Letters to the Editor
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Beliefs as unformed as the rest of him
Bush's invocation of "God" in this war always has been vague and unrooted in anything resembling theology. he has been vague about his "conversion" and his follow-up seemed to be Bible classes built around a simplistic, limited view of Christianity. In general, Bush seems to be unformed or at least inadeqautely formed person. He's been continually bailed out whether it be the draft, business failures, or the 2000 election. His main business experience was in a field that exists largely as a tax write-off. No one expects to make money with oil exploration, the real question is how to eventually get out of it when the losses do more than lessesn one's taxes.
Bush has managed to onscure his questionable National Guard history and his discussion of his drug and alcohol use has been as vague as his subequent "recovery". One need not go through 12 step to successfully recover from serious substance abuse, but there normally is some process of learning to how to deal with the world that previously had been blotted out. The denial and soforth seem reflect the absence of that. Bush never talsk about his business failures or his "youthful indecretions. For some reason, the media has continually gone along with this. I'm told Bush is quite charming in person, but on tv, he always has seemed brittle, in articulate, and childish. At best, I imagine him being a bit like a Willy Loman-esque uncle of mine--charming in a somewhat juvenile way that many people find amusing at first, but grating and troublesome as it wears on. Sadly, people who know him close up (like our friends in the media) seem less immune to this than the rest of us.
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Speaking of faith
“This is Islam, that was ahead of its time with regards to human rights in the treatment of prisoners, but our people was afflicted by the cancerous lump, that is the Jews, in the heart of the Arab nation.... Be certain that America is on its way to disappear, America is wallowing [in blood] today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated in Lebanon and Palestine.... Makeus victorious over the infidel people.... Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies.... Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don't leave even one."
- Dr. Ahmad Bahar, acting speaker, Palestinian Legislative Council, on Palestinian Authority TV, April 20 (translation courtesy Palestinian Media Watch).
In an article published on April 23 in the Hamas newspaper Al-Risalah, its author Kan'an Ubayd stated: "… the extermination of Jews is good ... to which Allah gave his blessing..."
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sleepwalking to hell
Great article, although for me the scariest bit was not about Bush, but the public and Kamiya's contention that we were sleep-walked into war. In my opinion, we were sleep-walked into accepting the Supreme Court's decision to grant Bush the Presidency in the first place. Once that grave threat to our democracy passed without much resistance, the powers behind the throne saw correctly that anything was possible with a compliant public, press and opposition party. If this was a movie and would that it were, the theft of the 2,000 election would be the inciting incident, not 9/11, an external threat seized upon by a rogue government to implement domestic and foreign agendas already decided upon. Not only did the Bush Administration ignore terrorism before it happened, but even afterwards they clearly saw the invasion of Afghanistan as a neccessary detour from their intended targets, which is why they regrouped as soon as they could get away with it and headed towards Iraq.
The question now is, are we ever going to really wake up? The Democrats want to keep the focus on Iraq, because they think it will work in their favor, while ignoring other foreign policy debacles in the making, because it might show them up as "weak", such as the Israeli/Palestinian situation where they bow to AIPAC at Israel's expense(see Lebanon), or a possible attack on Iran, which everyone sane knows would be disastrous. In the latter case, they had the opportunity to vote for a bill demanding that the President come to Congress before any such attack, and let it go without a squawk. It's one thing for the GOP roster of parrots to overtly support foreign policy resting on neo-con fantasies, but it's another for their Democratic equivalents to tacitly support them, as well, through inaction. They should be on the stump right now demanding that Bush come to Congress before taking any military action, that any further work on the budget busting, vulgar, Disneyland Embassy be scrapped at least until we know what's going to happen and that any arms sale to Saudi Arabia will be contingent on visible progress in stemming the flow of money and arms to terrorists and ceasing dangerous,as opposed to positive, meddling in Iraq.
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Foreseen
There were people in the U.S. who opposed the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, and the support for the Mujahedeen by Carter. It was not 'unforeseen' as Kamiya claims. An 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' is really stupid 'realpolitik'. In fact the intervention was driven by the Carter doctrine, which claimed Soviets in Afghanistan threatened oil in the Gulf. Right.
Ironically, it was the crypto-Communists in Afghanistan that were fighting to educate women and bring that country into the 20th century...and we lined up on the other side.
Is Bush motiviated by religion? Yes. See Kevin Phillips book on "American Theocracy" for the religious roots of the Republican Party. But losing out in Iraq is also about oil, as we will be weaker in our ability to control oil prices if we leave militarily. Why doesn't Kamiya bring that up? Because perhaps that is too materialistic and factual a motivation, unlike just blaming everything on 'hubris'.
More importantly, is there any way out? Yes. Leave. Just leave. Like a bad marriage, the worst thing to do is prolong it. Prolonging a mistake never the situation better.
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Simple source for Bush's naive hubris
There is a phenomenon experienced by very young children called "wish fulfillment." The child wishes for food and it magically appears. The child wishes for a hug, cries, and hugs happen. As the child grows a little older, his/her wishes are a little more complicated - that daddy loves mommy, that I'll get a horse, etc . A mark of maturity is growing out of the wish fulfillment stage and beginning to recognize cause and effect, consequences, etc. But if a child is coddled and protected from cause and effect and from consequences, it is possible to go on believing utterly in wish fulfillment.
George Bush is the ultimate silver spoon child. Until the mid 80's, he was a spoiled trust funder, drinking, drugging, just having a grand old time with every wish fulfilled, but probably depressed (leading to drinking and drugging) because he was not his own man. Then he got religion and stopped drinking and drugging. So, he substituted a new wish fulfillment strategy. I'll believe in Jesus and he'll get me what I want. He wished to be governor, and by golly it happened. No matter that the cause was daddy's money and friends and his malleability arising from having no political, moral, philosophical code of his own. Jesus made it so. Then he wished to be President, and it happened again. No matter again that his daddy's money and friends, and a willingness to lie continuously, i.e. complete moral suspension, paved the way. Jesus made it so.
Then he wished to change the world and expected it to happen just as it always had before. No matter that it hasn't and everything has gone disastrously wrong - he knows it will happen, everything will be just fine, because he wished it to be so. Accordingly, it is no surprise he spends his days sunny and optimistic, unfazed by the facts, uninterested in studying reports, investigating consequences, exploring options. He needs merely to wish and it will be so.
Thus, our country is being run by an infant, no more mature than a five year old at best, happy and chubby, gooing with his friends about what will be regardless of what is. That would be just fine, because his sheer incompetence and fecklessness would result in him playing with toys in the Oval Office not bothering the rest of us. But he is supported by a huge team of enablers and one team leader devoid of moral compass who has a single goal, power for its own sake with the corollary of fabulous wealth. Of course, that is Dick Cheney, himself happy and content, because he can run the country unhindered by the fool in the Oval Office who is busy wishing and knowing but otherwise out of the way.
That is the real danger to the US, to you and me, to fathers, mothers and children in Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the world, that the chariot of our power is pulled by two horses - a fool and a madman, and they have had a very long run before most of the complacent dullards in the chariot even began looking for the reins.
TonyJ