By now most Americans understand that our initial reasons for invading Iraq were completely false. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I mean, come on. Don't you think if there had been Bush would have jumped at that photo op? A picture of him sitting on top of a can of yellow cake or on top of a missile, with that Crawford grin and the big thumbs up? There was no meeting between Mohammed Atta and a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2001. The supposedly "high-quality aluminum tubes" would certainly have made Lt. Columbo say, "Ummm...sorry to bother again, it's all a bit confusing, but just one more question..."
Bush finally admitted in 2006, "my bad, Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. Okay, let's eat." But he quickly added that he and the rest of the world believed that Iraq was better off without a brutal dictator like Saddam...so, that is now the reason why we invaded. No, wait a second. He was a state sponsor of terror. Hold up...I got it! Saddam was illegally downloading music on his iPod. Gotta keep up people. The reasons change every six months.
The problem with maintaining a national defense is that at some point weapons became stale. Yes, they have a shelf life. And when the shelf life nears you can either a) destroy them or b) destroy them AND some humans. The United States opted for "b". Shock and awe cleaned out the inventory and allowed for the manufacturing of new military toys. And you can only imagine that if you had played your cards right, that is to say that if you had been prescient and predicted the Iraq conflict, then you could have invested beforehand in companies like Boeing, Haliburton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and made a frightening amount of money. Buying low and then cashing in later when stock is high is a sweet deal. Ask Martha and those over at Enron.
These companies, among others, produce the military gadgets that cost huge amounts of money.
I mean, do you know what an Apache Helicopter goes for these days? And what if you could make lots of them for the conflict in Iraq and sell some to Israel, Netherlands and Greece?
Well, take 18 million dollars a pop and multiply that by roughly 500. For starters. Point being that there are some individuals that are making serious coin off of this war business. Who are these lucky bastards and how did they know ahead of time to put their chips on that horse?
Some call them government officials. I call them the Axis of Evil.
See for yourself. Perpetual War Portfolio
Now, the names of the members of congress in the last column made their cash on political contributions from these companies, contributions that range from $2,000 to nearly $36,000. Don't get me wrong, I find those contributions to be pretty slimy. But that is pretty common for members of congress. And individually they don't have a direct effect on foreign policy like those of the Axis of Evil.
But let's take a look at those individuals in the third column from the left.
Lynne Cheney (wife of Darth Vader) served as the Director of the Board of Lockheed Martin, the largest national defense contractor until January 2001. Are you freaking kidding me? Yeah, okay, let's see if I can get my arms around this. While dining over pot roast, Lynne, speaking on behalf of the old chums at Lockheed, and the VP can discuss how to prolong this conflict in order to manufacture thousands more Hellfire Missiles. Conflict of interest? Nah.
Richard Armitage, leaker of Valerie Plame (Wilson) the CIA agent. When Joe Wilson returned from Niger and said, "Geez guys, I know you want to see a link between Iraq and Niger in the purchase of uranium...I simply can't find the link. I don't think there is one." Armitage said to Scooter (I love saying that name, sounds like someone off of Dukes of Hazzard) Libby, "Tell the NY Times that his wife is a covert CIA agent. That'll teach him." Armitage was a major architect for the invasion of Iraq.
Paul Wolfowitz, recently asked to resign from president of World Bank. Previously he was Donnie Rumsfeld's Deputy Secretary of Defense. I wouldn't ask this guy to manage the money from the ashtray in my car. This guy jets off to a neighborhood in suburban Detroit and polls 100 super-wealthy Iraqis, asking if they feel that Iraq would be better off without Saddam AND if they think there would be any difficult in unifying the country in reconstruction efforts. They all responded with a resounding "NO" and so, the complex post-war Iraq plans were a done deal. How'd that little insurgency turn out for ya Paulie?
Then there's Stephen "the war is going great" Hadley. Deputy National Security Adviser. He is the one who said that Iraq is NOT in a civil war. Definition of a civil war: A war between factions or regions of the same country. I know what you're thinking, lawyers say the craziest things.
Lastly, it's the evil warlock Karl Rove, Bush's right-hand villain. The man who lives in the shadows, the one who jumps with joy when Bush rattles off 3-4 long, compound sentences without making a mistake. Karl is a shareholder in Boeing and is probably going to cash that in when he rides back to Sleepy Hollow in January of 2009.
What is tragic about this episode is that, despite the dead bodies coming home for the neocon money machine, the president is still able to find humor in the loss of young lives.
(See this clip)
I believe the word for it is "sociopath". But don't forget: "we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight 'em here."
Sounds to me like we should be fighting THEM here so we don't have to fight anyone THERE.
(Perpetual War Portfolio link provided by Dack Ragus 2002-2003.)
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