Those That Gave You the Iraq War Have No Legitimate Thoughts on Paris

It wasn't that long ago- the Iraq War that is. Technically speaking, it only ended a few years ago, and still there are American contractors on the ground. It was a disaster of a war, a war built on false pretenses, a war that cost us lives, treasure, and credibility. It was the worst foreign policy blunder of my lifetime, and at least since the Vietnam War. It was an awful mistake.

Some of the same people who supported that war in 2002 and 2003 are now rushing to weigh in on the Paris Terror Attacks from Friday. They are all, of course, pro-France now. The American Right is rushing to show they support France. Let's remember where they were back in 2002 and 2003:

Not long ago, in the run up to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, these same right-wing Republicans were screaming epithets at France because the country that today the corporate media remind us is "our oldest ally" tried to stop the war before it began.

The French case was that there was not a WMD threat, and that invading Iraq would lead to fragmentation of the country and trigger more terrorism.

Like a good friend who tried to take away the car keys from a power drunk U.S. administration before it got behind the wheel, France had the wisdom and forethought to try to stop the United States from its biggest foreign policy catastrophe since the Vietnam War.

And how did the Republican Right in the U.S. respond?

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives stopped selling French Fries in its cafeteria (which are from Belgium anyway) and changed their name to "Freedom Fries."

They vilified France because the French government had the good sense to try to block Bush and Cheney's war of aggression in Iraq through its United Nations veto power.

Not exactly how you treat your friends, right? Yeah, there's more:

Right-wing talk radio hosts organized events where their fans poured French wine down gutters as a symbolic protest against the French who dared to question the infinite wisdom of their Commander-in-Chief.

During George W. Bush's vicious 2004 re-election campaign against John Kerry Bush's Secretary of Commerce, Donald Evans, repeatedly said that Kerry "looks French."

The Republican House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay of Texas, began many of his Bush campaign speeches: "As John Kerry would say, bonjour."

At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City "Democratic" Senator Zell Miller of Georgia received thunderous applause when he trashed John Kerry in his keynote address saying, "Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending!"

Why the hatred in the Bush years? Because the French government dared to question our war in Iraq. They dared to get it right. Now these guys who called France traitors want to run to capitalize on France's sorrow. I guess they're over the war now.

Or maybe they want to forget all of this:

George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more.

This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher. It will not end the threat of weapons of mass destruction; it will make possible their further proliferation. And it will not lay the groundwork for the flourishing of democracy throughout the Mideast; it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence.

If you thought Osama bin Laden was bad, just wait until the countless children who become orphaned by U.S. bombs in the coming weeks are all grown up. Do you think they will forget what country dropped the bombs that killed their parents? In 10 or 15 years, we will look back fondly on the days when there were only a few thousand Middle Easterners dedicated to destroying the U.S. and willing to die for the fundamentalist cause. From this war, a million bin Ladens will bloom.

And what exactly is our endgame here? Do we really believe that we can install Gen. Tommy Franks as the ruler of Iraq? Is our arrogance and hubris so great that we actually believe that a U.S. provisional military regime will be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqi people? Democracy cannot possibly thrive under coercion. To take over a country and impose one's own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy. And it is doomed to fail.

A war against Iraq is not only morally wrong, it will be an unmitigated disaster.

That was March 26th, 2003.... in "The Onion." I guess more than France knew the American Right has no idea what it's doing in the Middle East. We should have ignored them then. We should ignore them now.