Posted on 05/09/2003 7:13:28 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
Former U.N. inspector featured at Peace Action dinner
Even six years ago, Scott Ritter could hardly have imagined himself the toast of the liberal, anti-war community.
“I’m about as redneck as you can get,” said the 6-foot, 3-inch former Marine on Sunday to the 370 persons attending NJ Peace Action’s 46th Annual Dinner at the Friar Tuck Inn in Cedar Grove. “I’m a conservative Republican who voted for [current president] George Bush. It just goes to show we can have issues that unite all Americans.”
The subject that persuaded Ritter to join hands with the peaceniks?
The U.S.-led military campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, an invasion Ritter branded as a “West Texas lynch mob” that had nothing to do with the international rule of law and even less to do with the threat of weapons of mass destruction, a subject Ritter knows something about.
From 1991 to 1998 Ritter served as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to Disarm Iraq.
By the time he left this post, U.N. inspectors had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Hussein’s biological and chemical weapons, Ritter said.
“I can’t tell you that we accounted for 100 percent, because [Iraqi officials] had a systematic effort to deceive weapons inspectors,” said the 12-year Marine who also served as a ballistic missile expert during the first Gulf War. “I can tell you that weapon inspectors were nobody’s fool.”
Ritter said that most of the chemical and biological weapons that President Bush and members of his cabinet have spoken about Hussein possessing have a relatively short shelf life. If these chemicals were created since U.N. inspectors were last in Iraq, military personnel should have found them by now, Ritter said.
“Where are the weapons, Mr. President?” Ritter rhetorically asked. “If the president lied, this is an impeachable offense.”
But then again, maybe the president didn’t lie, Ritter continued.
“Maybe he’s just incompetent. Then he should be held accountable for more than 130 American lives lost and thousands of Iraqis” who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ritter said. “In either case, he doesn’t deserve to represent this wonderful country. Accountability starts at the bottom and goes to the top.
“We need regime change and we need it quick,” declared an impassioned Ritter. “George W. Bush does not have the right, the privilege, to represent this great nation if he lied… The decisive conflict will be in November 2004,” the next presidential election.
Ritter showed no pity for Hussein, whom he dismissed as a brutal dictator. His motivation to speak on this issue, Ritter said, stemmed from his commitment to the U.S. Constitution, international law, and his anger that military personnel have been placed in harm’s way to help “the corporate elite.”
Ritter told audience members to forget about the president’s declaration that the military-phase of the war has ended.
“Today, right now, we are being shot at,” said the former Marine. “The Iraqi people will never accept an Ameri-can occupier, especially an occupier that came there on a bodyguard of lies.”
Ritter said that Bush and his spokespersons have already made it clear that they will not allow democracy to flourish in Iraq.
Even though 60 percent of the population in Iraq is Shia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that the United States will not allow a Shiite to rule in Iraq, Ritter said. The Kurds in northern Iraq want to become an independent state, another change the U.S. government opposes, Ritter said.
The end result will be a dictator from the minority Sunni Muslim community, which had controlled Iraq until the United States invaded. “The only difference is that his name is not going to be Saddam Hussein,” Ritter said.
Montclair resident Barbara Langan judged Ritter’s speech “fantastic. We needed to hear from someone who has been there and could tell us truthfully what the president tried to pull off was a lie,” Langan said.
Madelyn Hoffman, the three-year director of the 46-year-old NJ Peace Action, which is headquartered in Montclair, said the gathering was the largest annual dinner she’s been a part of. “It shows that people are eager to speak out on American foreign policy,” she said.
In regard to the choice of Ritter to be the dinner’s keynote speaker, Hoffman said that even though Ritter was a “slightly unusual” selection, he’s “strengthened and buttressed the anti-war movement.”
Ritter, author of “Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem Once and For All,” published in 1999, told the crowd to be wary of “the new Bush doctrine: a policy of intervention, unilateralism… Another term for it is imperialism.
“We are living in a historical moment,” Ritter noted. “All empires die of the same disease: indigestion. They consume and consume… Are we going to be an imperial power that dies slowly from indigestion or are we going to be a nation of vision and promise?” he asked.
What issue does this unrepentant pedophile believe "unites all Americans"? His statement makes no sense.... Oh yeah - - Ritter is a creepy pedophile. Who cares what he says?
The only thing Ritter is envisioning are little girls with their panties down around their ankles and promising to meet them at the local burger joints.
You once had served with some fine men who have honor
They're wondering what's happening to ya
From "The Few, the Proud, the Brave" you've transformed to depraved
We join them...Scotty, screw ya
Saddam made the offer and you took the money
Four hundred grand and the future looked sunny
What you have done's simply traitorous
You're loved by scum...but you haven't fooled us
So many lies, so little time
Like Slick Willy back in his prime
Some wonder if you have lost your mind
And others say things that aren't so kind
Hey now, you're a pervert...little girls, beware
Hey now, Scotty pervert...you think their dads won't care
See that rope and that tree
That's your destiny...Saddam can't save you
On the job once...you had been an inspector
For you we now have a BS detector
In that prison for kids, what did you do?
Can you tell us why they are blackmailing you
They turned you well...Saddam had been so proud
And now you hate our country, you're screamin' out loud
A great big Clymer, yes indeed
All they had to do is be appealing to greed
Hey now, you're a pervert...little girls, beware
Hey now, Scotty pervert...you think their dads won't care
See that rope and that tree
That's your destiny...Saddam can't save you
(musical break -- insert your own mocking words here if you like)
Hey now, you're a pervert...little girls, beware
Hey now, Scotty pervert...you think their dads won't care
See that rope and that tree
That's your destiny
The police had been watching while you were on line surfing
And to Burger King they knew you'd be going
Pills to enhance...you'd drop your pants
Your Whopper Jr. you'd be gladly showing
But too bad, Scotty, you'd get BUSTED
Saddam made the offer and you took the money
Four hundred grand and the future looked sunny
What you have done's simply traitorous
You're loved by scum...but you haven't fooled us
So many lies, so little time
Just like Slick Willy back in his prime
Some think that you've lost your mind...while
Others are not quite so kind
Hey now, you're a pervert...little girls, beware
Hey now, Scotty pervert...you think their dads won't care
So see that rope and see that tree
That's your destiny...Saddam can't save you
So see that rope and see that tree
That's your destiny...Saddam can't save you
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