He Made a Desert, and Called It Peace: The Bush Success Story

So Bush went to the Middle East, where I presume they hid the breakables before showing him the sights. The world clenched its cheeks-- if you thought things couldn't get worse, imagine 300 more days of this president with a bad case of Jerusalem Syndrome .

Never got closer to what's left of Iraq than Arifjan Base in Kuwait, to meet with General Petraeus and the US ambassador in Iraq. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium;. atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant... But James Wolcott's column in the February Vanity Fair (overlook the ads, celebrities and royals that pay the bills, the rest of the magazine is terrific) ponders a terrible premise:

What if things really are exactly as Bush could wish? We judge him a failure only on the basis of common humanity and decency, from a limited point of view that says torture is a bad thing, war profiteering a sin, deception in democracy is a crime, and his callow waste of soldiers and civilians is a curse. It's somebody else's kid that got killed, not his, nor any of his inner circle-- and in his selective Christianity, that's pure profit, gain without pain.

For all the troubles stirred up by global warming, the Arctic land rush it's inspiring will mean untold profits for Bush's cronies. Was Hurricane Katrina an unmitigated disaster, or a masterful lesson in laissez faire urban renewal? The ruination of the American economy means a desperate work force scrabbling for Third World wages, and the end of the labor movement: increased profits for Bush's friends, and perdition to his enemies. The regulatory bureaucracy in Washington, a Progressive-era attempt to to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism, is now packed with Bush appointees. If you are Grover Nyquist, who wants to drown governmnent in a bathtub, or a Reagan-era Randite who views regulation as the invention of mental midgets trying to chain the entrepreneurial ubermensch, then the Bush era has been a success.

It was a mistake to invade Iraq...? But from Bush's point of view, he now has boots on the ground in the third largest oil reserve in the world, and they ain't leaving any time soon. This week he made explicit his intention to build permanent American military bases in Iraq. This makes him a success in certain quarters, and within that circle of friends, he need never feel the sting of the pain he's caused to millions. It's barbecues and backslapping for George, maybe a stint as baseball commissioner.

George Bush was, is, and always will be a selfish creature who takes what he wants without counting the cost, then employs a legion of courtiers to make sure that someone else pays for the party. No wonder he still swaggers.

DOPES

There once was a time, when the British and Americans were at least pretending to be grown-ups in Afghanistan, when Tony Blair-- that too-clever Greek who thought he could school the bumptious Romans-- advised President Bush to simply buy up the opium crop in Afghanistan. It could be used by legitimate drug companies for needed medicines, and the influx of cash would win some hearts and minds among the farmers. "Are you kidding?" he was told, "We're fighting a war on drugs." The Bush administration had already given millions of dollars to the Taliban for their eradication program. Steve Clemons and his readers, far better educated than I am, have some hard numbers on the subject of opium at the Washington Note.

The Taliban, of course, is making hay while the sun shines and the dope's hitting the streets. Didn't someone-- Shrub's favorite political philosopher-- say something about people who swallow camels but choke on gnats? Not a moment of sleep lost over the thousands of deaths they've caused, and they can tuck themselves in at night with the warm thought that they didn't spend a few pennies to save millions of dollars in grief.

I'm Shocked, Shocked...

And the Captain Renault Award for Disingenuous Surprise goes this week to anyone over the age of 18 who professes bewilderment at Musharraf's behavior in Pakistan. The omniscent strategists of the Bush dynasty are ineligible, as they now compete amongst themselves in a special category, the exemplary "Again-- It Is the Legend" Prize.

If this level of sophistication can be achieved by a schoolteacher in the hinterlands, whose knowledge of Pakistan consists of:
1) an Oriana Fallaci interview with Ali Bhutto in 1976,
2) a second interview with his daughter Benazir after the Musharraf coup, and
3) that guy with the cigarette holder in the film biography Gandhi,
imagine what the Bush State Department must-- oh, right. Better bring Karen Hughes out of retirement to help Condi with this one. The Taliban can practically taste those nuclear convoys the Pakistanis drive around.

The Captain Renault Award comes with a framed portrait of the good gray Mr. Claude Rains in his most famous role. The "Legend" Prize is given only to professed experts who repeat more blunders than the combined cast of "Cops" in a given year. The "Again-- It Is the Legend" Prize comes with a sculpture showing Arrakis fremen looking on with amazement at a monkey trying to fuck a football.

