Eric Margolis
Foreign Correspondent / Defense Analyst & Columnist
© 2004 Eric Margolis
www.ericmargolis.com
WHY REPUBLICANS STILL SUPPORT BUSH
NEW YORK - `Why do so many Americans still support Bush after all those damning revelations about Iraq? That’s the question I’m invariably asked when I travel in Asia and Europe.
Recent polls show that America’s current president has become the most unpopular and disliked man in almost every nation on earth – and that even includes traditional American friends like Britain, France, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Turkey, and Japan.
Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan in his superb, must-read new book, `Where the Right Went Wrong,’ provides some answers.
`In 2003,’ he writes, ` the US invaded a country that did not threaten us, had not attacked us and did not want war with us, to disarm it of weapons we have since discovered it did not have.’
White House assurances US troops would be greeted in Iraq with flowers were as laughable as its pledges Mideast peace and democracy would ensue.
Chief US arms inspector Charles Duelfer’s recent, 960-page report contradicted almost every Bush Administration prewar claims about Iraq, which were used to justify an illegal war that has killed 20,000 Iraqis and nearly 1,100 Americans, caused 14,000 US casualties(wounded and sick), and costs US $200 billion at a time when Washington can’t even supply flu vaccine.
No administration official has accepted blame for this needless conflict, for lying to Congress and the public, for blundering into a no-win war, for encouraging widespread torture, or for provoking worldwide disgust at the once admired United States.
Either the self-proclaimed `war president’ and his men committed the worst set of blunders overseas since Vietnam, or they lied the nation into an imperial war to grab oil and boost Israel’s fortunes.
Republicans don’t care. Amazingly, a recent CNN/USA poll showed 62% of Republicans still believe Iraq was behind 9/11. This is after a flood of contrary evidence and Duelfer’s Report.
How can Republicans remain so blinkered? Part of the fault lies with the sycophantic national media, which allowed – even collaborated - with the Bush Administration in whipping up war fever. The media still is not telling people the truth about Iraq, Afghanistan or about al-Qaida and the so-called war on terrorism.
The media utterly failed to remind Americans that Bush, who loves to play war leader, actually made the preposterous claim that Iraqi drone aircraft were poised to fly off ships in the North Atlantic and bombard America with germs. Bush should have been laughed out of office for believing and promoting this comic-book nonsense. The national media simply ignored this farcical episode.
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