"Mission Accomplished" = Ten Years Ago Today
Ten Years Ago: Bush Declared 'Mission Accomplished'and the Media Swooned
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174127/ten-years-ago-bush-declared-mission-accomplished-and-media-swooned
Today marks the tenth anniversary of Mission Accomplished Day, or as it might better be known, Mission (Not) Accomplished Day. Sadly, it comes amid another upheaval in sectarian violence in Iraqtwo days ago The New York Times warned of a new civil war thereand a week after the attempts at Bush revisionism upon the opening of his library. Were also seeing aspects of the run-up to the Iraq invasion playing out in the fresh, perhaps overheated, claims of chemical weapons in Syria.
In my favorite antiwar song of this war, Shock and Awe, Neil Young moaned: Back in the days of Mission Accomplished/ our chief was landing on the deck/ The sun was setting/ behind a golden photo op. But as Neil added elsewhere in the tune: History is a cruel judge of overconfidence.
Nowhere can we see this more clearly than in the media coverage of the event.
On May 1, 2003, Richard Perle advised, in a USA Today op-ed, Relax, Celebrate Victory. The same day, President Bush, dressed in a flight suit, landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared an end to major military operations in Iraq ...
pResident G. W. "Codpiece" Bush