[Mb-hair] Aid and Comfort

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

Here is a great article deserving of sharing with
every single American. 

Aid and Comfort
    By William Rivers Pitt
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective
    Monday 14 November 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405I.shtml

    The old chestnut has been hauled out in public
again: if you do not
support the war, if you do not support Bush, you are
betraying our troops
and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It's an oldie
but a goodie. It is
worthwhile, in the face of this resurgent nonsense, to
take a long, hard
look at what "aid and comfort" really is.

    George W. Bush's decision to invade and occupy
Iraq - and it was his
decision, as he made clear when he said it was
"perfectly legitimate to
criticize my decision or the conduct of the war" in
his ham-fisted
Veterans Day speech last week - has done more to
increase the fortunes of
al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden than any war critic ever
could.

    The invasion and occupation of Iraq has created a
rallying point for
extremists all across the Muslim world, and has given
them a marvelous
opportunity to refine their murderous craft by
constructing bombs that
kill American soldiers and Iraqi civilians every
single day. There were no
al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq before this occupation.
Now, there are lots of
them, and they are getting plenty of practice.

    The invasion and occupation of Iraq allowed Osama
"bin Dead and Alive"
Laden to slip the noose set for him in Afghanistan. We
had him cornered up
there in the mountains near the Pakistani border, but
our best troops and
equipment were pulled out and sent to Iraq instead.
Maybe Osama is already
dead - like his friend Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has
been reported killed
approximately four hundred and thirteen times, only to
constantly
resurface as the mastermind of a dozen bombings and
attacks - and maybe
not. The fact that he was never captured, tried and
convicted for his
crimes, the fact that he may still be out there, is a
boon to those who
have flocked to his banner. Aid and comfort indeed.

    The decision to allow the torture of detainees in
Iraq - a decision
    that
came directly from both Vice President Cheney and
Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld, according to former administration outsider
Lawrence Wilkerson -
gave the world the horrific images of Abu Ghraib. When
those photographs
hit the Arab street, they provided inspiration for
thousands of people in
Iraq and elsewhere to give their lives to the idea
that killing American
soldiers is a nifty and necessary thing to do. It was
the best recruitment
drive for al Qaeda that could have ever been
conceived.

    And there are more photographs to come.

    The decision to invade Iraq has made the world
less safe. Look at the
wreckage left behind by the bombing of those hotels in
Jordan last week.
The perpetrators were not hardened al Qaeda veterans
who learned to fight
in the Hindu Kush by killing Russians on behalf of the
Reagan
administration. The perpetrators were all Iraqis. Mr.
Bush's misbegotten
adventure in Iraq has left the nest, and is spreading
out into the wider
world.

   The decision by Bush and his administration to use
wildly questionable
sources in order to scare the American people into
supporting the war has
been a great aid and comfort to those who now kill
American soldiers so
far from home. Take, for example, the use by Bush and
his people of the
information provided by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (whose
name, loosely
translated, means "I've been a shaky alibi"). Al-Libi
told his
interrogators that al Qaeda was all over the place in
Iraq before the war.
A multitude of intelligence officials, including the
folks at the Defense
Intelligence Agency, warned that al-Libi was lying
through his teeth. It
turns out, in the end, that he was; he recanted all of
his testimony in
2004. Yet even with these warnings, Bush & Co. used
his words to justify
their war.

    Now here's a good question: why would al-Libi lie
about an al Qaeda
presence in Iraq? Could it be that he did so in order
to provide Bush with
justification for an attack? Could it be that al-Libi
and his masters
wanted Bush to invade Iraq, so bin Laden could get his
international
rallying cry while simultaneously disposing of Saddam
Hussein, whom bin
Laden hated and despised?

    In other words, did Bush do exactly, precisely
what Osama bin Laden
wanted him to?

 The decision by Bush to chuck up this invasion and
occupation has made
the United States wildly vulnerable. The US military
is in horrible shape;
recruitment is down to historic lows, veterans whose
wisdom and expertise
are necessary for the care and maintenance of the line
are refusing to
re-enlist, and the Treasury has been utterly looted.
There are enemies of
this country out there, and there are threats of dire
consequence. The
damage done to our fighting men and women, to the
military institutions
that protect us, has left us dangerously unable to
respond should one of
those enemies choose to make a move.

    Finally, Bush's close and cuddly friendship with
the House of Saud has
been an incredible aid and comfort to terrorists
throughout the world.
Saudi Arabia, with its vast revenues and its Wahabbist
extremism, is the
birthing bed of international terrorism. Yet nary a
word is whispered
about this, because the House of Saud and the House of
Bush have been
umbilically connected for decades. Our worst enemies,
our deadliest foes,
the enablers of those who would kill and maim among
our soldiers and
civilians, have an open invitation to dinner at the
White House every time
they decide to go to Washington.

    But that's just business, right?

    George Washington once said, "The willingness with
which our young
people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how
justified, shall be
directly proportional as to how they perceive the
veterans of earlier wars
were Treated and Appreciated by their nation."
Defenders of the Bush
administration can argue that war critics are harming
our troops until
their faces turn blue. The real harm being done to our
troops, the real
aid and comfort being provided to the enemy, is not
coming from the
Democratic party or from the activist street. It is
coming from the very
men and women who hide behind the troops, who use such
rhetoric to deflect
the consequences of their folly.

   Don't let it stand.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and
internationally bestselling
author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush
Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is
Silence

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