I Can Watch For Freedom Better From The Vantage Point Of Your Crumpled Body

Remember the justification for the first Gulf war back in 1991? Let me refresh your battered memories, using quotes from George the First's own "Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf" from January 16th, 1991:

"This conflict started August 2d when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. Kuwait -- a member of the Arab League and a member of the United Nations -- was crushed; its people, brutalized."

"Our objectives are clear: Saddam Hussein's forces will leave Kuwait. The legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored to its rightful place, and Kuwait will once again be free."

"Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait."

Good times, eh? Freedom was on the march. Never mind that Hill & Knowlton, the world's largest PR firm, was hired to sell the war to the public. Never mind that the most poignant and horror-filled anecdote used to whip people into a war-mad frenzy was a complete and utter lie. Never mind that the Bush administration approved a sale of data-transmission devices usable for missile launching on the very eve of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, or that when Hussein made threats toward Kuwait to Ambassador April Glaspie and asked her thoughts, she told him the US had no opinion, which he took as a go-ahead.

Because the whole thing was about freedom. FREEDOM for the poor Kuwaitis. Freedom for them to do this:

"Kuwait's Parliament effectively killed a measure today that would have allowed women to participate in municipal elections for the first time this year, delaying any further discussion of the measure until after the elections are called. The measure's failure ends any chance that women will be able to vote or run in elections for another four years."

This is not new. This struggle has been going on for decades, and even as the women's suffrage movement grows, the government continues to vote against their right to vote.

So you see, all those people who died back then for "freedom", were only dying for the freedom of half the Kuwaiti population--and for that half's freedom to take freedom away from the other half. That's more of that Bush dynasty math.