The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 32 Issue: 1 - Saturday, May 01, 2004

Mission Accomplished?
by Jack Kinsella

On 1 May 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush flew aboard a fighter jet to
land on the deck of the first U.S. aircraft carrier to return home from
the Iraq war.

The president stood beneath a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" and
announced. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of
Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

That was then.  A year later, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in
fighting since Bush announced the end of major combat now stands at 426.
That is almost four times the number killed in combat during the period of
the official war.

A recent Gallup poll of nearly 3,500 Iraqis throughout the country found
that 42 percent said they believe their country is better off since the
invasion was launched, while 46 percent said the war has done "more harm
than good." One-third of the Iraqis surveyed said attacks on U.S. forces
were justifiable. Another 22 percent said such attacks are "sometimes
justified, sometimes not."

The Iraq war is a study in hypocrisy at every level.  The war began amid
global opposition to Saddam's removal.  Although more than forty countries
participated, the invasion was denounced as being 'unilateral' -- John
Kerry called the rest of the coalition allies 'window dressing' -- while
capitalizing on every US misstep as if America's problems were not his
problems.

Those nations who opposed Saddam's removal have been exposed as
back-stabbing opportunists who used the sanctions regime and the Oil For
Food project to steal what little the Iraqis still had, while complaining
about the damage sanctions were causing the Iraqi population.

When it was discovered that Saddam promised them bonuses for getting the
sanctions lifted, nobody batted an eye. While THAT story went nowhere, the
story that grew legs was the one that said America was toppling Saddam
Hussein -- based on lies -- so it could seize Iraq's oilfields.

After all, the French, the Germans and the top officials at the UN HAD
come to regard Iraq's oilfields as their personal piggy bank.

The surest way to hide their theft was to find a bigger thief to blame it
on.  Enter George W. Bush, the most internationally despised American
president since Ronald Reagan. Surely Bush, an oilman, once he pacified
Iraq, really DID plan to seize Iraq's oil. At least, it sounded logical.

But when Bush turned control of Iraq's oilfields over to the international
community, a new charge had to be found. And a credible spokesman to
repeat it.

Enter John F. Kerry, the most self-absorbed presidential hopeful since
William J. Clinton.  The Bush plan to seize Iraqi oilfields morphed into a
more credible charge that 'cowboy arrogance'  caused George W. Bush to 'go
it alone' against global 'opposition' as if the whole
ripping-off-the-Iraqis-for-twelve-years thing had nothing to do with the
global 'opposition' to the war in the first place.

The French, Germans, Russians, and UN diplomats got a free pass from John
Kerry.  The bad guy in Iraq wasn't Saddam Hussein, or his international
cadre of thieves, but rather, the bad guy was the one who turned off their
money spigot -- George Bush.

Assessment:

John Kerry gave a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., in which
he explained that; "This may be our last chance to get this right. We need
to put pride aside to build a stable Iraq. We must reclaim our country's
standing in the world by doing what has kept America safe and made it more
secure before -- leading in a way that brings others to us so that we are
respected, not simply feared, around the globe."

Kerry says America needs to put 'pride aside' and bend the knee to the
United Nations, in order to become 'respected' and not simply 'feared' --
while doing all he can to shatter any positive international image America
might have.

In his Westminster speech, Kerry called for NATO to make Iraq part of its
global mission as a security organization, for the U.N. Security Council
to authorize a high commissioner for governance and reconstruction, and
for a massive effort to build an Iraq security force.

Good plan.  After all, look what a GREAT job NATO and the UN did in
Kosovo.  Years and years of war crimes trials for war criminals who
committed those crimes right under the nose of UN peacekeepers who they
stood by and did nothing.

The last thing John Kerry wants to see is a successful American-led
transition in Iraq.  It's the last thing that the terrorists want to see,
too.

While American forces are fighting and dying in Iraq, John Kerry told them
that they just might be risking their all for nothing. "Is there a
guarantee of success? No. In light of all the mistakes that have been
made, no one can say that success is certain."

I can picture the Allied soldiers boarding landing craft on June 6, 1944,
preparing for the Allied invasion at Normandy, if John Kerry had been in
General Eisenhower's place.

"Soliders and airmen of the Allied Forces. . . You are about to embark on
the greatest invasion in history. You are poorly led, and your leaders
have made so many mistakes, including starting this ill-advised war in the
first place, that there is no guarantee of success.  Good luck."

