The non-combatant “White House Warriors” who planned to “shock and awe” the world with a swift military strike, claimed American troops would be welcomed by the Iraqis who would give them joyful praise and even flowers, much like the liberated French gave conquering Americans in World War II. They claimed the war, which has now cost Americans about than $440 billion, would be financed by oil revenue. What they didn’t tell Americans is that there are no oil revenues, and that American oil-based corporations have had massive windfall profits to be added to millions of taxpayer-provided dollars that have either been misplaced, unaccounted for, or can’t be traced.

Because of diversion of funds, equipment, and supplies into the Iraq war, combined with the placement of the National Guard and their materiel in Iraq, America is less protected against hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and other natural disasters.

For his part, Donald Rumsfeld refused to allow the military to plan for a post-war occupation. “In his own mind, he thought we could go in and fight and take out the regime and come out,” Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, who was in charge of the Logistics War Plans Division, told Orin Kerr of the Hampton Roads (Va.) Daily Press this month. Rumsfeld “said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war,” and threatened to fire anyone who argued for post-war planning, said Gen. Scheid.

The military weren’t the only ones threatened. In Bush Speak, enhanced by almost every talk-show mouth and right-wing politician, and led by the draft-dodging Dick Cheney, refusal to buy into the Bush–Cheney propaganda was equated with refusal to “Support the Troops.” Those who questioned the Bush–Cheney administration were branded “cut and run cowards”; they were called unpatriotic, even treasonous, accused of “aiding the enemy.”

It was those “unpatriotic traitors” who questioned why the Bush–Cheney administration was methodically shredding the Constitution. They opposed the excesses of the USA PATRIOT Act, opposed renditions, opposed torture of prisoners, challenged the suppression of First Amendment rights of free speech, spoke out against the Administration’s quashing of Fourth Amendment rights of privacy, and the Fifth and Sixth amendment rights of due process, and the eighth amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.