CHIPPAWA, ONT. -- President George W. Bush and his handmaidens attempt to rewrite history before the ink on the first draft is dry. Bush is a great student and lover of history, his departing "brain," Karl Rove, wants us to believe.
That fits right in with the myth that Bush is a 21st-century Winston Churchill, knowing his place in history as he carefully reflects on the events of the past in order to shape the future course of western civilization with wisdom and courage.
At best, Bush is a history dunce; at worst, he's a transparent manipulator who uses the bully pulpit of the presidency to twist historic truths and defend his present-day lies.
Bush never wanted a careful examination of the monumental CIA failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush hoped that history would remain buried, never revisited by those who thirst for truth, however uncomfortable the truth may make those responsible for the tragic failures.
Bush and his people never wanted America to see the CIA inspector general's report on the agency's bungling and the evidence of "systemic failure" in not doing more to thwart the al-Qaeda attacks.
The report also recommended that former CIA director George Tenet and many of his top aides be held accountable for their actions and failures to act. Tenet and his subordinates never faced discipline for their deeds. Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Tenet's shrewd move in naming the CIA headquarters after President George H.W. Bush, a former director, assured his protection.
The inspector general determined that 50 to 60 CIA officers knew in 2000 of reports that two men who would become Sept. 11 hijackers already were in the United States. No one alerted the FBI that Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, both known terrorists, were in the country and should be considered serious threats.
Only a 19-page summary was made public. CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden and his predecessor Porter Goss both resisted making the report public. It's better people don't know how their government failed them, or so their thinking must go.
It took the leadership of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to get an act of Congress forcing the CIA to release the summary of the report, giving it the public scrutiny it richly merits.
Hayden -- like the president who appointed him -- resists public review of private government errors.
Hayden whined, "It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed."
This is hardly old ground, and the report contains fresh revelations and details about the horrible mistakes that should never be repeated. While Bush was quick to use the "lessons of 9/11" to ramp up public fear and build support for his disastrous war in Iraq -- a 9/11 disconnect -- he wants the real lessons hushed and hidden from the critical eye of history.
Hayden wants no part of any notion of accountability or discipline for the CIA officers who failed in their duties. Let's name these people, sully their reputations and disturb their comfortable retirements.
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, doesn't buy Hayden's notion of hidden history and protection for those who failed the nation. The New York Times reports Holt denounced the CIA director's stance, arguing, "Accountability is a concept the American people understand. I am stunned that Gen. Hayden still does not get that message."
Sure, he got the message from the White House: "We are never accountable or responsible for our deeds."
Rockefeller also is determined to complete his committee's long-delayed investigation into the use and misuse of intelligence in the runup to the war in Iraq.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, made sure during his tenure that the probe never would be completed. Roberts stalled the investigation at every possible juncture. The American people never would know the truth about the systematic lie-manufacturing the White House used to build the case against Iraq and to create the myth of Saddam Hussein's vast arsenal of deadly weapons.
Bush wants no examination of the dark history of deceit that will be his lasting legacy. He wants us to focus on his latest contortions of history and his desperate campaign to drum up support for the struggle in Iraq.
A "free Iraq" is within reach, Bush assures us, warning that Americans caught in "the allure of retreat" will lose Iraq and bring more suffering to the country the invasion and occupation shattered.
Bush gave a speech last week at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, a regular forum for Bush's most wretched rhetoric. It always amazes me that the VFW members cheer so wildly when Bush salutes and plays the "commander guy."
When Bush had his chance to serve in a foreign war, he wanted no part of it. The application for the Texas Air National Guard he was joining -- skipping hundreds ahead of him in line -- included the question "Do you want to have an overseas assignment?" Overseas meant Vietnam then. Bush checked the "no" box.
Bush tried a bizarre rewriting of the Vietnam War in his speech, arguing the outcome would have been different had American forces remained there longer. In fact, by 1975, when Americans evacuated Saigon, and South Vietnam fell to North Vietnamese forces, only a handful of troops were there, mostly for embassy security.
After the Tet offensive in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson began withdrawing U.S. troops. President Richard Nixon initiated "Vietnamization," a process in which the South Vietnamese military took over security as U.S. troops went home. President Gerald Ford continued Nixon's policy, and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and his White House chief of staff, Dick Cheney, oversaw the order to withdraw U.S. forces.
To buy into Bush's argument, you must agree that Cheney and Rumsfeld "lost" Vietnam because they could not "resist the allure of retreat." Bush forgot to mention that history to the VFW. He did point to the violence and repression in Vietnam and Cambodia following the U.S. withdrawal as an example of what will happen in Iraq if Congress dares to do anything that even slightly veers from Bush's war plan.
Bush's stretched Vietnam parallel didn't sit well with the Vietnamese people.Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran of the Communist forces, told the Associated Press, "Doesn't he realize that if the U.S. had stayed longer, they would have killed more people? Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush."
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a wounded, decorated Vietnam veteran who volunteered for duty overseas, saw right through Bush's hypocrisy and revision of history. Kerry told The New York Times, "Invoking the tragedy of Vietnam to defend the failed policy in Iraq is as irresponsible as it is ignorant of the realities of both of those wars."
Bush never explained how he would have brought victory in Vietnam or why he chose to avoid serving there while now saying others should have stayed longer to die. He is just content to wave the bloody shirt of post-Vietnam War carnage as justification for his failed course in Iraq.
Bush's serial lies and shameless attempts to reshape history distinguish his arguments that "prevailing in this struggle is essential to our future as a nation."
Bush created the struggle in Iraq and did irreparable harm to our national future. That is how history should judge his failed presidency.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Aug. 28 2007 |