NOW WHAT'S THE RATIONAL FOR INVADING IRAQ?

A little over a year ago, Bush was mobilizing American war opinion to go rustle up Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.



Well, that was a bust.

Then, when the WMDs never showed up, Bush swung public opinion around, lining up America's collective consciousness behind the crusade to democracy to a land long abused by a brutal dictator.

Now America is the brutal dictator abusing Iraqis. First in Fallujah:

On Monday a United Nations human-rights official, Paul Hunt, called for an independent inquiry into whether American forces had used indiscriminate force in civilian areas during their month-long siege of Fallujah. American troops have been battling with Iraqi and foreign fighters in the central Iraqi city since the murder and mutilation of four American contractors there, in late March. However, Mr Hunt said that according to some reports, 90% of the 750 people thought to have died during the siege were non-combatants. While acknowledging that reliable information was hard to obtain, he said there were credible claims of “serious breaches of international humanitarian and human-rights law” by coalition forces in Fallujah.

And then the prison at Abu Ghraib:

REGARDING PART ONE OF THE INVESTIGATION, I MAKE THE FOLLOWING SPECIFIC FINDINGS OF FACT:

That between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320thMilitary Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF). The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence. Due to the extremely sensitive nature of these photographs and videos, the ongoing CID investigation, and the potential for the criminal prosecution of several suspects, the photographic evidence is not included in the body of my investigation. The pictures and videos are available from the Criminal Investigative Command and the CTJF-7 prosecution team. In addition to the aforementioned crimes, there were also abuses committed by members of the 325th MI Battalion, 205th MI Brigade, and Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC). Specifically, on 24 November 2003, SPC Luciana Spencer, 205th MI Brigade, sought to degrade a detainee by having him strip and returned to cell naked. (ANNEXES 26 and 53)...and so on.

Now that these two objectives have failed, what will the Bush administration put forth next as a rational for invading Iraq?

If the war on terror is a war for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world, the Bush administration is losing the war decidedly, fertilizing terrorism, and making the whole world less safe.

Rumsfeld has got to go...for starters. Then the rest of these Bush administration loons.