A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
JOE
John Nichols
It is fair to say that a good many Americans perceive George W. Bush
to be a doltish incompetent who does not know the first thing about
fighting terrorism.
But, whatever the president's actual level of competence may be, it is
now clear that he has even less respect for the intelligence of the
American people than his critics have for his cognitive capabilities.
As the president struggles this week to make a case for the staying
the course that leads deeper into the quagmire that is Iraq, he is,
remarkably, selling a warmed over version of the misguided take on
terrorism that he peddled before this disasterous mission was
launched.
Apparently working under the assumption that no one has been paying
attention over the past two and a half years, Bush delivered a speech
to the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday in which he dismissed
calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. "Some observers
also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and
leaving Iraq now," the president argued, before concluding that, "It's
a dangerous illusion refuted with a simple question: Would the United
States and other free nations be more safe or less safe with Zarqawi
and bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people and its resources?"That's
a scary scenario. Unfortunately, it is one that the president created.
And it is one that the president still fails to fully comprehend.
To hear the president tell it, the U.S. went to Iraq to combat bin
Laden's al Qaida network.
The problem, of course, is that going to Iraq to confront al Qaida in
2003 was like going to the Vatican to confront Protestants.
Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party cadres were a lot of things, but
they were never comrades, colleagues or hosts to the adherents of what
Bush referred to in his speech as "Islamic radicalism," "militant
jihadism" or "Islamo-fascism."
If any individuals on the planet feared and hated al Qaida, it was
Hussein and his allies. The Iraqi Baathists were thugs, to be sure,
but they were secularist thugs. Indeed, many of the most brutal acts
of oppression carried out by the Iraqi regime targeted Islamic
militants and governments aligned with the fundamentalists. The
eight-year war between Iraq and Iran pitted the soldiers of Hussein's
secular nationalism against the armies of the Ayatollah Khomeini's
radical vision of Islam. That is why, while the United States remained
officially neutral in the war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, it became
an aggressive behind-the-scenes backer of Hussein. As part of that
support, the U.S. State Department in 1982 removed Iraq from its list
of states supporting international terrorism. That step helped to ease
the way for loans and other forms of aid -- such as the U.S.
Agriculture Department's guaranteed loans to Iraq for purchases of
American commodities. It also signaled to other countries and
international agencies that the U.S. wanted them to provide aid to
Hussein -- and if the signal was missed, the Reagan White House and
State Department would make their sentiments clear, as happened when
the administration lobbied the Export-Import Bank to improve Iraq's
credit rating and provide it with needed financial assistance. If any
lingering doubts about U.S. attitude remained, they were eased by the
December 20, 1983, visit of Donald Rumsfeld, who was touring the
Middle East as President Reagan's special envoy, for visits with
Hussein and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.
As it happened, the U.S. was reading Hussein right. In a region where
the common catchphrase is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend,"
Hussein was not merely someone who was fighting a neighboring country.
He was fighting the spread of the radical Islamic fundamentalism that
the U.S. so feared because he was a committed secularist. Hussein
promoted the education of women and put them in positions of power.
Under Hussein, Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims enjoyed a
greater measure of religious freedom than they have in most Middle
Eastern countries in recent decades. Hussein included non-Muslims
among his closest advisors, most notably Aziz, a Christian adherent of
the Chaldean Catholic faith that remains rooted in Iraq.There was a
paranoid passion to Hussein's secularism. He and his vast secret
police network remained ever on the watch for evidence of Islamic
militancy, and when it was found the response was swift and brutal. It
was an awareness of the fact that Hussein was a bulwark against
militant Islam that led key aides to President George H.W. Bush to
argue against displacing him after the liberation of Kuwait by a
U.S.-led force in 1991.
Nothing about Hussein's Baathist ideology changed during the 1990s. So
it came to no surprise to anyone who knew the region that the 9/11
Commission, after aggressively investigating the matter, found no
operational relationships existed between al Qaida and Iraq before the
2003 invasion that toppled Hussein.
Now, after having removed the bulwark against militant Islam, Bush
describes an Iraq that is rapidly filling up with followers of al
Qaida, and warns that the withdrawal of U.S. forces would allow the
militants to "use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain
control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct
their war against nonradical Muslim governments."
What Bush did not say in his speech Thursday was that his own actions
had created the dire circumstance he described.
