By John Friend
Independent observers of American politics will recognize the blatant hypocrisy that high profile politicians engage in on a daily basis. However, the level of hypocrisy on display during a recent speech by former president George W. Bush may be the most egregious example in recent memory, and cannot be ignored or dismissed by even the most poorly informed and ignorant American voter.
The man who launched an illegal war of aggression based on total lies, fake intelligence, and deception and hysteria against Iraq at the behest of the pro-Israel neoconservatives running his administration attempted to criticize and denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. His absurd gaffe ended up demonstrating the utter hypocrisy and fraudulent moral grandstanding U.S. politicians are experts at trafficking in.
“Russian elections are rigged,” Bush stated during his speech at the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University near Dallas, Texas yesterday. “Political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process.”
Of course, Bush’s condemnation of Russia’s “rigged elections” and its targeting of political opposition could equally be applied to the Zelensky regime in Ukraine, which has systematically targeted political opposition parties, shut down opposition media outlets, arrested political opponents and dissidents, among other crimes against democracy. Pro-Ukrainian militias and Ukraine’s intelligence agencies have also targeted so-called “Russian collaborators,” and allegations of extrajudicial killings, imprisonment, and torture have plagued the Ukrainian armed forces and its allied militias for years. All of these uncomfortable facts are entirely ignored by the Western political and media establishment, who have and continue to pledge unwavering financial, political, and military support for the corrupt Ukrainian regime.
“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia,” Bush continued, “and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq – I mean, of Ukraine.”
Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/UMwNMwMnmX
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 19, 2022
Bush then chuckled and stated under his break, “Iraq, too,” a seeming admission that his administration’s invasion of Iraq was also “wholly unjustified and brutal,” which it most certainly was. He then joked about his age, muttering “75,” prompting laughter from the audience and himself.
The disgusting display of brazen hypocrisy quickly went viral on social media.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq led to widespread destruction and mayhem in the country and destabilized the entire region. Thousands of American servicemen have died or have been seriously wounded while hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and have had their lives turned upside down as a result of the unjustified war.
In 2004, roughly one year into the “wholly unjustified and brutal” invasion of Iraq, then-President Bush joked about the war and the entirely manufactured and fraudulent “intelligence” about Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, demonstrating the callous attitude prevalent among America’s political elite.
United States killed 1.5 million innocent Iraqi men, women, and children, destabilized the whole region for non-existent WMDs. Look how Bush is joking about it. The definition of evil. pic.twitter.com/pWFyBnoVGS
— Khan (@KKhattakk) March 15, 2022
