” of Fallijah. The resultant death toll was so great that bodies had to be buried in a nearby soccer field. The fire bombings later spread to Najaf.

Bush went on to say that the fourth stage of the Iraq war involved deployment and an increase in troop levels. This “stage” has been protested by the vast majority of the American people. There are mixed reports about whether the increase in troop levels is working. Reports from yahoo news states there is evidence of some success pointing to a decrease in violence in Baghdad: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_crocker, but independent news sources question the accuracy of such claims with the following article claiming there is no real surge level: http://www.counterpunch.org/mindshaftgap07132007.html.Missing from the discussion is what good any increase in troops will do when the insurgence enjoys home field advantage. Furthermore, with the increasing hostility that the US presence creates, more Iraqis are now willing to join insurgency. Add in the new US threat against Iran which would expand instability in region and could very well spill over into the borders of neighboring Syria and Saudi Arabia, a situation that no increase of troop levels will be able to curb. The debate over troop levels in Iraq is a flashback to Vietnam when some thought more troops would bring the US victory but history has not been so kind to such notions. But most important, this action goes against the wishes of the American people as indicated in several polls. But, as always, Bush ignored all this and sent a clear message that public opinion means little to him.

The one area of the war that the Bush White house has successfully controlled is the language of the debate. During the early part of the speech, it became evident that Bush was working to reestablish that success. He claimed that the the debate concerning Iraq has been wrongly defined; that the argument was between those who want the troops to come home verses those who want to keep them there and that this was incorrect. Bush stated the “real debate” was between those who think the war is lost and not worth fighting and those who think the war can be won and is worth the price despite how hard it has been for American troops. He then went on to state that he supports the latter. In the history of speeches, this has got to be one of the most asinine arguments ever brought forth. Perhaps Bush forgot about his plan to create permanent military bases throughout Iraq, something the House thankfully has voted against. He could have forgotten the statement he made several months ago that he sees US troops staying in Iraq for the foreseeable future. If one was so naive, we could as easily think that he believes his own rhetoric since to believe such nonsense we would have to forget the past 7 years.

The last thing that I wanted to touch on for this piece was Bush’s comment that those who we are fighting in Iraq are the same ones who attacked us on 911. Here Bush tried to recycle an older lie for which they eventually had to own up to, sort of, since both Osama Bin Laden and the majority of the 911 high jackers came from Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda’s training camp was in Afghanistan, not Iraq and religious fanatic Bin Laden personally despised the secular “westernized” government of Saddam Hussein. The White House went on national TV saying that they did not understand why the American people thought 911 was connected with Iraq when they themselves did everything they could to blur the lines. Bush and his team continues to do their best to instill the great fiction of Iraq and Saddam being behind 9/11. The White House has clearly taken Gurbel’s statement to heart that if you tell a lie often enough, it somehow becomes truth.

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1185284834582.wmv