Little Alberto Gonzales and His Letters of Cachet

I'm not surprised that Congress sold us out--16 Democrats, and the undead Republicans-- and passed an unexamined bill permitting the Attorney General to listen to private conversations without a court order, without oversight, even-- this is what's giving the phone companies the cold sweats-- without any written records at all. All Alberto has to do is pick up the phone. Oaths were made to be broken, and it may be the senators were under some terrible compulsion. Perhaps their families were threatened. Maybe they were tortured, or theirs arms twisted psychologically. Maybe (this is hard to fathom) the Bush administration is smarter than they are, and tricked them into passing the bill like a three card monte dealer suckers you in to looking for the Queen. Maybe they were bribed with allurments of money, or power, or the opportunities for sex that appear when you have enough money or power. No, it was none of those; they handed this kind of power to the least trustworthy president in American history so they could go home on time.

Somebody (Algren?) said once he weren't surprised that Chicago officials could be bought, but he was always amazed at how cheaply they could be bought. Lillian Hellman, whatever her flaws, observed that the people in Hollywood who sold each other out during the Blacklist didn't do it because their families were threatened or they were in any danger themselves; they did it to hold onto their swimming pools and second cars.

So now the Bush administration has been given the power of letters of cachet, something not seen west of the Iron Curtain since the French Revolution. The most notorious lettres de cachet, the ones that inspire stories about the Man in the Iron Mask and fed thousands of innocent prisoners to the Bastille or the guillotine, allowed the government to arrest and sentence any citizen without trial and without an opportunity of defense. The lack of oversight invited abuse. It was how the wealthy, the connected and the ambitious disposed of unwanted individuals. This was the Age of Reason, after all, and they needed something more efficent than accusations of witchcraft.

The lambs with easy consciences all say, let them listen, I've got nothing to hide, let them use torture on people who must already be guilty, let them open secret prisons in Eastern Europe and Guantanamo Bay, nobody I know goes there. I think this might be the definition of "streetwise" and "square": the naif thinks, It Can't Happen to Me, It Can't Happen Here. The hipster knows that all it takes is one wrong turn, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he could be next, that anyone could be next, that the next person who falls into the government's threshing machine might be you.

President Snerd

Edgar Bergen: Are you listening, Mortimer?
Mortimer Snerd: Uh... Happy Valley?
Edgar Bergen: That's right, yes. Now, just try to imagine it. Can't you just close your eyes and see it?
Mortimer Snerd: Well, I can't see very good with my eyes closed. My eyelids get in the way.
Edgar Bergen: Well, you create a picture in your mind's eye.
Mortimer Snerd: Oh.
Charlie McCarthy: That's not easy for him. His mind gets in the way.

God-damnit, Turdblossom, git on out of there now... One of you fellas want to give me a hand? He's crawled up there to hide and he won't come out.

"And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire"

Kipling on Blowback, or the Law of Unintended Consequences

No surprise at the latest bombings (more people were killed in Egypt and Iraq than in London). Colin Powell told Bush, "If you break it, you bought it", but no one seems to understand what that means until the bombs start coming home. I love London, and I love the Tube, and resent her being put in the crossfire.

If there is any reason to smile, it's that when we heard there was a failed attack at Shepherd's Bush, we were quick to exclaim "Holland Park! Holland Park!" (Friends of "Absolutely Fabulous" will know that Edina, who lives on the border of Shepherd's Bush, always protests that she REALLY lives in the MUCH more fashionable Holland Park.)

If piracy and slavery were suppressed by taking away their refuges, (South China Sea and the Sudan still exceptions), why did we think we would contain terrorism by giving them a vast new playground?

If there is a reason to frown, it is our obtuse insistence that we can fuck around, and fuck around, and fuck around with a hornet's nest and never get stung ourselves. Pardon me for feeling disgust at the sancimony of official mourning from Bush and Blair (Bush, by the way, was back to

yukking it up

the next day-- while sitting next to Blair). With all the tons of ordinance left laying around (some of it brought by Donald Rumsfeld himself), why are we shocked! --shocked!-- that it was used to blow up blue eyed babies instead of brown eyed ones?

"Why do Americans think it is heroic and honorable for our troops to massacre Iraqis with bombs, missiles, gunships, tanks, and heavy machine guns, but cowardly and barbaric when our victims fight back in the only way they can?
.... The war is breeding terrorism and cannot be won.... As long as Bush continues to operate with Mao's belief that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, terrorism will prosper and people will die for no reason except their refusal to hold corrupt leaders accountable."
-- Paul Craig Roberts at

Counterpunch

America, the Naive. I pray you and yours stay safe.

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

-- Rudyard Kipling