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PEACE:
Foreign Policy & Terrorism | June 29, 2005
PROJECTING
POWER
BY
FOMENTING
ANARCHY:
THE
LATEST
GEORGE
ORWELL
BUSH
"NEWSPEAK"
SPEECH
To
people of conscience the world over, the situation in Iraq is a
humanitarian disaster.
But
to others, fomenting anarchy -- in predictable response
to a foreign policy carefully constructed with lies upon lies
and irresistibly enforced by the greatest military power the
world has ever seen -- has achieved precisely the goals long
stated.
The
Mission has indeed been Accomplished for the Neo-Conservatives: Their
long-held dream of "projecting power" from the heart
of the Middle East for the foreseeable future is now a
reality, the cost in lives and treasure -- to others -- be
damned.
In
that light, consider the President's speech last evening: Was he
a desperate blunderer appealing to a restive public for
continued patience in an overly idealistic crusade, or a warlord
savoring his spoils and declaring his will as unassailable to an
effectively "captive audience" (and I refer not only
to the military personnel ordered to attend and goaded, by
presidential shills, to applaud).
With
the carnage in Iraq continuing, spasmodically worsening, and
showing no signs of abating,
With
Offense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitting that the fighting
could last for a dozen years or more,
With
Iraq now "Irek",
With
most Americans now saying that Bush intentionally misled us into
a war that they think was a mistake to begin with and in which
they think we are now bogged down for years,
With
the President's approval ratings dropping to historic lows, even
in Red States,
George
Orwell Bush has apparently grasped at the last straw he has left
-- his storied reputation for handling terrorism (and even his
poll numbers for that are dropping dramatically)--
And
yet again re-written history: We aren't in Iraq to eliminate
those non-existent WMDs (which the Downing Street Memos reveal
the Administration knew were not an imminent threat, despite
what they impeachably testified to the US Congress, and the
American people); we aren't in Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein
(who never attacked America, despite the Administration's
goading him with dramatically increased airstrikes well before
going to Congress for the Constitutionally required
authorization to initiate hostilities, and who was boxed in by
the UN, which the Administration systematically misled and whose
inspections it manipulated, in a failed attempt to goad Hussein
into non-compliance, another trumped-up and unsuccessful casus
belli); and although we may still be in Iraq to establish a
"beacon" of democracy to shine throughout the region
(whose people could, of course, use a lot more liberty --
particularly from autocratic regimes that we support -- but who
are being predictably incited to the very opposite effect by our
open-ended occupation in the heart of the Middle East), we are
now in Iraq -- we are told -- to prevent another 9/11-style
attack on our Homeland by all those evil-doers being drawn to
Iraq, like moths to flame, by our very presence in Iraq.
Talk
about your self-fulfilling prophesies!
By
piling lies upon lies, George Orwell Bush has finally arrived at
something approaching the truth: Just as we had to invade
Afghanistan to root out the Al Qaeda terrorists who did attack
us on 9/11 -- a job that we never did complete, as we threw the
bulk of our resources into Iraq (and threw away most our
international good will in the process) -- we now find ourselves
facing a maniacally religiously frenzied, well funded new
breeding grounds for Al Qaeda terrorists, primarily in the
region of Iraq home to Sunnis (a minority in Iraq, a majority in
the Muslim world at large), which our policies have predictably
fomented but which we truly do ignore at our peril.
With
a tiger by the tail (we're not just in a quagmire, as in
Vietnam; the Viet Cong never flew jetliners into our
skyscrapers), the polls indicate that no one -- not Bush, not
his supporters in Congress, not the Democrats (predictably
divided into hawks and doves), not the public at large or
overseas -- no one really knows how to get us out of this
deathtrap. And that's the scariest part of all...to most of us.
To
most of us, this arrival at a point of no good options may seem
like the unintended consequence of a bungled policy based upon
deception, even self-deception.
However,
there is another, even more influential perspective to consider.
To
the NeoCons, the situation in Iraq has turned out pretty much as
they have planned it all along, from the bowels of Right Wing
think tanks to the halls of the White House (They sold that
"We'll be welcomed as liberators" line of BS, but I
doubt they bought it). They have achieved the very goal that
they have publicly and privately lusted after since well before
the tragedy of 9/11 gave them the
pretext they had long awaited for invading any country
deemed a terrorist state, in particular Iraq: The establishment
of a massive American military force, ultimately in permanent
bases, in the strategic heart of the Middle East.
And
it's not just about sitting atop the world's second-largest
known petroleum reserves -- which makes Cheney and Halliburton
salivate and rich -- there is something even more fundamental at
play here: The ability to "project power" in that
vital region -- or anywhere, for that matter -- allows you to
take whatever you want, whenever you want it, for whatever
reason you want it.
The
NeoCons -- "imperialists", to be studious about it;
bullies, to be blunt -- have finally gotten their way...at the
cost of tens of thousands of lives and limbs and hundreds of
billions of dollars, all paid by someone else.
Just
as the Right has insidiously "starved
the beast" -- given us precious few options for public
spending on vital public programs, such as Social Security, by
amassing huge public debt -- the Right has now "created
a beast" -- predictably drawn so many terrorists to
Iraq that we now must maintain a massive military presence in
that country indefinitely.
And
isn't that exactly what the NeoCons wanted all along?
Postscript:
How to Make a Lie the "Truth"
Remember
that all this started -- and was promoted -- with lies.
Take
note, all prevaricators-to-be: To make a (baldfaced) lie the
(accepted) "truth", first throw it out there as an
aside, a "given", in another discussion -- don't make
a big deal out of it and, chances are, no one else will either. Discreetly
plant the seed of a lie, nurture it by repetition, and it will
grow into a great tree of "truth" called the
"conventional wisdom".
In
this instance, as I first noted last month in GordonTalk, a
senior US military official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, said almost off-handedly:
"If
we fail [in Iraq], the different groups would be at each other's
throats and warfare would continue for some time...If we take
our foot off their throats, this country could be back into
civil war and chaos."
To
which your humble rabble-rouser replied:
WHOA!!!
"Back into civil war and chaos"?
Say
what you will about ol' Saddam; but like Marshall Tito, whose
"iron fist" suppressed ethnic and religious warfare in
Yugoslavia for decades, Saddam Hussein ruthlessly, yet
effectively suppressed ethnic and religious warfare in Iraq...
Sorry,
kids; if Iraq continues to descend into civil war and chaos -- happily helped along by the likes of that murderous bastard
al-Zarqawi -- it's not a return to the "good ol' bad ol' days"
of Saddam.
Nope.
It'll
be George Dubya's little gift to the Middle East. Tied up in a
ribbon as red as all the blood that's been shed.
No
matter how the story is written, or re-written.
And
now that the newest reason for war, first thrown out there by an
unnamed source, has become the official policy pronounced by the
President in his latest speech, it
becomes even more evident that in re-writing history -- in order
to manipulate history -- the Bush Administration would
put Big Brother to shame.
And
that puts all of us to shame.
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