Good propagandists will turn their enemies' words against them, and the
best will sow suspicion and division among them. This is happening now in
the United States, where the terrorist enemy and its allies are using the
rhetoric of the current presidential campaign in their jihad against the
nation.

Previous cautions against rash campaign words that provide aid and comfort
to the enemy were thrown out the window long ago. Kerry steadily has
become more and more shrill in his denunciations of the president as a
leader, a man and a politician.

al-Jazeera and other anti-U.S. propaganda outlets have been quick to
magnify whatever Kerry says in an attempt to show what a failure the
United States has become under the Bush presidency.

"Bush misled Americans on the degree Iraq posed a threat," Kerry said in
an al-Jazeera broadcast, and the president is not "working closely enough
with the international community." Bush's exclusion of France and Germany
from competition for U.S. taxpayer-funded contracts to rebuild Iraq, Kerry
said, was "dumb and insulting."

al-Jazeera later rebroadcast, in Arabic, Kerry's allegation that in
combating terrorist structures inside the United States, Bush and the
Department of Justice have smeared "innocent Muslims and Arabs who pose no
danger."

The Tehran Times, an English-language newspaper in the Iranian capital,
reported Feb. 8 that unnamed Kerry staffers sent an e-mail to the
Tehran-based Mehr News Agency apologizing for the conduct of the United
States in the war on terrorism and saying that Kerry is the man to make
things new again.

"Disappointment with current U.S. leadership is widespread, extending not
just to the corridors of power and politics but to the man and woman on
the street as well," the message said. "We also remain convinced that John
Kerry has the best chance of beating the incumbent in November and putting
America on a new course that will lead to a safer, more secure and more
stable world."

Within 48 hours of Ted Kennedy's assertion the war in Iraq is George
Bush's Vietnam, Moqtada al-Sadr said Iraq will be 'another Vietnam' for
America.

Right after Kerry fired a broadside at Halliburton (formerly led by VP
Dick Cheney), Osama bin-Laden released a tape saying, "This war makes
millions of dollars for big corporations, either weapons manufacturers or
those working in the reconstruction [of Iraq], such as Halliburton and its
sister companies."

The very day bin Laden's tape was broadcast, Kerry stood in East
Rutherford, N.J., accusing the president of manipulating the war for
personal political gain. "Everything he did in Iraq, he's going to try to
persuade people it has to do with terror even though everybody here knows
that it has nothing whatsoever to do with al-Qaeda and everything to do
with an agenda that they had preset, determined," Kerry said.

John Kerry claims the support of international leaders who want to see him
defeat Bush in November.  A few international leaders have already spoken
out in Kerry's favor.

North Korea's Communist Party daily Rodong Sinmun, have been using Kerry's
statements as propaganda to discredit the U.S. government.

According to the Financial Times, Kerry's speeches "have been broadcast on
Radio Pyongyang and reported in glowing terms by the Korea Central News
Agency [KCNA], the official mouthpiece of Mr. Kim's communist regime. ...
'Senator Kerry, who is seeking the presidential candidacy of the
Democratic Party, sharply criticized President Bush, saying it was an
ill-considered act to deny direct dialogue with North Korea,' said the
news agency. ... Pyongyang's friendly attitude toward Mr. Kerry contrasts
with its strong anti-Bush rhetoric."

Rebecca MacKinnon, former Beijing bureau chief for CNN and now a media
fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, says
that North Korea's state-controlled media have been portraying Kerry "in a
positive light."

Another international supporter of John Kerry is new Spanish Prime
MInister Jose Zapatero, the leader of the Socialist Party that just pulled
all Spain's troops out of Iraq in response to the Madrid attack on March
11.

Other international Kerry supporters include Iran, France, Germany and
Russia -- and of course, the United Nations.

It is now clear that the 'Mission Accomplished' sign on the USS Abraham
Lincoln was premature. While our troops had accomplished their mission of
removing Saddam Hussein, John Kerry had not yet accomplished his mission
of trivializing their efforts or minimizing American successes.

But that was last year.  This year, it should be John Kerry making a May
1st speech in front of a sign saying 'Mission Accomplished'.

Because it wasn't until this week that anybody would have really believed
John Kerry when he said America should 'swallow its pride' because there
is no 'guarantee of success' for our forces in Iraq.

Mission accomplished.