In the run up to the unnecessary war of choice in Iraq, the Bush administration used several slick phrases and slogans as pep talk to gain public support for the criminal and as we know now, foolhardy enterprise. Many of the more notorious ones still come back to haunt and taunt the bellicose warmongers – mushroom cloud, WMD, yellow cake from Niger, "Mission Accomplished," and "Slam Dunk" among others. Another steady drumbeat was "We are fighting them (terrorists) there, so we don’t have to fight them here."
More than 50% of Americans seemed to have bought into the sales pitch based on lies, misrepresentation and false assurances – enough to return Bush-Cheney to the White House in 2004. But as I had pointed out long ago on this blog, the public was not as clueless and gullible as it may appear. There was a certain amount of selfish calculation disguised as patriotism among some of the Bush supporters. As far as proponents of the war go, it doesn’t take much courage to buy a ribbon for one’s car and claim one is standing behind our troops. As long as the tax rate is lowered and the draft is not re-instituted, the wishful thinking was that the war could be fought on the cheap both in terms of its monetary and human costs. It is easy to proclaim patriotism from a safe distance. But guess what, as economists warn us, "there is no free lunch." To twist the Bush administration’s cynical slogan, "If you don’t do honest accounting there, you will have to pay the price here." The following report illustrates how our dishonest politicians have put us at risk at home – not from terrorists but from mother nature’s unexpected wrath.
Kansas’ Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius said Monday that the effort to recover from the damage caused by tornadoes that hit six Kansas counties over the weekend is being hampered by the war in Iraq.
According to Sebelius there is a shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment necessary for the disaster clean up effort due to the Iraq war.
"There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," she told Reuters.
In a television interview with CNN on Sunday, Sebelius outlined the problem in more detail.
"Well, states all over the country are not only missing personnel, National Guard troops are — about 40 percent of the troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan — but we’re missing the equipment. When the troops get deployed, the equipment goes with them," she told CNN.
"So, here in Kansas, about 50 percent of our trucks are gone. We need trucks. We’re missing Humvees, we’re missing all kinds of equipment that can help us respond to this kind of emergency."
She said that because the National Guard doesn’t have the equipment it needs, the disaster relief efforts are proceeding at a much slower pace than they otherwise could.
And Kansas is not alone in this predicament.
Accidental Blogger 