PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR JULY 16, 2003

Hello, This is Blase Bonpane with a comment.

There is much talk about a slip of the lip during the state of the Union message of George Bush. Was it something about Uranium from Niger for a reconstituted nuclear weapons program in Iraq?

Friends we cannot allow the accused to get away with this plea bargain of only one count. There are many other lies that must be dealt with. Lies that continue to lead our fine young men and women to their deaths. Lies that took and are taking the lives of many innocent Iraqis. Lies that continue to shred Iraqi children with scattered bomblets.

This is our occupied territory. This is our Palestine.

We dropped bunker-buster bombs on the densely crowded homes of Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad killing 16 civilians including children thinking that we might kill Saddam Hussein. This act was a near exact duplication of a previous but similar attack made by Ariel Sharon as he dropped a massive bomb on a crowded Gaza slum killing 16 civilians including many children. We see stone throwers being shot down in the West Bank and Gaza and we see the same thing from our troops in Falujah. We demand an end to the torture of Palestinian prisoners at the interrogation center in Jerusalem…and we find prisoners being tortured to death by American interrogators in

Bagram Prison in Afghanistan. And then there is the disgrace of our illegal prison at Guantanamo in Cuba. This kind of behavior will surely create suicide bombers.

And what are some of the additional lies and false implications foisted on us by the Bush Administration? Here are a few:

* That Iraq was responsible for the September 11th attacks.

* That Iraq and al-Qa'ida were working together.

* That Iraq was trying to import aluminum tubes to develop nuclear weapons.

* That Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons left over from the first Gulf War.

* That Iraq retained up to 20 missiles which could carry chemical or biological warheads.

* That Saddam Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox.

* That U.S. and British claims were supported by the inspectors.

* That previous weapons inspections had failed.

* That Iraq was obstructing the inspectors.

* That Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

* That the war would be an easy win.

* That the Shia Muslim population of Basra had risen against their Sunni oppressors.

* That our troops would face chemical and biological weapons

* That interrogation of Iraqi scientists would yield the location of weapons of mass destruction.

* That Iraq's oil money would go to the Iraqis.

* That Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were found.

* And how about that phony story about the rescue of Jessica Lynch?

Friends, these are high crimes and misdemeanors. No democracy is possible when public servants are liars.

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This is Blase Bonpane.