NEW! Instant Terrorists! Just Add Torture

Bush Aide Will Aim to Repair U.S. Image

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer, Sat Mar 12, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush will nominate one of his closest longtime advisers to a key State Department post in an effort to help repair the United States' image abroad, especially in the Arab world, a senior administration official said Saturday...

The official said that Hughes, 48, will spearhead the administration's campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East.

Would that be the same kind of "freedom and democracy" enjoyed by this Iraqi family?

Hughes, who for years has had a major voice in crafting Bush's domestic message, is a former counselor to the president who left the White House in 2002 to move her family back to Texas...

As undersecretary, Hughes' main responsibility will be to repair the image of the United States which was badly tarnished abroad by anger over the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and overthrow its government.

She will be responsible for improving U.S. diplomats' face-to-face contact overseas and will oversee an array of programs, such as radio broadcasts that place American ideas and news before foreign audiences...

The problem is that America's image hasn't been tarnished by anger over the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam. The problem is the way it was done. Remember back after the US invaded Iraq, and all we saw was cheering Iraqis? Who wouldn't cheer if they had been freed from a guy like Saddam?! Unfortunately, as with the post-9/11 warm relations with our allies that we squandered after Invasion Iraq, we threw everything away when the Bush administration decided that torture and permanent detention of Iraqis - including children - would be a good idea. The administration pretended to try so hard to prove that they were right about WMD's in Iraq, searching endlessly for old weapons that were destroyed after the Gulf War - but, not surprisingly, they came up empty-handed. The thing is, they knew they were going to come up empty-handed, so they needed to invent some other justification to keep Americans happy and numb to reality.

Enter the accusations that Saddam had links to al-Qaeda. The idea that Saddam and Osama were best buddies was planted in the minds of We the People, and it was all downhill from there. All that remained was to torture some poor innocent Iraqis into confessing their terrorist ways, and then permanently detain them. Instant terrorists! Just add torture.

The whole world got to hear about the torture at Abu Ghraib, and you can bet your last buck that they also knew about the rendition and torture of other suspects. America's image has been damaged by its actions, but those actions go way beyond freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam.

As for the plan to broadcast American ideas and news over the radio for foreign audiences: What the heck for? When it comes to American ideas and news, no one outside the US will pay any attention. Not now, after all the lies and the torture and death of so many innocent people who couldn't even be charged with a crime by the US due to lack of evidence...