If George Washington's mantra was that he could not tell a lie, George
Bush's is that he cannot admit a mistake.
But the president's refusal to face reality has isolated him from
those who are serious about fighting the spread of terrorism.
General Peter Cosgrove, the former head of Australia's Defense Forces,
rejects the notion that staying the course is the smart response. In
fact, the well-regarded former commander of the military of a key U.S.
ally, says that withdrawal makes sense because it will "take one of
the focal points of terrorist motivation away, and that is foreign
troops."
It is Cosgrove who suggested the late 2006 withdrawal date that has
been taken up by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record),
D-Wisconsin, the first member of the Senate to urge the development of
an exit-strategy timeline.
For those who do not trusts the assessment of an Australian, consider
that Porter Goss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who
says, "The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a
cause for extremists. Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraq
conflict to recruit new, anti-U.S. jihadists."
The president who argued that Iraq needed to be invaded in order to
fight terrorism has instead opened up a new country to al Qaida's
machinations.
The president who argued that the U.S. must continue to occupy Iraq in
order to prevent the spread of terrorism has instead created a
quagmire in which even the head of his own CIA says that the U.S.
presence is being exploited by terrorists to recruit new, anti-U.S.
jihadists.
Now, George Bush argues for staying the course.
Perhaps Osama bin Laden would agree with that strategy.
But the American people are wising up.
The latest Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll tells us that only 32 percent of
those approve of Bush's handling of the war. A remarkable 59 percent
now say that the invasion a mistake. And an even more remarkable 63
percent say they want to see some or all U.S. troops withdrawn.
-------------------------------------
John Nichols covered the first Gulf War and has frequently reported
from the Middle East over the past two decades.
G-Ride
news:ha8bk1do732k4u7qk...@4ax.com...
> A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
> John Nichols
>
> It is fair to say that a good many Americans perceive George W. Bush
> to be a doltish incompetent who does not know the first thing about
> fighting terrorism.
>
> But, whatever the president's actual level of competence may be, it is
> now clear that he has even less respect for the intelligence of the
> American people than his critics have for his cognitive capabilities.
>
> As the president struggles this week to make a case for the staying
> the course that leads deeper into the quagmire that is Iraq, he is,
> remarkably, selling a warmed over version of the misguided take on
> terrorism that he peddled before this disasterous mission was
> launched.
>
> Apparently working under the assumption that no one has been paying
> attention over the past two and a half years, Bush delivered a speech
> to the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday in which he dismissed
> calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. "Some observers
> also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and
> leaving Iraq now," the president argued, before concluding that, "It's
> a dangerous illusion refuted with a simple question: Would the United
> States and other free nations be more safe or less safe with Zarqawi
> and bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people and its resources?"That's
> a scary scenario. Unfortunately, it is one that the president created.
> And it is one that the president still fails to fully comprehend.
>
<rest of article snipped for space>
It certainly is a mess of his own making. Too bad the rest of us are left
to pick up the pieces of what King George broke.
That article also made me think of this blog entry that I read earlier
today:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/10/there-goes-crazy-ass-george-again.html
There Goes Crazy Ass George Again:
Imagine you're at your favorite bar, a neighborhood joint, named after the
owner in just one word ("Joe's" or "Juanita's"), where all the crap hanging
on the walls is the real deal, stuff that Joe or Juanita actually picked up
at real ball parks, stadiums, and rinks, not just ordered out of a bar decor
catalog. It ain't the nicest place, but, hell, it's just down the street and
Juanita knows just how strong you like your third and fourth whiskey sours.
At the end of the bar, in the dark corner near the tiny johns, sits Crazy
Ass George, twitchin' and mumblin', clinging to that glass mug like it's a
life preserver, swirlin' that shot around like it's holy water. And despite
all the times he's passed out and fallen off that stool, all the times he's
threatened to fight the pool players who bump him with their cues, he's
always there. And Crazy Ass George, he's got those shakes, man, the
never-quite-endin' DTs, always movin' with a little jitter. Crazy Ass George
was a nuthouse schizoid for a good part of the 1970s, set free back in the
Reagan era to wander the streets until he found this corner of this bar. He
never served in Vietnam, but he sure can talk like he did.
