Crooks and Liars » Iran: Why Am I Still Worried?
Mr. Bush claims that rumors of plans to attack Iran are ‘baseless gossip.’ So why am I still worried?
Five years ago we established Artists United to Win Without War because of concern about the veracity of Mr. Bush’s claims about Iraq. We were alarmed at the hawkish tirades from Washington portending a clear intention to launch an unprovoked attack against a nation that had done us no harm. And we were appalled at the bellicose ranting of the mainstream media that acted as Bush’s megaphone, drowning out the few lonely voices trying to add a touch of reason to the mix. So we released a call for restraint, signed by celebrities, military officers, diplomats and foreign service professionals, asking him to honor our country’s historic opposition to a “first strike” and to support the UN inspection teams checking to see if Saddam was actually hiding WMD.
The media, of course, ignored the professionals on our list and attacked the upstart celebrities in an attempt to divert the discussion away from whether we were being told the truth to whether actors have a right to an opinion.
I’m worried today because the “thousands of lives” we warned might be lost in Iraq became hundreds of thousands. The millions of dollars we worried might be wasted became hundreds of billions. The international respect we feared might be damaged has instead been shredded. And the elected representatives we felt had shirked their duty have not yet shouldered it.
In our naiveté, we did not know that our Constitution and Bill of Rights would be sundered and America would become a nation of torturers.
Mr. Bush claims that rumors of plans to attack Iran are ‘baseless gossip.’ So why am I still worried?
Five years ago we established Artists United to Win Without War because of concern about the veracity of Mr. Bush’s claims about Iraq. We were alarmed at the hawkish tirades from Washington portending a clear intention to launch an unprovoked attack against a nation that had done us no harm. And we were appalled at the bellicose ranting of the mainstream media that acted as Bush’s megaphone, drowning out the few lonely voices trying to add a touch of reason to the mix. So we released a call for restraint, signed by celebrities, military officers, diplomats and foreign service professionals, asking him to honor our country’s historic opposition to a “first strike” and to support the UN inspection teams checking to see if Saddam was actually hiding WMD.
The media, of course, ignored the professionals on our list and attacked the upstart celebrities in an attempt to divert the discussion away from whether we were being told the truth to whether actors have a right to an opinion.
I’m worried today because the “thousands of lives” we warned might be lost in Iraq became hundreds of thousands. The millions of dollars we worried might be wasted became hundreds of billions. The international respect we feared might be damaged has instead been shredded. And the elected representatives we felt had shirked their duty have not yet shouldered it.
In our naiveté, we did not know that our Constitution and Bill of Rights would be sundered and America would become a nation of torturers.
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