Forget "flip-flop," goose hunting and wind surfing.
Forget wolves, being resolute and the bump in the jacket.
Forget all the cute slogans, the petulant sniping and the smirking.
Most of all, forget any rationale the Bush administration has made before or after the fact for the war in Iraq.
Forget all of it.
America is waking up this morning - not to a new snippy slogan by George Bush about John Kerry - but to a frightening discovery and an inescapable blunder of historical proportions, broken on the web last night by Talking Points Memo.
IAEA: Tons of Iraq explosives missingThis is not a side-effect of a new democracy. This is exactly, precisely, definitively the opposite of what Team Bush assured us of what the singular original mission of the Iraq War was:
Some 380 tons of explosives, powerful enough to be used to detonate nuclear warheads, are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says.
Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CNN the Iraqi interim government reported several days ago that the explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa complex, south of Baghdad.
The explosives -- considered powerful enough to demolish buildings or detonate nuclear warheads -- were under IAEA control until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. IAEA workers left the country before the fighting began.
Keeping WMDs from getting into the hands of terrorists.
Thanks to the chaotic and irresponsible non-planning of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and a badgered Powell, their mission was a total failure. A disaster. A complete and utter "gimme" to the very monsters we were trying to stop.
One of the things we won't forget is what Rumsfeld said about the looting that occurred when we hit Baghdad.
"The task we've got ahead of us now is an awkward one ... It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here. And for suddenly the biggest problem in the world to be looting is really notable."Not just arrogant, but a blinding miscalculation by the very man who should have known better - and didn't. They weren't looting TVs. They weren't looting museum pieces. They were looting stockpiles of intense explosives which are killing soldiers and citizens, now an average of eight times a day, according to CNN this morning.
Another thing we won't forget is the indelible image of President Bush strutting on the deck of the USS Lincoln, declaring major combat operations completed under a banner boasting "Mission Accomplished."
We're now finding out this morning that the mission failed and failed horribly. The terrorists who - if they existed at all in pre-war Iraq - had been marginalized to the point of irrelevance, have now been handed incredibly destructive explosives, elevating them to almost heroic status among the people who were supposed to throw flowers and chocolates to their "liberators."
Our troops are more precious to America than being the pawns and disposable resources this administration has made them in Iraq. Bush and his thugs have thrown these incredibly trusting and brave souls into a hellhole of Bush's creating.
To put it simply: Bush's reckless war has placed 380 tons of lethal explosives right into the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
If this revelation by the IAEA doesn't torpedo the Bush campaign, and blow a crater into their entire argument for the Iraq war, then there's something horribly wrong with the American voters. The story is out there. It was the lead on CNN and MSNBC this morning. The responsibility to accept and process that information lies with the viewer.
And if the viewer sticks their head in the sand because of blind loyalty to this failed adminstration, then we're no longer the America we remember.
John Kerry will be joined in Philadelphia today by the greatest diplomat in recent history. The world will applaud the return of President Bill Clinton to the political stage, if half of America, still mired in fake outrage over his singular misstep, will throw mud at the notion.
With this story and the right people delivering our message, let's hope those Americans will finally accept this as a serious slap into reality, and make the right decision November 2nd.
No more failed missions. Game over.