Crazy Ass George sees things, shit no one else sees, and you get him tanked
up enough, he'll start tellin' you about all the phantoms and demons that
are floatin' around him. When he gets goin', like Henry Darger on his last
Vivian Girl bender, Crazy Ass George'll spin whole universes of bugfuck
insane shit. He calls them "evil," he calls them "radical," and he talks
about how they wanna take over the world of human beings. It's a pity,
Juanita'll tell you, how Crazy Ass George was just a crap-his-own-pants
alcoholic until September 11, 2001, when all of a sudden his gibberish began
to take on this apocalyptic tone.
You may even sit and listen to him for a moment or two, hearing him babble
on about "Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience,
must be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes
can multiply." You can make out phrases like "enslave whole nations and
intimidate the world" and "the rage of the killers" and "cold-blooded
contempt for human life."
Yes, you listen to Crazy Ass George long enough and you're gonna start to
sense harpy wings blowing a breeze that ruffles your hair, you're gonna feel
claws testing the elasticity of your flesh, you're gonna smell a breath
decadent with human gore wafting across your nostrils. When you're in that
corner with Crazy Ass George, all sorts of horrors can seem real, immediate,
and terrible. And those horrors must be stopped before they rip our children
from our arms and drag them, screaming, into realms of hell we have only
dreamt of.
You shake yourself free of Crazy Ass George. Surely, you realize, we live in
dangerous times, times of monsters real and sentient. But we simply cannot
exist as Crazy Ass George believes we ought to, on our guard constantly,
scanning the sky for endless chimeric enemies, bolting our doors to our
neighbors. It's soul-withering and, ultimately, renders us victims as well.
And then there's the other possibilities: that Crazy Ass George is
completely, utterly wrong, or that Crazy Ass George is the demon himself,
and one day someone will show you the dump where he tossed the corpses of
burnt children. Besides, Crazy Ass George is just a worthless, slurring
drunk, right?
You turn to leave the bar, something Crazy Ass George won't do until he's
pissed himself and the bar stool. And outside, where the rest of us are,
there's only the cool breeze, smelling of rich autumn, blowing away the
scent of summer decay, and stars, man, bright fuckin' stars, against a big,
dark, endless sky, and earth under your feet that'll take you back home.
***
--
Aloha, G-Ride
"Like a quarrelling group of monkeys on a leaky boat, armed with sticks of
dynamite, we are now embarked on an uncertain journey."
Steve Knight
snip
> Bush delivered a speech
>to the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday in which he dismissed
>calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. "Some observers
>also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and
>leaving Iraq now,"
We can't leave until Haliburton fills its pockets with our tax
money.
We shouldn't even be talking to Bush. Lets ask Haliburton how much
they want, make a deal, they tell Bush and we save soldiers lives.
Warlord Steve
BAAWA
www.sonic.net/~wooly
Denis Loubet
"Steve Knight" <wo...@sonic.netttt> wrote in message
news:b0ibk1d0rkge2dsf8...@4ax.com...
That's fiendish. I like it.
--
Denis Loubet
dlo...@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
Michael Gray
>A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
>John Nichols
:
>Apparently working under the assumption that no one has been paying
>attention over the past two and a half years, Bush delivered a speech
:
Eh?
Did you say something?
MarkA
> A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
> John Nichols
>
> It is fair to say that a good many Americans perceive George W. Bush to be
> a doltish incompetent who does not know the first thing about fighting
> terrorism.
>
> But, whatever the president's actual level of competence may be, it is now
> clear that he has even less respect for the intelligence of the American
> people than his critics have for his cognitive capabilities.
>
Note that "Learning from Your Mistakes" is the hallmark of an
*intelligent* being. GW has a long history of refusing to be convinced by
facts, especially if they conflict with his ideology.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
stoney
wrote:
>
>"Steve Knight" <wo...@sonic.netttt> wrote in message
>news:b0ibk1d0rkge2dsf8...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:13:31 -0500, JOE <e...@joes.com> wrote:
>>
>> snip
>>
>>> Bush delivered a speech
>>>to the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday in which he dismissed
>>>calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. "Some observers
>>>also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and
>>>leaving Iraq now,"
>>
>> We can't leave until Haliburton fills its pockets with our tax
>> money.
>>
>> We shouldn't even be talking to Bush. Lets ask Haliburton how much
>> they want, make a deal, they tell Bush and we save soldiers lives.
>
>That's fiendish. I like it.
And we save lots of other resources, too.
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)