Weekly Analysis – 7/8/03

Conundrums

By Kirt R. Poovey

The past week has been a busy one for the Bush administration.  Not only have they moved towards more peace-keeping commitments in Africa, but they have also admitted off-handedly that when President Bush stated in his State of the Union speech before Congress in January that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa that it was based on unreliable information.  To make matters worse President Bush has foolishly challenged the Iraqi resistance movement to “bring it on” in regards to the attacks on our military in Iraq.  Such boisterous mindlessness only motivates and galvanizes those attacking our men in uniform to more and bolder attacks.

In a move that only further demonstrates the Global Positioning mentality of this administration while also trying to garner more than a sliver of the black vote, Bush is pushing for large spending increases to fight AIDS in Africa using policies that have failed in the past.  Interestingly, abstinence has been used in Uganda in the past few years with great success in reducing the incident of AIDS in their country, but that doesn’t help the latex pushers, so don’t count on that proven success story to be widely hailed.

Also, President Bush has made it his administration’s desire to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act.  This is a trade law that brings African products into the United States duty and quota free. 

Like the true anti-constitutionalist that he is proving himself to be, Mr. Bush is pushing for a five-year $15 billion plan to fight AIDS in 12 African countries and two others.  He also is backing the Millennium Challenge Account – a pledge to funnel $10 billion over three years to poor countries that are supposedly making real progress towards democracy and capitalism.  Of course democracy is a pathetic excuse for a government, unlike the constitutional republic that our founding fathers established.

Today the administration is backing down from the claim that President Bush made about Iraq seeking uranium from African nations.  They are doing so after a British parliamentary commission report was published that attacked the reliability of British intelligence regarding this claim.  Surprisingly (or not if you believe that the Bushies were hunting for anything to justify their desire for war with Iraq), Mr. Bush relied upon British intelligence for this information while the CIA had disputed this intelligence as unreliable and a fraud over a year prior to Bush’s State of the Union speech.

For readers of the alternative media, it has been known for months that this report was fraudulent, but the Bush administration is only now admitting it even though they have known all along that it was worthless information.  Not only is Mr. Bush losing credibility on the reasons for going to war with Iraq, but Tony Blair is likewise rightly facing a political uproar. 

All this while the panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, (the 9/11 Commission) held a press conference to say that executive branch agencies (particularly the Justice Department and the Pentagon) were failing to respond expeditiously to requests for documents and testimony.  The stonewalling technique still works even in the Bush administration.

Nevertheless, Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, responded to the panel’s assertions by assuring the media that, "The president is committed to ensuring that the commission has all the information it needs. The president has directed federal agencies to cooperate and to do so quickly."

This sounds like the previous administration as they obstructed investigation after investigation.  However, for the astute observer, you will have noticed that the Bush administration continues to obstruct ongoing investigations into scandals of the Clinton administration.  Why do Waco, the OKC bombing, Flight 800, and others continue to have the truth buried.  Conspiracy anyone?