George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

widepsread flooding and death on North Vietnamese civilians. According to North
Vietnamese statistics, more than half of the north's 20 million people lived in areas near
the Red River that would be flooded if the dike system were breached. An article which
appeared in a Hanoi publication had stated that at flood crest many rivers rise to "six or
seve meters above the surrounding fields" and that because of this situation "any dike
break, especially in the Red River delta, is a disaster with incalculable consequences."
Bush had never seen an opportunity for genocide he did not like. "I believe we are being
set up by a massive propaganda campaign by the North Vietnamese in the event that
there is the same kind of flooding this year--to attribute it to bombs whereas last year it
happened just out of lack of maintenance," Bush argued. "There's been a study made that
I hope will be released shortly that will clarify this whole question," he went on. The
study "would be very helpful because I think it will show what the North Vietnamese are
up to in where they place strategic targets." What Bush was driving at here was an
allegation that Hanoi customarily placed strategic assets near the dikes in order to be able
to accuse the US of genocide if air attacks breached the dikes and caused flooding. Bush's
military spokesmen used similar arguments diring the Gulf war, when Iraq was accused
of placing military equipment in the midst of civilian residential areas.
"I think you would have to recognize," retorted Bush, "that if there was any intention" of
breaching the dikes, "it would be very, very simple to do exactly what we are accused of-
- and that is what we are not doing." [fn 23]
The bombing of the north continued, and reached a final paroxysm at Christmas, when B-
52s made unrestricted terror bombing raids against Hanoi and other cities. The Christmas
bombing was widely condemned, even by the US press: "New Madness in Vietnam" was
the headline of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch On Dec. 19; "Terror from the Skies" that of
the New York Times Dec. 22; "Terror Bombing in the Name of Peace" of the
Washington Post Dec. 28; and "Beyond All Rason" of the Los Angeles Times of Dec. 28.
Bush'activity at the UN also coincided with Kissinger's preparation of the October, 1973
Middle East war. During the 1980's, Bush attempted to cultivate a public image as a US
politician who, although oriented towards close relations with Israel, would not slavishly
appease every demand of the Israelis and the Zionist lobby in the United States, but
would take an independent position designed to foster US national interests. From time to
time, Bush snubbed the Israelis by hinting that they held hostages of their own, and that
the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem would not be accepted by the United States. For some,
these delusions have survived even a refutation so categoric as the events of the Kuwait
crisis of 1990-91. Bush, whose differences with an Israeli leader like Shamir are less
significant than the differences between Shamir and other Israeli politicians. Bush's
pedigree is the reflex of a neo-conservative network and a fanatically pro-Israeli
ideological-political track record which was already massive during the UN years.
In September 1972 Palestinian terrorists describing themselves as the "Black September"
organization attacked the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team present in Munich for the
Olympic games of that year, killing a number of the Israeli athletes. The Israeli